My daily grind has changed for the better.

I was asked the other day by a Jordanian friend of one of my daughters if I liked Jordan.  I told her unequivocally Yes.  I really like Jordan.  I like the way the sun hits the buildings at sunset.  How blue the sky is.  The coolness of the evenings.  The food, the people, the camels, and the hills.  The steady breeze.  Did I mention the food?  The Jordanians are nice people, except when behind the wheel.  That seems to be a generalization for much of the world though.

In addition, I like my job.  I like the people I work with and the people I see every day.  And I'm going to be painfully honest here:  I like how my days don't revolve solely around my kids anymore.

See, for the past 17 years (yes... 17 years) I've stayed home.  OK, so for the first few months of Katherine's life I was also in Graduate school.. but I quit to be a full-time mom.  And then I had that year as a part-timer in the Consular section in Chennai where I really felt like a fish out of water and was home at noon most days.  At that point I still dropped everything the second a kid needed anything.

And that's the way it was supposed to be.  Katherine wasn't even a teen yet, Jonathon was in 2nd grade. I wouldn't change a thing.

But now, Katherine is 17 and a rising senior in HS.  Jonathon is heading into 7th grade.  If they get home from school at 4 and I'm not home until 6, it's really OK.  If they need anything I'm 5 minutes away, or they'll come to the Embassy themselves.  I'm OK working full-time in Jordan because the kids are ready for it.  Oh sure I hear "You quit taking care of us" and I'm pretty sure they're joking, but at the same time I think they're adjusting too.  I'll leave them texts to start dinner or do chores.  And though I tried to hire a housekeeper (we'll keep looking), I think we're doing OK without one.  For now.  Even with the piles of clean laundry that have become a semi-permanent addition to our den floor.  Or the dishes that get washed twice a week.  That part is actually fine as we're only eating at home a couple times a week at this point.  All eating together has become so rare that when it happens, like tonight, it's something special.

Part of this is summer vacation and the kids are busy with their friends.  Part is that I'm just now getting into the rhythm of my job (only to have it torn apart again when we go on R&R, I know).

When we get back from our trip things will change.  When school starts up things will change again.  And we'll roll with all of it.

Because I am, how do you say it... "letting go."  At heart I'm a control freak based on my own abilities.  X minutes to complete Y task... why aren't you done yet?  It's time to do A, stop doing B.  Where are you, who are you with, what are you doing, when are you coming home?  OK, those ones I still do.  But at the same time I'm less stringent when things that I feel matter, or should matter, don't really matter.  Does that make sense?  I'm recognizing, painfully at times, that while I think something should go a certain way, the rest of the world doesn't necessarily see it that way, including my husband.

See, I'm an only child and for most of my life I had my thoughts and beliefs about life and the way to live it with no one to argue them.  They were what they were.  Then, about 10 years ago, after 7 years of marriage (can you say Slow Learner?) I had a rough time when I realized the world absolutely did not revolve around me, and if I didn't come to grips with that I was going to lose quite a bit.  I did come to grips and was happy again.  Score one for a solid marriage to a guy who puts up with more than his fair share of craziness from me.

Then I had teenagers. Cue the ramped up craziness machine: I fought and cried and spent many many hours telling myself how right I was and how wrong and blind the rest of my family and the world was.  Teenagers are tough, but that doesn't erase the fact that I was wrong.  They are their own people and I am still their parent, but at the same time... just because I would want or do C, D, or F, choosing something else isn't necessarily bad.

My husband has been a great eye-opener for me.  He is a spectacular diplomat both at work and at home.  As I try to tame the teen beasts to fit my mold, he recognizes they have their own molds to make and fill.  I have to trust that what they hear from us, what they see from us, what they know from the past 11-17 years has made its way into their heads.  The hard part is when all that works... and they still choose the wrong path and make their mistakes.  We also encourage our kids to stand up for themselves against any person when they see something they believe is unfair or inequitable.  Each one is progressing at their own speed in that regards.  Becca has earned the respect of her school administrator for her tenacity.  Nicholas has dealt with friend issues at school in ways well beyond his years.  They're growing up and molding their inner selves.

And then it bites us in the butt when they argue a grievance against us.  Us!  The people they are supposed to follow without question!  Only that's ridiculous, right?  Who wants sheep as children?  These children are growing up fast.  Katherine will be leaving home next year and I certainly don't want her to a be a sheep in the next stage of her life.  I do want her to weigh the right and the wrong, see different angles of an argument, learn to argue better not louder.  And you can't do that with sheep.  You have to engage them and work with them to argue and make their point and support their side.  As a parent I can still say No.  That's a perk.

