Establishing Connections

Recently I met with the editorial board and some reporters of one of the major press outlets in Nepal. During the discussion, they asked my opinion of the Nepali press environment. It was an interesting question, considering my previous post was Baghdad.

Iraq was a controversial topic and reporters were always on the lookout for a juicy story. So embassy press folks had to be on guard. If a reporter asked if the ambassador had met with the prime minister that day, if you weren't careful with your response ("No, the ambassador didn't meet with the prime minister") the next day's headline could be problematic ("American Ambassador Refuses to Meet the Prime Minister").

It's nice to be in an environment where the free press is still too new to have developed "gotcha journalism." Most of the major papers here will make an effort to reach out to me for confirmation before running a story about U.S. policy.

Of course there are exceptions. A paper ran a story about the latest State Department travel warning for Nepal and included commentary from an official that we were trying to sabotage Nepal's Year of Tourism. We never had the opportunity to explain that it's standard policy to issue a revised travel advisory every 6 months, or that the new advisory's language about the political unrest and demonstrations was actually toned down compared to the previous advisory. I guess I need to establish better relations with that paper so they'll give me a call beforehand next time.

At the end of my meeting with the editorial board, one of the reporters asked me when is the latest they can call me? How about on weekends? Can you imagine a Washington Post reporter asking the Baghdad Info Officer if 10:00 pm is too late to call?

I Can Be Charming, Dammit!

I'm not a people person. There, I said it. I don't enjoy chit chat with acquaintances or small talk with people I'm never going to see again. I'm not interested in what some random person's kid's second grade teacher said about his artistic abilities. Nor do I care about some other random person's hellish traffic stories.

As you can imagine, the Foreign Service - and Public Diplomacy work especially - forces these exact scenarios on me regularly. I've gotten pretty good at faking it and if there's wine involved, I may even enjoy a conversation.

Recently I was asked to attend a not-very-interesting function on behalf of the Front Office.

Front Office: Thanks for attending this. Just go, be charming for a couple hours, then leave.

Smart-ass friend*: Heather? Charming?

Me: I can be charming, dammit!

And so I was.

*I realized that most of the people I consider to be friends are smart-asses. I'm not sure what that says about me.

Christmas in Kathmandu

It's Christmas in Kathmandu. It's been hard to feel the holiday spirit in a country that doesn't celebrate Christmas. Here and there I might see a hotel or a store that put up some lights in the window, and the effort is actually quite touching. But it doesn't feel like Christmas without holiday songs on the radio or decorated houses and storefronts.

Christmas Eve I went to Mass at a church in Patan. No, it wasn't like Mass at home, but there was music, a nativity scene, and the familiar rituals. There were Nepali touches as well - shoes left outside, floor seating, and power outages.

The gifts I sent home 3 weeks ago didn't make it in time for Christmas (stupid pouch trolls!), but the gifts from my parents arrived here a few days ago. Thanks to Skype, I spent Christmas morning (Christmas Eve back home) opening gifts with my family.

Merry Christmas!

Searching for Silence

With each overseas assignment the honeymoon period gets shorter and shorter. The honeymoon period is the time frame after moving to a foreign country where the excitement of being somewhere new overshadows certain harsh realities of living in a foreign country. People burning piles of trash in the street give the place "character" and bargaining with a taxi driver is part of the "adventure."

Kathmandu is my third assignment, and the honeymoon period was short. What gets to me the most is the noise. Always. Everywhere. Dogs barking (in my neighborhood, the stray dogs are well-behaved, it's my neighbor who has the high-pitched yapping dog that drives me bonkers). Men walking down the street calling out what they're selling. And the honking. As far as I can tell, people honk for 4 reasons:

1) On narrow winding alleys to alert oncoming traffic that he's coming around the bend.

2) To warn the vehicle in front that he is about to pass.

3) To warn the oncoming vehicle that he better not pass.

4) Just for the heck of it.

Even at night I have to turn on the air filter as white noise to mask the nighttime ambient noise. And if there is a rare quiet moment, chances are that the power will go out and my generator will kick in, which emits a constant rumbling grumble.

I miss silence.