One year anniversary

This week I celebrated one year since I joined the Foreign Service. And what a year this has been!

Left peaceful Michigan, made a stop in beautiful DC and ended up in sunny Bangladesh.

As a newcomer in the Foreign Service the questions I found most annoying are also the ones the most often asked:

"Tell me, what is this Foreign Service, is it like the French Foreign Legion?"

While I might look a little bit like Jean Claude Van Damme, I never owned a white cap and getting one is not on my to do list yet.

"Tell me, what is this Foreign Service, is it like the CIA?"

This one is by far the trickiest. Whoever is asking it already knows the answer, so it is not even worth trying to argue. Yes, I am sort of a 007, but I can't show my gun, dude! Sorry about that. And yes, my shoes can turn into a weapon on top of being a listening device.

The Foreign Service is a very low-key organization, that is why only few people have any idea what we are or do. The only time any attention is paid to us is when there's a catastrophe overseas, like the killing in Libya. Otherwise, Americans really don't care very much, as long as other countries do things the way we want them to.  Also, unlike the military, the Foreign Service has no political clout like the military does. We have no political clout or domestic constituency, we have no uniforms and no one knows what we're doing out in Dhaka or Katmandu or wherever the hell we are.

And yet we are America's other “army”. Often misunderstood, misperceived, and, sometimes maligned. But our "fight" affects the everyday lives of all Americans, their safety, security, ability to travel and communicate with people in other countries, their employment and prosperity. And yes, I can  hold my head high when I think I am part of it.

Country is burning

We are being asked this question over and over again by our friends and family. Are you safe there?
The answer is YES, so far we are. Is tomorrow going to be the same? And this time, the answer is: WE DON'T KNOW YET.


The fight for the future of Bangladesh is playing out in the streets. For a month, masses of moderate activists have camped at a Dhaka intersection demanding harsh punishment for those accused of crimes during the 1971 independence war from Pakistan. Meanwhile, the hardline Islamic opposition party that wants to install Shariah law have been attacking government buildings and setting fire to trains in a rampage that — along with a crackdown by security forces — has killed scores of  people. The party, Jamaat-e-islami, says the government is using a war crimes tribunal to decimate the party leadership, and claims it is in a fight for its very existence.


The protests for and against Jamaat, the main Islamist party in the country have convulsed Bangladeshi politics. It shows that the wounds of the bloody 1971 liberation war have still not healed. Most of estimates I have read internally estimate that three million people were killed and thousands of women were raped. Before the war, Bangladesh was East Pakistan, separated from the rest of that country by a wide expanse of India. The war pitted Bangladeshi separatists against Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators, who were known then as the Razakar Bahini. I will go deeper into the history in a latter post.

But for now, I am quoting from Jamaat's "To Do" List (from a message posted on Jamaat-Shibir's propaganda Facebook page)


1.      All train tracks have to uprooted at this moment.
2.      All launch terminals and bus terminals have to be disabled.
3.      Dhaka has to be isolated from all districts.
4.      All police stations have to be surrounded.
5.      The 'agent/traitor' media outlets have to be attacked.
6.      Images of the police's brutal firing and shooting have to published in the world media.
7.      All the embassies in the world have to be surrounded and resistance have to be built.
8.      Dhaka has to be besieged.
9.   The houses of all Ministers and MP's have to be burnt.

This is pretty disturbing , but so far, there has not been any violence directed toward foreigners, and we hope it stay the same. But everything else is getting affected and the country seems like is about to come to a halt.

We finally reach Dhaka

We finally reached Dhaka on January 29th. We will call this home for the next two years.

We strongly felt we were mentally ready for Bangladesh and for Dhaka after making our best efforts to familiarize ourselves with the language and culture. We talked to Bengalis, read books, ate Bengali food, and studied the language and culture for two months. Still, Dhaka gave us an overwhelmingly eye opening and sense of rattling experience that we could not prepare ourselves for. To quote Cristina: “Landing here feels like somebody hits you in the face with a brick.”

Walking thru the airport was not much different than doing the same at most US airports. We even breezed thru the customs and immigration (thanks to our diplomatic passports). Outside, however the general feeling changed on a dime. There is no sense of organization and/or reason. Waves of people and cars streamed in and out from all directions. There were farm animals alongside pedestrians. Seemed all drivers honked at the same time. The road from the airport was paved, but dusty, filled with papers and was neither controlled nor marked.

Dhaka is a very third world country capital, some would say maybe a fourth world. It is densely populated. And mean I say dense, you can’t really comprehend the word unless you live here. It feels like God played this game where took as many human being as possible and confined them to as small a space as you could find.  If you would like to replicate this in a Western country, maybe what you could do is next time you go into your doctor’s office, try to get into the waiting room with fifty other people, place a bag of fish in every corner, turn the heater to the max and have somebody throw papers and dust around like a maniac. That will come close to experiencing Dhaka, but it would not include the traffic jams or the dirt roads or the animal carcasses or more traffic jams.

And the winner is: Bangladesh!!!!!!!!!

I volunteered for my first assignment and expressed my desire to go to Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Reasons?

