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How the Foreign Service Lowered My Blood Pressure
by Kelly Bembry Midura, USIA spouse
That title got your attention didn't it? Well it's true! After four tours in the developing world-and believe me some of these countries were developing a lot slower than others-I have acquired innumerable knick-knacks, bargains, and even a second language. However, none of these have been as useful to me as my new perspective on life. I see things in a whole new way now, and sometimes I wonder if we in the First World might be just a teensy bit uptight!
The first time that I can remember having this sense of dislocation, was upon my arrival at Gatwick Airport in London after a year of near-total sensory deprivation in Lusaka, Zambia. I was little dazed anyway at the onslaught of fluorescent lighting, and the smell of cleaning products, (not to mention the presence of at least FOUR reasonably respectable restaurants where I could get a dizzying variety of foods), and then arrived at the "people mover." A large sign clearly stated "No More than Two Carts." A trio of swarthy, spicy-smelling men squeezed their carts onto the car, loaded with what was no doubt the result of several weeks of shopping for dozens of cousins, so that they could continue to chat with each other. Several pale, upright, British faces revealed an undisguised loathing. One young man felt compelled to read the sign aloud in tones no doubt used by his grandfather during the Raj to order tea. To my surprise I found myself seeing things entirely from the perspective of the overloaded tourists, and was appalled at the manners of the young Brit. Of course they wanted to ride together so they could continue to socialize. We did all fit (barely) onto the car, so what was the big deal?
After three tours in Latin America that little monologue in my head often runs in Spanish. There are, after all, so many useful terms in Spanish to describe situations that are no one's fault, or to defuse situations where there is mutual fault! Maybe this is due to the relatively recent armistice in these countries, or perhaps it is the fact that so many people are still heavily armed, but I find it refreshing that matters that might lead to litigation in the States are so often settled by mutual verbal agreement. For example: traffic is certainly appalling in the city of San Salvador-rumor has it that people are still driving as they did during the war to avoid small arms fire and army curfews-but fijesé, what can you do? When the unavoidable fender-bender occurs, the usual procedure is either to wave it off, or stop, get out of the car, scratch heads, and perhaps offer some small financial settlement. All of this is usually accompanied by excruciating politeness, and a good deal of shrugging.
This happened to me several times, once when I was pulling my sedan out of an absurdly small space, in an equally absurdly crowded parking lot, and a young man cruised behind at the usual rate of speed for parking lots in Latin America, which is to say about 15 mph more than is advisable), and clipped my rear bumper. Or did I hit him? Who can say, really, as I couldn't see, and he was moving way too fast. I had a small scratch on my brand new Mazda, and he had a sizable dent in his battered Datsun of indeterminate age, but was obviously not going to bother to fix it! So, fijesé, we said, smiled, and drove off. Now wasn't that a civilized way to handle things? No pasó nada.
I have now been living in DC for the past year, and I can't tell you how many times my internal voice tells me (usually in Spanish) to just chill out. What's the Beltway to an experienced Third World driver? What could possibly justify "road rage"-the road is paved, there are distinct lane markings, and streetlights for heaven's sake! And what on earth could be so urgent as to force people to do 85 mph in freezing rain-while talking on a cell phone? My six-year-old daughter and I often recite the refrain to each other: Hay mucho trafico hoy, no? I do miss the looser parking regulations of Third World cities sometimes. How many "fire lanes" do we really need anyway? And why the big problem with U-turns? And think how much more parking would be available in the District if we could all park on the sidewalks-well OK, I can see the problem with that, but it was awfully handy in San Salvador sometimes.
But I digress: back to the original topic of this piece. I am now living in a brand-new, exorbitantly priced "Luxury Towne Home". This past January I came downstairs one afternoon to find a substantial and steady flow of water dripping through a heating vent in the ceiling. I sighed, got a bucket, and called the building supervisor, who, incidentally was clearly second-generation Salvadoran, and rather than yelling at him, asked him politely, but firmly to come see this leak ASAP. He did, and was duly impressed. Meanwhile, my internal voice was saying "this is not a Real Leak-now the time when my daughter came and told she couldn't sleep because of all the noise the water was making in her room that was a verdadera fuga! And during a tropical monsoon which did not let up to allow us to mop up the water. Well, I listened to my little voice, was unfailingly polite despite the endless fiddling it took to find the leak, which eventually involved removing and replacing my back door, and got excellent service plus some extra off-warranty maintenance work thrown in "because we were so nice about it". Plus, the Salvadoran workers, being from a part of the world where people actually keep their children underfoot for a few years, were endlessly tolerant of my two-year-old son's attempts to make off with their power tools (Hola chi-chi!). Well, fijesé, how was being nasty going to improve the situation after all? If there is one thing I have learned from dealing with maintenance in the Third World, it is that people who are courteous and offer freebies like cold Cokes get their work done for them one heck of a lot better and faster. After all, it's not as if the wages most of these people are paid are enough to justify haste and efficiency.
The list goes on and on. My definition of "bug" has completely changed. For one thing, one bug no longer constitutes an emergency. Now, a billion bugs, like the time when my house in Lusaka turned out to be on a major ant migration route and I walked into a bedroom black with ants and nearly went on Separate Maintenance Allowance that same day-that was an emergency! There aren't too many tropical fire ants, or poisonous snakes roaming around Northern Virginia either, a fact for which I am quite grateful. And, no one offers me dried six-inch centipedes as a snack when I go shopping anymore, for which I am even more grateful. No toilet paper in the public restroom? No problem-at least there is a restroom. And everyone in my family knows how to pee standing up by now when hygiene dictates. Power outage? I just remember the days in Deepest Darkest when power was routinely out for eight hours a day, and no generators where to be had, and whip out my ever-handy rechargeable lantern, and a deck of cards. I have yet to have my water cut off, but when I do I bet we'll be the only family on the block who'll figure out something.
What does get to me now that I am living in my own country? Well, a culture in which everyone is buying so much, and working so hard, that they have no time for their families. Litigation fever. Children raised in day-care warehouses, who get their own Nintendo as soon as they can move a joystick. (Whatever would they do if the power went out?) Those enormous, gas guzzling, dangerous, and utterly unnecessary SUVs driven by rich housewives who have never seen a dirt road in their lives. Shopping as THE national sport. Etc. Maybe it's partly because I am not from Washington, D.C., but it hardly seems like my own country anymore. Still, even alienation from my own culture is easier to deal with if I refuse to sweat the small stuff. Gracias, Foreign Service!