It sounds like I have this figured out.  I don't.  But what I do know now is that micromanaging my kids once they hit a certain stage doesn't work.  Nicholas is 13 and made an argument for letting him decide when to go to bed, even during the school week!  In my gut I know he needs a lot of sleep and that he should be in bed by a certain time and I simply didn't want to leave it up to him.  But he convinced me in a rational and calm argument that he should decide when he'd go to bed.  I think the big thing here is that he brought it up as an option, supported his case, and I had two choices: impose my will "knowing" that I was right, or letting him try and let it play out.  It's a good thing he knows he needs a lot of sleep too, and he's done a great job of managing himself.

I still tell Jonathon when to go to bed.

I'd like to think that an important part of watching kids grow up is growing up yourself.  These people who are not little anymore are their own selves.  It's hard to watch some days, and other days it makes me smile.  I love to watch them do things they really enjoy, and I need to tell them that more.  I need to release more responsibilities to them with the understanding it won't get done the way I'd do it but it would still be done.

I like that I have a job because it's showing them that they can do what they need to do.

I haven't "stopped taking care of them," I'm just doing it a different way now.  Do my kids need me?  Of course.  They call me at work, they come by the office, they're home when we get home.  I get texts all the time.  Usually it's of the nature "Where is...?" but how is that any different than if I was home?

"Hey mom, where are my pants?"

Yeah, I've heard that a billion times and I don't know the answer any better from home than I do at the office, so all is still equal.

So yeah.  Life settling into a totally different "grind."  The grocery store, a place I used to visit a couple times a week, is probably wondering where I've disappeared to.  The Oasis Club I see every day.  I forget to fill the car with gas until the light comes on, but my water bottle is never empty.  The laundry takes forever as do the dishes, but my day planner and desk calendar are full and the kids are generally happy and last I looked they weren't breaking anything.

Except, well, this:



Totally not my fault.  He was at school.  He fell.  Would have happened anyway.  Right?  Bummer he'll have it over our entire vacation, but at least our hospital here is close by for checkups.

We also did this, which totally wasn't the same night.

It wasn't, I promise!

Check out beitsittijo.com if you're curious about a local program to make and eat a traditional dish with a bunch of friends.  We had a group of 13 in addition to a British bunch at the other end of the table.  I can't give you directions as we got lost both getting there and getting home even without me driving, but it's a fun evening out if you can find it.  It doesn't exactly overlook the Citadel but the Citadel is nearby and beautifully lit up as you drive around, lost and annoyed.

No, that's too harsh.  There was a lot of laughter in the car as we drove in circles, down a one-way road the wrong way... we were following another Embassy car that time into oncoming traffic... and made additional wrong turns at intersections we actually did know.  Did we ever make it home?

Of course.  And my fabulous husband from way back in the 3rd row did not mock us audibly once, the driver and navigator, as we meandered our way home.  If that's not love, I don't know what is.

So here we are, living a very different daily life than we did a year ago.

And I think we're doing OK.

Being forewarned

As I've mentioned before, we recently had a death case that involved a victim of a Nigerian 419 scam. The scammers made him believe that they needed his help bring gold from Ghana to Dubai. It went on for about 18 months, and he gave almost a million dollars to the perpetrators, in addition to traveling to Dubai and Accra. A colleague in Ouagadougou, who had a similar case (though it didn't involve the death) sent me a link to a New Yorker story about a well-educated older man who was taken for hundreds of thousands of dollars. He even went to jail for depositing fraudulent checks and committing wire fraud.

It's easy to call the victims stupid or naive. Perhaps they are naive, but I think more than anything else, they don't want an opportunity to pass by. It doesn't matter how ridiculous it gets to an objective observer. Many people say that e-mail is an aid to the scammers because they can use anonymous Web-based e-mail addresses. That's true, but there's a psychological factor as well. E-mails can look official, or they can look personal. When you get an pleading e-mail for help from someone in distress, you can inject as much emotion into it as you're prone to give.
There's also the "good money after bad" issue. I've noticed in dealing with these cases that at some point -- perhaps after $500, maybe after $50000 -- the victim has decided internally that they can't admit to themselves that they've been scammed. So they keep going, hoping that it'll all pan out in the end. It's better than admitting failure. Sometimes that means getting friends and family to give loans, sometimes it means stealing money from your company, and sometimes you've gone so far you think you have nothing else to live for. Think about it -- if you lose $300,000, $500,000, or a million dollars, you (if you're like most Americans) are never going to recover from that. You've not only ruined your own life, but probably your childrens' as well. It's not surprising to see someone consider suicide.
Anyway, here's the story. And believe me, whether it's from Nigeria or not -- I've heard from colleagues in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Benin, Ethiopia, the Netherlands -- the money isn't coming. But there are Internet cafe's full of Nigerians, Ghanaians and anyone with passable written English who will tell you it is.

