Actually a Diplomat, Part 2: Bastille Day!

Happy (early) Bastille day! (As previously mentioned, nobody wants to work on a holiday.) Tonight was the French representational event, celebrating Bastille Day. I was rather surprised to receive an invitation, but was grateful to accept. Let's be honest, who can say no to an evening of French food and wine!? It was a fun time and I left feeling sorry that the French Consulate is so far away (3 hours by car, in Puducherry), since it makes it hard to hang out with people I would otherwise have considered to be new friends.

A Very Foreign Service Weekend

What a weekend! When some people think of being a diplomat, they think of swanky parties with high society and foreign policy makers. (Or maybe that's when they think of James Bond.) Either way, I never did. As a specialist, I've never expected to be rubbing elbows with big wigs... instead, I expected to be spending my time... well, much like I did this weekend.

Friday night started with a regular ol' uneventful Classified Pouch run. After grabbing a few hours of sleep, it was time to get ready for the next event. Saturday afternoon was dedicated to something I'd never heard of before: a "Progressive" or "Safari" dinner. This is a multi-course meal (in our case, 6!) with each course hosted by a different family, at a different house. The whole process took around 7 hours and was enormously entertaining. We had about 40 people shuffling between houses, chatting, eating, and generally having a good time. I very much hope we'll be able to organize these in the future, since it's a great way to spend a day and is very inclusive. The final event for the weekend was on Sunday morning, when I hosted a small class on baking bagels (and making cream cheese). Despite the bagel's unobtainable status in Chennai, they have yet to become a form of currency. They do however make coworkers very happy on Monday mornings. The class went well and also involved a lot of chatting while people mixed ingredients and kneaded dough. I'll probably try to host some more similar classes in the future, since I have a lot of random and useless (but interesting!) skills and enjoy hosting things.

Before I joined the Foreign Service, I anticipated events like these. Community building at post is a big deal, because we spend so little time in each place that it can be difficult to make local friends - they already have friends and know we'll be leaving. This probably leads us to making more and looser social bonds with each other. 

Actually a Diplomat

Well, I guess it's time to come clean. I've now 'made it' into both the local newspaper and the Department of State's "State Magazine." I think it's time to admit that I'm no longer "Technically a Diplomat." 

To be fair, neither is for anything I specifically did... In fact, our invitation to the British High Commission's National Day event was actually due to my wife's position as the CLO Coordinator. I will, however, take the credit (or shame?) of being the only participant of Pie in Chennai to own a pie-bird. 

First Game Night

Well, you know what they say. You can take the gamer out of the city, but you can't take the ci... wait that makes no sense. On the plus side though, we held our first game night in India! With the limited game options (until my HHE arrives), I kept it small, but we had a good time. We played Love Letter and Hanabi, which aren't technically board games, but who's counting? Shortly after arriving, I posted on the consulate's social page advertising my love of board games and I have fortunately received a lot of inquiries and interest from people. I'm hoping this means we can establish some sort of regular game night. It may sound odd, but this is one of the biggest things I miss from living in the US. It makes sense though, Game Night was one of my two regularly scheduled social events (the other being Nerdy TV Night, a name that became grossly misleading in recent years as we ran out of nerdy shows we wanted to watch). 

Note: This is not how you play either of these games...