The Foreign Service Journal, January-February 2015

54 JANUARY FEBRUARY 2015 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL AFSA NEWS FAMILY MEMBER MATTERS A Daughter Reflects on Foreign Service Life BY MAGGIE ANTONIJEVIC Maggie Antonijevic was born in Kinshasa, Democratic Repub- lic of the Congo—when it was still known as Zaire—while her father was on his first assign- ment with USAID. She grew up in Haiti, Mali and Jamaica, and spent summers with her father in Guinea and Kenya while in college. As a child, starting in second grade, she kept jour- nals about life overseas, which she still has stacked in her closet. Now she enjoys writing outside of her journals and is overwhelmed with gratitude for the unique life the Foreign Service gave to her. Maggie currently lives with her family in Chicago, where she teaches kindergarten. She wrote this reflection about her father, USAID FSO David Atteberry. Foreign Service folk are accustomed to saying good- bye. Life in the Foreign Service demands that we leave friends, family and homes countless times. I grew up in the Foreign Service, following my father from post to post. This career choice requires monumental sacrifice. Beyond the glamour of exotic homes and inter- national travel, there has been a current of sadness in our lives: relationships lost or broken from years of being uprooted. As I became older, I wondered why. Is this lifetime of saying good- bye worth it? Then I would hear my father talk about his chosen profession. His voice would shake; he would close his eyes and take deep breaths. He would say to me,“If I’m not helping others have a better life, then what am I doing with my life?” He would continue: “We are so lucky to be born some- where we could go to school, have clothes to wear, clean water to drink and enough food to eat. These are simple things that so many people on this planet don’t have.” I understood, and I still do. The Foreign Service is not an easy calling. I have been shar- ing my dad with the Foreign Service my whole life, saying goodbye to him almost as quickly as we greet each other for a visit. My father grew up in Texas. He remembers the Texas heat as he tore through National Geographic , eager to read about the world at large. After a childhood spent in the suburbs of Dallas, he won- dered: Why is there so much inequality?Why do people dis- criminate against each other based on race and class?Why do some people have so much and others so little? He grew into a curly-haired man who loved the Beatles and cute girls and wanted to help make the world a better place. One evening in the 1970s, he announced: “Mom, Dad, I’mmoving to Central Africa.” The response was “You are moving where ?” My father joined the Peace Corps and then the USAID Foreign Service. In his 33-year career he has served in Zaire, Haiti, Mali, Jamaica, Guinea, Ghana and Nepal. Now, as he contem- plates his next post, I have a message for him and for every Foreign Service man or woman nearing retire- ment, especially those brave enough to have raised their children overseas. I hope you take this mes- sage with you: Yes, you made me leave my friends and guaranteed that I would start over in school every three years and worry if Santa Claus would find us. But your work changed my heart; it taught me compassion and courage in a way I can never repay. Beyond what your career choice did for me, hundreds living in villages, towns and cities around the world will see better days because of you and your amazing work. I know how lucky I am to have been raised in the midst of such magnificent human power and imagination con- spiring to make the world a better place. Congratulations, Dad, on a job well done. So when you are lying on the sand with your face up to the sun, as retirement life sur- rounds you, never forget what you have done. The world is a better place because of you. n The author and her father in Haiti in the mid-1980s. FSO David Atteberry with local residents at his post in Nepal. COURTESYOFMAGGIEANTONIJEVIC COURTESYOFMAGGIEANTONIJEVIC