My week

No news this week, but I did have something finally happen to fill my days. Yesterday we had Lome's first death case in two years. We don't have many Americans here, so it doesn't happen very often. It's a fairly straightforward case, but may also be enough to write a separate cable about advance-fee (419) scams so common throughout West Africa. I can't go into it here, obviously, but it was quite interesting and sad.

Oh, and for the record, I like cauliflower. and corn, and peas, and broccoli. And green beans, but Michele doesn't. So now who's picky?

MegaComps

Ian will be Tenured! His first time around. CONGRATS!

What Philippine high school girls think...

I spoke to a group of high school students today, as part of an Embassy educational program called International Education Week.

Several of us were asked to go to local high schools to talk about our experiences overseas as well as any other questions they had. I went to St. Scholastica's College for girls in Manila. In the Philippines, high school ends at age 16, so these were all 15-16-year-olds. It took a little while to get them to open up and ask questions, but it turned out to be a good two hours. Thankfully, only about a third of the questions were visa-related.
Here are some of the questions they asked:
-- How do you get a tourist visa? (Of course, the first question..)
-- Why can't the Philippines finish an election in a day like the U.S.? (I turned this around and used it to explain the electoral college and the effect of media projections on election night, saying that it actually does take many days to complete an official U.S. election.)
-- How can I go to college in the U.S.? How can I get a scholarship?
-- Why did I become a Government Official? (Because I have no personality and like dark suits... But really, this turned out to be a good discussion, where I talked about the differences we have with most people who live in the U.S., and why "Living here is more important to us than basketball." (They oohed and aahed at that line. It was really quite profound, but the set-up is important.)
-- Where do my children go to school?
-- Where am I going next? (Inevitable follow-ups: Where is Togo? What is in Togo?)
-- What have you noticed about Filipinos, and Filipino teenagers?
-- Who did you vote for?
And some stranger questions...
-- What is in Area 57? (They meant Area 51... sorry ma'am, that's classified.)
-- Are Americans selling rights to the moon? (Huh?)

Weekend in Bohol

In the interest of the U.S. government, I spent last weekend in the province of Bohol. Bohol is a set of several islands in the central region of islands in the Philippines known as the Visayas. In the interest of the U.S. government, I got a massage on the beach, swam in the sea, went diving, and saw the tarsiers, the world's smallest primates. I did some work, too. (Pictures coming)

