The Foreign Service Journal, February 2003

F O C U S 56 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 0 3 2000 N. 14th Street Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22201 Telephone (703) 797-3259 Fax (703) 524-7559 Tollfree (800) 424-9500 community warm and welcoming. We needed each other, so friendships formed quickly — and were cement- ed when we were reunited back in the U.S. Air freight was simple. I insisted on essentials — all the Legos, all the Playmobiles, our most impor- tant books and music, things that would make our exile homier. We didn’t anticipate moving back into our house, but our property manager had had the fore- sight to rent it to four Moroccan students, who returned home just as we returned to the U.S. So we camped out in our own home. We rented a table and chairs, TV and video, borrowed air mattresses and slept on the floor. The kids’ Legos and Playmobiles filled the house. I loved having no furniture — cleaning was so simple! The children returned to the school they’d left in June. I anticipated an easy read- justment for our daughter, a more difficult one for our son. Adele, however, couldn’t get into the same class as her best friend — a tragedy for a fourth-grader — while Max was welcomed into his first-grade classroom by the nurturing student teacher he’d had in kindergarten. The best friend still lived next door, however, and loved playing in our empty house after school. When the evacuation was lifted my husband returned to Tunisia for a few months, until we were reassigned to Morocco. The children and I spent what amounted to an extended vacation at home. Not bad; not bad at all! Kathy Uphaus is a freelance writer and the editor of The Jute Newsletter in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where her husband Charles works for USAID. I insisted on essentials — all the Legos, all the Playmobiles, books and music, things that would make our exile homier.