I joined USAID because the organization represented my personal culture – to whom much is given, much is expected. Bangladesh has attracted my interest because of development challenges it is facing and the opportunities it presents. I wanted to be part of the exciting times that are transforming the country.


We’ll be living in Dhaka for two years starting next January. First things that come into mind about Bangladesh? Poverty, hunger, overcrowding, natural disasters, corruption, political riots! The country is the most densely populated in the world. There are over 160 million people (half the US population) living in an area the size of Iowa. Nevertheless, we are all really excited about it, even though we are aware of the challenges. After all, this why gave up our comfortable life to take the unknown road.

On top of it, we never set foot in Asia and to quote one of the most famous Bangladeshi ever, Rabindranath Tagore: “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”.

Saying good bye

We always thought that it would be very hard to say goodbye ... and it was hard. Yet we considered ourselves fortunate to have met so many special people ... that it made saying goodbye so hard!



We will miss everybody dearly and we will remember them fondly. Although we may be separated by time and distance in the interim, nothing will diminish the important role that our Michigan friends and family  have and always will play in our lives. We wish all of them the best and hoped to keep in touch, and who knows, maybe they would visit us in Africa, South America or Asia, or wherever we might be.

The party we threw was the best we ever had. And my brother surprised us by coming announced from Alabama on a very short notice.

My Ursus soccer teammates!

Foreign Service Hiring Process

My agency, USAID  uses the Foreign Service classification system. The USAID Foreign Service Officers are not required to take the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT)., but after that the process is somehow similar to the State Department.

For me it all began on their website, which is filled with all sorts of information about the Foreign Service,  the different positions and the current open position. You can apply for an open position, it requires you write multiple answers to questions on experience related to several skills.

If you are selected, somebody will contact you and invite you for an interview in Washington DC. There are three components in the Oral Assessment  a Case Study (this requires you writing a memo in response to a case situation relevant to the position), a Group Exercise (this one can be a little awkward, as you are required to develop a solution to the case study with the candidates you are competing against), and a Structured Interview with a panel made up by of a Human Resource person, a Foreign Service Officer, and a Technical expert. After the Oral Assessment I went home day and waited for almost a month to receive a response on whether I was accepted. They followed up with references that you provide and your package of your scoring from the interview, your experience, and your reference responses will be forwarded to a final panel for determination.

Security/Medical Clearance Process
The successful candidates will begin a preemployment process. You need to obtain a Security Clearance and Medical Clearance. Expect the process to take several months.

Final Suitability Review/Position Availability
Once these hurdles are cleared, you will be on their register or list of eligible candidates. Cleared candidates are grouped by their backstop and then often rank-ordered. A panel will then review the eligible candidates and make their selection on those to appoint.

There is a forum where many people discuss the USAID Foreign Service:

http://federalsoup.federaldaily.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=4834&PN=1&title=usaid-junior-officer

The State Department hiring process is  fairly similar. The main exception is the Foreign Service Officer Test (FSOT) being the first step to the process. After passing the OA, the process is the same like the one for USAID.

The process is explained on their Website:
http://careers.state.gov/officer/selection-process

State Department's positions are more general. State has 5 main career ladders or "cones". Every cone though will have to do a tour or two doing Consular work which means issuing visas for foreigners or assisting Americans abroad.

FSOT & Language Test
While filling in your basic information in the application, you will also have the opportunity to indicate whether you have any language capabilities. After completing the application, you have to select a test date to take the FSOT.

After taking the test, if you indicated you had a language skill, you may be requested to do an over the phone language test as you will receive bonus points to your score in the end if you pass the OA.

Qualifications Evaluation Panel (QEP)
If you pass the FSOT, you will be invited to the QEP stage. There will be questions on experience and you will have to provide a short answer response on that. After providing your response to these questions, your file will be sent to the Board of Examiners and they will categorize you based off your selected cone and review candidate profiles based off their QEP responses, their FSOT score, language proficiency, etc. This will take another month or two.

Oral Assessment (OA)
There are three components: the Group Exercise, Case Study, and Structured Interview. After the day of testing is complete, State provides immediate feedback of whether you will move on or not. Candidates will be placed in a room and called out. If you are not successful, you will be greeted by two of the examiners and be given a file with your results for the day and be given the chance to ask any questions.

If you are successful, then you will begin the clearance process and eventually be placed on a register for eligible hires.

Foreign Service, what is that?

According to Wikipedia, the United States Foreign Service is a component of the United States federal government under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of approximately 15,000 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding U.S. citizens abroad. Created in 1924 by the Rogers Act, the Foreign Service combined all consular and diplomatic services of the U.S. government into one administrative unit. In addition to the unit's function, the Rogers Act defined a personnel system under which the United States Secretary of State is authorized to assign diplomats abroad.

The two main agencies with foreign service are the State Department and USAID (the US Agency for International Development). I am a proud member of  the USAID.

Members of the Foreign Service are expected to serve most of their career abroad, working at embassies and consulates around the world. The maximum stretch of domestic assignments should last no more than five years before resigning or taking a foreign posting. The difficulties and the benefits associated with working abroad are many, especially in relation to family life.