The goal of the trip was provincial reporting, a way to get out of Manila and talk to people in the provinces about what's important to them and what they think of the upcoming elections on May 10. So, with the help of a provincial official, my incredibly gracious host, I met with the governor, a congressman, several mayors, business leaders, the bishop, and others. To get a sense of the rest of the populace, I talked to farmers, restaurant workers, dive shop owners, bar patrons... the backbone of Bohol!
MA'AMSIR, HERE IS YOUR ENDANGERED ANIMAL TO CUDDLE
I stayed in Tagbilaran City, called "Tag City"... but only by me, because I keep mangling "Tagbilaran." The MetroCentre Hotel is a pretty nice business hotel. I also got the chance to experience Bohol's one television station, on its cable TV network. The station showed lots of ads. In between them, words appeared in the corner: "STOP" "EJECT" "PLAY". A very high-tech operation. In the evenings, they showed recent movies like James Bond's "Die Another Day" and "Rush Hour 2." They were also run by the TapeMaster, you could tell from the FBI Copyright warnings before the movie. Copyright violations are alive and well in Bohol. The vast majority of my time while staying at this hotel was spent in meetings, which are too boring to post here.
While I was meeting with the mayor of Corella, he took me to his town, home of the Philippine Tarsier Sanctuary. This is a tarsier. It is found only in Borneo, Sumatra, and some Philippine islands. They are tiny, endangered, they have huge eyes and hairless tails longer than their body, and their heads can turn over 180 degrees around. Yeah, it's pretty much a rat with opposable thumbs. Some tarsier keepers toss the animals to tourists for pictures, but I was content with petting one.
WHERE TO STAY, AND NOT, AT THE BEACH
I saw several resorts in Panglao Island, the resort area of Bohol. I had dinner twice at the Alona Palm, on Alona Beach. The Alona Palm is a beautiful resort with spacious rooms, a nice pool and good food. I first had dinner there with a congressman and his family. The second time, I ate there because I was pretending I wasn't staying at the Alona Tropical Resort.
As you can see from the site, this place is so bad only Germans will go there. It had no hot water, no fresh water (try showering and brushing your teeth with salt water. Go ahead, try it.) The towels had large brown stains that I'm going to tell myself are water stains. There was a fan and lamp in the room, but their cords were wrapped up because the room had no power outlets. The walls were paper-thin, so I woke up every 45 minutes or so. However, I must say that I only got _any_ room on the beach because my host arranged it. I checked four different resorts (including the Alona Palm), and they were all booked. I had dinner at the Alona Palm that evening, pretending that I wasn't staying next door. Later, I went out in the water, which was so salty that you could float with no effort at all. The sky was almost bright with the stars and moon. After I got out of the water, the Massage Patrol pounced on me. For 350 pesos (about 7 dollars), I got a massage on the beach. All was good, except that it was also a head massage, with oil. So my hair was filled with salt, sand and oil. And, as I said, no fresh water in the shower.
As I then found out, there was also no shampoo. After a frustrating and futile attempt to use soap, I asked the "front desk" (a little desk next to the bar) for some shampoo. "None, sir." Shocking. Again, the Alona Palm was my saving grace. I went next door, prepared to beg and offer everything short of multiple-entry visas for a bottle of shampoo. Only 150 pesos was necessary -- apparently this happened a lot.
The next morning, which I was eager to see because my partying neighbors didn't allow me much sleep, I walked along the beach. The sand in Bohol is almost like flour, powdery and light. Near the end of the beach, I found Philippine Islands Divers. I went on my first dive a few months ago, at Puerto Galera on Mindoro Island, and I was eager to try it again. With the help of Rena, a Japanese dive instructor there, I spent about 30 minutes in the pool going over the exercises I'd learned before. Important ones, like how to get your regulator back so you don't drown in a foreign country and make my Embassy package up all your stuff and ship it back to the States. (However, if I did die, it would be in the line of duty. So there are pluses.)
I dove down into what they call "The Pit," about 20 meters down. The marine life there was unlike I'd seen anywhere. Huge schools of fish, 2-foot-wide starfish and seemingly endless forests of coral were all over the place. If you've never gone diving before, it's a great place to start.
I hastily checked out, and asked the hotel for transportation to Bohol Beach Club, on the other side of Panglao Island. Several friends from the Embassy were staying there, so I thought I would visit before I left for the airport.
I should have been more specific about "transportation." I was expecting a car, perhaps a tricycle. Nope, I got a motorbike. So, there I was, with two bags, trying to figure out how I'd get to the resort alive. The driver took one suitcase on his lap, and I slung the laptop back around my neck, then held on tight to the seat rail.
During my time in the Philippines, I have gone diving and learned how to fly a plane so small it's like a bicycle on wheels. But this 15-minute motorbike trip was by far the most frightening. This guy didn't know the meaning of "leisurely." Gravel, dirt roads or 115-degree turns, he went at top speed. I did survive, albeit with a burn on my leg from touching the exhaust pipe when I got on. A relatively small price to pay.
The Bohol Beach Club is one of the largest resorts there, with spacious rooms and a long stretch of beach. They've got lots of seating, and good food. Altogether a good place to stay, I noticed from my 2-or-so hours there. After having lunch, I headed to the airport (in a car, thankfully) and flew home.
I'll be returning on May 10 as an election observer, and I'm looking forward to it. I might even spring for the extra cost of renting a plane and fly myself there. But I won't be taking a motorbike.

Bidding on our next post... yes, already.

We have been here for a year, which means it's already time to bid on our next post. We were given a list of about 350 jobs, and we had to pick 10. The rules for us were: they all need to require language, we can't pick more than five in any regional bureau, and the arrival date has to work with our schedule. After lots of research, here are the bids I submitted today, in order of preference:

1. Lome, Togo (1 year Consular, 1 year Political/Economic)
2. Rabat, Morocco (2 years Political)
3. Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso (2 years Consular)
4. Nouakchott, Mauritania (2 years Political)
5. Kiev, Ukraine (1 year Consular, 1 year Political
6. Nouakchott, Mauritania (2 years Consular and Economic)
7. Port Louis, Mauritius (1 year Consular, 1 year Political/Economic)
8. Moscow, Russia (2 years Political)
9. Brussels, Belgium (2 years Science and Technology Reporting)
10. Tbilisi, Georgia (2 years Public Diplomacy)

Go to this site to learn about each city and post.

(You'll notice, comments are allowed in this post. Even encouraged!)

How I spent my presidential visit...

Here's how I spent the presidential visit...

