Donna Scaramastra Gorman’s “Am I Going to Starve to Death?”

How do you get a Great Dane onto an airplane? What happens when you have a medical emergency in a country where they don’t speak English? Can you find guacamole overseas, and if not, how will you survive a two-year tour of duty? These questions and more are answered in a new book by Foreign Service (FS) spouse Donna Scaramastra Gorman. The book, available on Amazon, is called “Am I Going to Starve to Death?: A Survival Guide for the Foreign Service Spouse” and it’s already garnered quite a few positive reviews from other members of the FS community.

The book is broken into sections that deal with different aspects of the FS lifestyle. One section is about moving (how to pack, what to do about consumables, how to transport a pet, traveling with kids); another is about life at post (making friends, learning the language, finding a school, etc); still another section covers emergencies (like medevacs and packing a go bag). It’s a lighthearted look at life overseas, but don’t let the humor fool you — the author packs a ton of information into it and provides links to official Department sites that have even more information on each topic.

Gorman is a freelance writer whose work has been published in Newsweek, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, the Huffington Post, the Foreign Service Journal and many other outlets. She blogs at emailfromtheembassy.blogspot.com. She’s a long-time Foreign Service spouse who has been posted with her DS husband in Moscow, Yerevan, Almaty, Beijing, and Amman. She’s currently back in Moscow for a second tour.