BBQ Winner!

How do you make a name for yourself when you first arrive at Post? WIN THE BBQ COMPETITION at (and bring a teeny tiny baby to) the Hail/Farewell. This weekend we had a big party/pot luck/BBQ competition. I submitted a BBQ brisket and grilled mushrooms, and won both the Beef and Side categories. I'd be very proud of myself... except... I was the only competitor in the Beef category... and since the weather had been cold and rainy all week, I was the only person to use a smoker or grill. Either way, we had a good time and there was plenty of great food. Kudos to the CLO for a fun party.

PS: I totally forgot to get pictures before the food was all eaten... so here's a picture of my winnings!

Begin the End (of my time in Chennai)

Ok, ok, so I stole the title from a Placebo song. Honestly though, it's about as happy a song as I feel right now.

My family left India this morning, for the last time in the foreseeable future. They're off to start home leave slightly before I do. We're all excited about our next assignment, but we're also quite sad to be leaving Chennai. Perhaps that's the default state in the Foreign Service: happy to arrive, sad to leave, repeat until retirement. It'll be a hard transition for my son. He'll miss our nanny and (of course) mini-idli with sambar. A few weeks ago, he told our nanny that "we will go to Argentina and [she] will stay in India, but [he'll] come back and visit." Now if you'll excuse me, I have some sadness to wallow in, intermingled with pack-out, check-out, and finally my own departure. Change is hard.

Hail/Farewell

Each month during transfer season, the Consulate has a ceremony to welcome new employees (or arrivals) and say farewell to those departing (the job, or post). I was farewell'd today. Below is my (approximate) farewell speech.

"I’m not much for formality or for public speaking, so I’ll be brief… and probably sappy. In many ways, I feel like I’ve barely gotten a chance to know Chennai, but it’s already time to leave. Although I’ve been here nearly two years, it still seems like yesterday that I was ordering dosas by pointing at other people’s plates and running downstairs to see my first middle-of-the-night parade. My son recently told our nanny that we’re leaving to go to Argentina, but that he’ll come back to visit her soon. That’s a pretty bold promise mfor a three year old, but honestly, I hope he’s right. Over the last two years, Chennai has become our home and it’s never easy to leave home.

On a happier note, I’d like thank everyone here, especially those in my section, for being so welcoming during my tour. I know it’s hard to have new officers cycling through every two years, especially when many of you have been doing this for decades. However, you tolerated my newness and naiveté with good nature and what I can only hope was just the occasional laughter. Before arriving to post, someone at FSI told me that the people in Chennai are exceptional, and I complete agree. I will miss working with you all and can only hope my future colleagues are as capable and as friendly. Thank you for a wonderful first tour and I hope to see you again."

Two Years in India, Week 7: A Wild IPO Appears

"You use SHOW HIM AROUND. It's SUPER EFFECTIVE!"

Now that I have the super-nerd title out of the way... As the title implies, the new IPO arrived this week. I'm not here to talk about my coworkers, so I'll pretty much refrain, but I will say, it looks like we'll have a good two years together. I've been told by some of the 'old hats' that approximately 1 in 10 posts I go to will have some sort of personnel friction. In a 20 year career, I'm looking at 7-10 posts... so here's hoping I never have any problems! 

The new IPO spent most of the week taking care of paperwork and spinning up on what's going on around the post. He has some great ideas for things to work on while we're here, so we should stay busy. Not to brag... but I'm totally going to. He'd mentioned that he was a little nervous working with a first tour person, but when he got here he was relieved to find I had everything under control. He said he was impressed with how well I was doing so soon after starting (end bragging).

Other than that, the week was pretty standard. I got to spend another night at the airport (hooray!) and I'm now officially sponsoring the last arrival for the summer season. It'll be an interesting learning experience, since they've already started asking me questions that my extensive seven weeks of time here haven't taught me! Fortunately, there are plenty of people I can ask. 

The week ended with one of the three mandatory holidays in India. Friday was Independence Day. We were warned (a little) by the RSO and (a lot) by our all-arounder to avoid crowded places, since they can be targeted for terrorist attacks during the holiday. We decided to heed their warning (nothing happened) and hung out around the house. We spent the afternoon at one of our friends houses that has a nice yard for the kids to parallel play (at least my son just rode someone's balance bike around and otherwise ignored the other kids). I also caught up on sleep from my overnight pouch run.

Seven weeks, or 7% down... 93 more to go. We didn't take advantage of this three day weekend, due to my late night working this week, but we're currently trying to figure out what we're doing for our next couple long weeks. We're hoping to make an overnight trip somewhere (or somewheres). 

One last thing, our new (permanent) driver, Subramani, started this week. He's been good, but my son keeps calling our car "Sundar's car" after our last driver. Also, every time we go downstairs he says we're going to see Sundar... He really liked Sundar, too bad we couldn't (and didn't try to) steal him from my sponsor! Fortunately, he seems to be warming up to our new driver also.

Going Away Parties

Life in the Foreign Service has a lot of strains that just aren't that frequent in 'normal life'. Living overseas is the most obvious, but generally speaking, we're people who joined specifically for that reason... so it naturally doesn't seem so bad. However, a byproduct of moving around so much is the lack of a stable work environment (pretty obvious right?). Having previously worked as a contractor, I never really stayed in the same position for much longer than a year at a time. I thought that would help prepare me for the constant moving in the FS, but now I'm finding that there's a lot more to it than that. Every time I've moved in the past, I was still within easy driving distance of my former coworkers. If I made friends... I'd keep them. The next time I change positions it'll be to another country, possibly even another hemisphere. The chances of regularly seeing any friends I make here is pretty slim for other FSOs and almost nil for LES.

Anyway, I bring this up because of the sheer volume of farewell parties going on around here. I came very early in the transfer season - just in time to watch 50% of the post leave! In the two weeks since I arrived, I've seen several farewell parties of varying formalities. Last week, the IMS I'm replacing threw a pizza party to say goodbye/thanks to LES in our section (and to introduce me to them). This week the LES in our section threw a goodbye/thanks tea party (complete with going away presents) for my predecessor. This week also saw an unofficial going away party at the Consulate General's Residence (CGR), under the guise of "come drink the wine the CG can't bring with her when she departs post this weekend." Finally, we also had the official "Hail / Farewell" party sponsored by the CLO, to welcome the new comers (like me) and say farewell to those leaving this week. Needless to say, I've seen more teary eyes and heard more heartfelt speeches in the last two weeks than I'd been expecting!

Note: The picture is of the spread from the tea party. Out of frame, there is masala chai and extra samosas and chips. They were pretty darn delicious.