My job was press liaison officer for the airport. That's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, known as NAIA, not Clark Airfield, as the Philippine press was reporting right up until the day of the visit!
After more than a week of overtime filled with meetings and site visits, I got to the airport at about 7 a.m. in advance of the 12:30 landing of Air Force One. I was supposed to take care of the 150-some Filipino press that planned to report from the arrival, and make sure the traveling American and International press (about 12 people) made it from Air Force One to the motorcade.
After I explained to the local media officers early that morning what route their press buses should take to not tromp through areas cleared by the Secret Service and arrive at a timely manner to be screened. Of course, they did the exact opposite.
We finally got them all sorted out about an hour away from the arrival. I suggested that after screening, we put them in a small gated area, complete with barbed wire, to hold them until they're all together, then I can send them to the press platform. (Cameramen first, so they get good positions.)
The Secret Service agents loved that idea. "Cool, a cage!" "We're not calling it a cage," I said, "let's call it the 'waiting area.'" "Right. Waiting area. Nice barbed wire."
The departure went much smoother. No protocol. No band. No light, either, as it was about 9:30 p.m.
The press, while a little frisky, was remarkably well-behaved after I explained to them what the ground rules were. Really, it was hard for them to get up the confidence to jump a rope with the Filipino's Presidential Security Group and Secret Service agents surrounding them. But what I did discover was that the poor state of the local media isn't just due to maliciousness, but they honestly don't have a _clue_. I got asked the most bizarre questions. They could have found the answers to these months ago....
"What time are they coming?"
"What kind of plane is that?"
When the backup plane carrying White House staffers landed: "Is that Air Force Two?" "No, it's the backup plane." "Then you call it Air Force Two?" "No, AF2 is whatever plane the Vice President uses." "So what is that?" "The backup plane." "But what is your technical name for it?" "The backup plane."
Later: "We called it Air Force One's Little Brother." "Whatever."
"That tail number is 28000. Is Air Force One's 28001?" "I don't know." "But doesn't it have a tail number?" "Yes." "Then what is it?" "I don't know. Could be anything." (Why do they care about the tail number?!?)
"Where is President Bush going after the Philippines?" "Thailand." "Not to Singapore?" "No, Thailand." "What is he doing in Thailand?" "To the APEC Summit, the whole point of this trip that has been reported for the past several months."
"What is President Bush doing tomorrow?" "He'll be doing a state visit in Thailand." "Who will he see?" "The Prime Minister." "What is his name?" "Thaksin." "How do you spell that?" "T-H-A-K-S-I-N." "Then what?" "He'll visit the King of Thailand." "What is his name?" "I think it begins with a G. How the hell should I know?"

Something about the visit coming soon, really...

I know I should write about the presidential visit. I was at the airport almost the entire day, by the way, handling the press for the airport. It was actually pretty fun, though exhausting.

But I wanted to write about something else. I don't usually write about my work, but this one moved me to write. Now to edit this in such a way as to protect myself...

I'm in the immigrant visa unit, you know. Recently, we had an American petitioning for his Filipina fiancee. The INS report shows no criminal hits on the Filipina, but a hit on the American. In 1996, he was convicted of child molestation on a teenage Korean girl, with two probation violations. These little notes are nice window dressing, but there's little we can do about them, unless they're extremely egregious. Seriously, I could show a Filipina video clips of her fiancee murdering his last three Filipina fiancees, and she will reply, "But I love him!"
He also can't hold a job.. he gives us a line of crap about missionary work, so we refuse him for the possibility that she will need public assistance. This can be overcome if he shows that he is starting to make more, or a host of other possibilities, but it's also somewhat arbitrary. I can say that future legal bills and alimony makes it unlikely he will be able to support his wife.
But then he writes us a letter, stating that he thinks we're really refusing because of his criminal record. At that point, he was only partially right.
The letter begins by lamenting that anyone convicted of a molestation is treated with malice, no matter how small the offense. (The tiniest violins play only for him.) He then explains what he says his situation is: A few years ago, he is married with a 12-year-old girl. He is asleep on his bed, and the girl is next to him. He says he decides to "check to see if she is reaching puberty," without elaboration.
She awakes, and runs to her mother. He said this happened 5 years before it was reported, as he and the wife are breaking up. He then relates how his ex-wife and a counselor are out to get him, engineering the two probation violations.
Now there are already questions. The wife isn't Korean, so where did the "16-year-old Korean" come from? We're already skeptical, because it was in the midwest, so the person isn't necessarily Korean. The cops could have taken a wild stab at "Asian" and got Korean. But his wife _ and therefore we presume his daughter _ are not Korean. Nevertheless, his story goes from difficult-to-believe to absolutely reprehensible.
And what can we do with this? Not much, although I'm getting creative. To remove the discussion from this case, because if I went further I _would_ get in trouble, there is very little that American diplomats can do to stop criminals from petitioning for foreign spouses. It doesn't matter whether the criminal was convicted of child abuse of a five-year-old, and they're petitioning for a new wife and her five-year-old daughter. The law does not provide us recourse, so we get creative.
There is a bill, introduced by Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Rick Larsen, both Democrats from Washington state, that would require international marriage brokers to ask clients about any criminal record, including protective orders issued because of domestic violence allegations. That information would be provided to the potential spouses.
This already happens, but much later in the process. The INS (now Bureau of Immigration and Citizenship Services, part of the Department of Homeland Security) does criminal checks on all petitioners and beneficiaries of all visas, no matter the category. They're really searching for any crimes the foreigners may have committed in the States, but they're nice enough to provide all results to the Embassy (after approving the petition, of course.) By the time we get it, we tell the beneficiary. (A crime is public information, and there are no privacy laws attached.)
This bill wouldn't do much more. It would inform the foreigner earlier in the process, and would also tell them about restraining orders, which are protected by the petitioner's privacy rights. I don't know if it would help, but it's something.
The federal bill is inspired by Anastasia King, a 20-year-old from Kyrgyzstan, who was killed by her convict husband in 2000.
I have a clipping above my desk of a story about Lorelei Loseo, a Cebuano Filipina, who was killed in New Jersey by her American fiance. She was in the States all of two months _ they hadn't even gotten married before he stabbed her to death. He also beat her, and made her work in a strip club.

Manila Slalom, and How I Got A Bikini Model to Sarenade Me...

A couple of people (Michele and Jeff) have recently said that my reflections on Manila and thoughts about my job would be interesting to some people. I've put it off because a) it's easier to put it off, and b) I'm worried that I might say something that would compromise my position in some way. I'm a U.S. government employee after all, and that disclaimer at the bottom of the index page doesn't really mean squat. My job involves sensitive and sometimes classified information. If I say something that runs contradictory to U.S. foreign policy or otherwise embarasses the State Department, I could be in a whole lot of trouble.
But,

there are some things I can talk about. So I'll try to feel around to what those are.
First, some ground work. For those who don't really know what I do _ and I didn't in the first few weeks of working here _ I'm a Vice Consul in the Immigrant Visa section of the U.S. Embassy in Manila. This means that I adjudicate visa applications. My friends over in the Non-Immigrant Visa unit deal with student visas, tourist visas, and the like. The most common reason for refusal over there is that they think the person won't leave the U.S. _ that they are an "intending immigrant." Those intending immigrants are what I deal with.
An alien (or foreigner, or whatever you prefer) can get a visa if they have a special skill needed in the U.S. That is largely determined by the Department of Labor, and can be pretty broad. The vast majority of our work visa applicants are nurses. There's a relative nurse shortage in the U.S. Even Filipino doctors go to nursing school to be nurses in the U.S. Sometimes I get a physical therapist, or cement mason, or even a cook. "To prepare Western-style meals" for a construction company. There's a shortage of that, apparently, according to Labor. No comment.
But most of our immigrants have family ties. Parents can bring in their kids, kids can bring in their parents, siblings can siblings, adoptees can adopted, etc. The time it takes is variable according to age, family ties and status of the U.S. petitioner. A U.S. citizen can get their wife or minor child in pretty quick. Green-card holders take longer. A U.S. citizen will have to wait about 22 years to bring in their Filipino sibling. One of the small joys I have is giving that visa to some old guy and his family who has patiently waited and diligently followed our labyrinthine procedures and requirements, so they can immigrate and get a green card.
(Which, incidentally, isn't green at all. It was at one time. Now it's kinda peach colored.)
There is a far more interesting type of visa, too, the fiancee visa. An American can petition for their foreign fiancee to come to the U.S. They have to get married with 90 days of their arrival, and they must be happily (reasonably so) married _ to the same person _ for 2 years. The BCIS (formerly INS) checks, otherwise the alien is sent home. This visa can take a relatively short time to get, a matter of months.
For obvious reasons, these can be the most interesting cases and the hardest to adjudicate. They're not related, of course, so I can't just check to see if they're really father and son or whatever and send them on their way. We have to see if it's a "valid relationship." In other words, we see if Cupid has really done his job, or whether it's just a show.
Mind-reading is not a job requirement, though it probably should be. The Internet _ and its predecessors, the bride catalogs that still circulate from Asia and Europe _ fuels most of our applicants. Some are former schoolmates or neighbors here in the Philippines, but most aren't. Most met through online personals ads, in one form or another.
It's not easy, to say the least. I look at pictures of them together. I read their printed e-mails. I read their love letters and cards. I delve into their most personal details, from their medical records to their former loves (or marriages) to what side of the bed their fiancee sleeps on. And then I decide.
I worked today, on Saturday, because we're really behind on fiancees. It's no one's fault, really, it's just that everyone in the U.S. is marrying everyone in the Philippines, and they all have to go through my office. We had about 300 applicants show up today, a few with their U.S. fiances.
(Apologies for the gender references, but the vast majority of our fiance(e) beneficiaries are female. The U.S. citizen is almost always male. They also tend to live in little itty-bitty cities, but that's a different issue.)
As an aside, let me quickly mention my Manila Rules for Driving, since we got our car and have done some driving in the city.
1) There are no rules.
2) You are only responsible for the front half of your car. Same for other drivers. Cut off and be cut off.
3) Jeepneys (do a Google search for a picture if you haven't seen one) and buses are all over the damn place, and tend to stop suddenly to drop off or pick up passengers.
4) Beware of buses. They swerve all over the road. They're getting a bit better, now that some people _ including a former congressman _ have chased after erratically-driving buses and shot (yes, with guns) at the drivers.
5) Keep the windows rolled up at all times. Pollution, beggars and security.
6) There is no rule 6.
7) Do not use your turn signals, ever. Manila drivers see it as a sign of weakness.
----
Anyway, back to the fiancees. Here's a quick rundown of some of my more interesting cases.
1) 20 year old girl and 79 year old U.S. citizen. Internet romance, of course. He's been married 3 times before, and had two previous Filipina fiancees that didn't work out for various reasons.
2) 42 year old woman and 86 year old millionaire U.S. citizen.
3) A woman who had a kid with the male petitioner, her husband, then he went to the States. After 2 years of this guy trying to make enough money to petition for her, she apparently lost patience and married another guy, having three kids with him. 10 years later, the woman and guy #1 make up, and he's petitioning for her and all four kids.
4) Army man petitions for Filipina who was working as an "Entertainer" ("I served drinks and talked with the guys," she said.) in Korea.
5) U.S. citizen there with his Filipina wife, when I had to tell him that no, he's not really married to his wife because she has a prior unterminated marriage. (This happens _all_the_time_. Divorce is illegal in the Philippines. You can only get a marriage annulled, have the spouse die, or have him/her declared 'presumptively dead,' which has its own problems.) He took it somewhat well, considering. He didn't yell much.
And now, my singers. This hasn't happened before, but I might try to make it a habit.
6) U.S. citizen vacationing in Indonesia met a Filipina who was working as a singer there. She's part of a harmony group. I ask what she sings, she says Manhattan Transfer songs. I ask if she knows "Boy from New York City." She at first claims not to, which I refuse to believe, then admits she does. I tell her to sing it. Surprisingly, she does. She's an alto.
7) The Foreign Service Nationals (the local Filipino staff at the office, who are the backbone of any embassy) are all abuzz about an applicant who has married an American citizen. They say she's the 2003 Boracay bikini contest winner.
(Beauty contests are ridiculously popular here, and I'm not very up on Philippine stars yet. A few weeks ago I interviewed the mother of a big local TV/Movie star, Alice Dixson. I didn't have a clue.)
Everyone rushes over to check. I, being the responsible American officer, decide to check on the local staff and make sure they're not having any problems. In passing, I see her. She's mind-blowingly hot.
For some reason, they give her case to me. They said they saved her for me. Usually they just save refusals for me (I think they're cleansing after a bunch of cases like 1-3 above).
So I take her, so to speak. She, a 25-year-old, married a 53-year-old guy from Hawaii. They met at somebody's wedding. He's your basic middle-American middle-age guy. He's about to become real popular among his friends.
I ask her what she does for a living, she says she's a model and singer. I told her that we like to verify things. I couldn't very well demand that she model a bikini _ arg _ so I ask what she sings. Karen Carpenter songs, she says.
Of course. This country loves all that treacly crap.
I ask what her favorite Carpenter song is, and she told me. I can't remember it now, and I didn't recognize it. I asked her to sing it. She said she didn't want to, but she would sing "Close to You." So she sang a good three verses or so to me. I turned the speaker in my window up. She's a soprano. She was really good.
After I approved her visa (she was qualified for the visa, not just as a singer) and the FSN's returned her passport, she stopped by my window to wave goodbye.
No parting song.

Our list...

OK, we think this is it. We're about 90 percent sure that this is our list. We had to pick 25 posts and rank them in order of preference. With our list, we're fairly sure we'll end up getting some job in our top five. The "TED" is Time of Estimated Departure, when we'll get there. So 903 is September 2003. If that's blank, then it's a new post and we'll go whenever our training is done. I also added a column that lists what country the city is in. I thought that might be useful. :) Feel free to give us feedback on it via e-mail!

Our List.

The Bid List!

Here's the list. It consists of the city name, the cone (POL=Political, CON=Consular, GSO=Admin, PAO=Public Information Officer, etc. Most of these make sense.), and the language requirement. (Two letters, many of these don't make sense, but you can figure them out.) The number/number code is the speaking/reading requirement on a scale of five. We're tested (for everything) in languages. But even if we don't have the language, they'll train us for that.

Here goes...

POST POSITION LANG
1 ALGIERS*  POL-ECON    FR 3/3
2 AMMAN CON/POL    AD 2/0
3 AMSTERDAM CON DU 3/3
4 ANKARA CON PF 2/2
5 ANTANANARIVO  APAO    FR 3/3
6 ASTANA GSO RU 2/2
7 BAMAKO CON FR 3/3
8 BANGKOK CON TH 2/2
9 BEIJING CON CM 2/0
10 BELIZE CON/POL
11 BISHKEK   CON   RU 2/2
12 BRASILIA CON/ECON PY 3/3
13 BRATISLAVA CON SK 2/2
14 BUCHAREST AGSO RQ 3/3
15 BUCHAREST CON RQ 3/3
16 BUCHAREST CON/ECON RQ 3/3
17 BUDAPEST ECON HU 2/2
18 CARACAS CON/POL QB 3/3
19 CHENNAI CON TC
20 CIUDAD JUAREZ CON QB 3/3
21 COLOMBO CON
22 CONAKRY GSO FR 3/3
23 DAR-ES-SALAAM APAO SW 3/3
24 DUSHANBE PAO-CON RU 2/2
25 GUADALAJARA CON QB 3/3
26 GUANGZHOU CON CM 2/0
27 HERMOSILLO  CON-ADM   QB 3/3
28 HO CHI MINH CON VS 2/2
29 ISLAMABAD* CON UR 2/2
30 ISTANBUL CON TU 2/2
31 JERUSALEM CON AD 2/1
32 JERUSALEM   CON/POL    HE 2/2
33 KIEV AIO UK/RU 2/2
34 KIEV   CON/POL    UK 2/2
35 KRAKOW CON PL 2/2
36 LAGOS CON
37 LUANDA CON/APAO PY 3/3
38 LUANDA ECON/CON   PY 3/3
39 MANAGUA   CON/ECON   QB 3/3
40 MANILA CON TA 2/2
41 MANILA CON TA 2/2
42 MANILA CON
43 MANILA CON
44 MAPUTO CON/P-E PY 3/3
45 MAPUTO   POL-ECON   PY 3/3
46 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
47 MEXICO D.F.  CON QB 3/3
48 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
49 MEXICO D.F. CON QB 3/3
50 MEXICO D.F. CON/HRO QB 3/3
51 MINSK   CON RU 2/2
52 MONROVIA CON-P-E
53 MONTERREY CON QB 3/3
54 MONTERREY   CON QB 3/3
55 MOSCOW   CON/POL   RU 2/2
56 MOSCOW   POL/CON   RU 2/2
57 NEW DELHI CON
58 NEW DELHI CON HJ 2/2
59 OSLO CON
60 OUGADOUGOU CON FR 3/3
61 PORT AU PRINCE CON FR 3/3;HC 2/2
62 PORT AU PRINCE CON/POL FR 3/3;HC 2/2
63 PORT LOUIS  POL-CON    FR 3/3
64 PRISTINA* APAO AB 3/3
65 RIGA CON LE 3/3
66 RIO DE JANEIRO  CON PY 3/3
67 RIYADH CON AD 2/1
68 SANAA   CON AD
69 SANTO DOMINGO CON/ECON QB 3/3
70 SANTO DOMINGO CON/POL QB 3/3
71 SARAJEVO CON BX 2/2
72 SEOUL CON KP 2/0
73 SEOUL   CON KP 2/0
74 SEOUL CON
75 SHANGHAI CON/ECON CM 2/0
76 SHENYANG CON CM 2/0
77 SOFIA CON BU 2/2
78 SOFIA IO BU 2/2
79 SOFIA POL-ECON BU 3/3
80 TBILISI APAO GG 2/2
81 TUNIS   ECON/COMM    FR 3/3
82 WARSAW CON/PD PL 2/2
83 YEREVAN ECON RE 2/2