The Foreign Service Journal, March 2022

46 MARCH 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL and baggage handling. For most of us, it was a career in which we had no prior experience. During my time volunteering at the center, there were sto- ries of great tragedy and lives uprooted, but equally there was example after example of resilience and a determination to put forward a brave face—which I can only imagine took incred- ible resolve. I am honored to have been able to volunteer. To the Afghans we were able to resettle, I wish you great success in your new country. Yet, we also need to remember that our job is not done; hundreds more in Afghanistan still need our assistance. Mike Junge is a supervisory contracting officer for USAID/Peru. A Dulles Landing and a NewWristband DULLES EXPO CENTER, VIRGINIA Danielle Spinard I volunteered at the Dulles Expo Center as part of an amazing team helping to “intake” hundreds of Afghan refugees. Of the many, many Afghans we processed, one stands out for me. I remember clearly the exhausted face of a mother traveling alone with her two children. On their arms were stacked differ- ent colored wristbands. They held out their arms while we cut the old ones off and then added a new one. The wristbands were a sign of each transition and “check-in” this family had made on their way out of Afghanistan. I tried to make this wristband different, so I scribbled a happy face on the kids’ bracelets. In my feeble attempt to humanize this process, I looked up at the mother again, and through the cover of face masks, we smiled at each other. I saw tears. As a mother of two young children, I can attest to the challenge of traveling with small human beings—the constant demand for attention, snacks, the bathroom. But I have never had to flee a country with just the clothes on my back and with children in tow. I have been tired but not so exhausted that the mere act of holding up an arm for another identity tag would set off tears. I wanted to tell her: “It’s all right now. You’re safe. Everything will be OK.” But, of course, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even tell her where they were going next. I didn’t know. I wanted to ask her about how she came to sit before me, what her background was, her story. Getting to know the people we work with is a vital part of our jobs as USAID officers. It sensi- tizes us to their struggles, helps us shape programs to meet their needs, and places a human face amid budgets and bureaucracy. It wasn’t the time or place to ask such questions. The line was long behind her, and she was eager to move on. We finished the intake process, and the mother and her children moved on to the next step in their journey. I hope this phase of their transition is going well, and they are settling into their new home, here in our country. Danielle Spinard is a Foreign Service officer with USAID who served as a volunteer at the intake center in Dulles, Virginia, during August 2021. During her career, she has served in Kosovo, Afghanistan, Colombia and Washington, D.C. She is currently posted in Lima as the regional migration and health office director. U.S. SAFE HAVENS Calling All Americans: Welcome the NewArrivals VARIOUS U.S. BASES Kathleen M. Corey Afghan women with veiled faces trying to keep sand from their eyes during a windstorm at Fort Bliss. Laughing children playing a game of pick-up soccer with Marines at Quantico. Afghan men at Fort Pickett asking if their wives will have to work to make ends meet and, if so, who will take care of the children. Young women at Camp Atterbury worried about how they will support themselves in the United States. These are images I will carry with me for a long time. After eight weeks at these bases implementing a cultural orientation program designed by the State Department’s Bureau of Popu- lation, Refugees, and Migration–funded Cultural Orientation Resource Exchange, I have many lasting memories of my time at the “safe havens” around the United States. Some of my most difficult moments came when Afghans approached me after cultural orientation classes. A veiled woman with tear-filled eyes showed me pictures of her badly beaten father, mother and brother in their coffins, killed by the Taliban. A man showed me a photo of a beautiful little girl, his niece, killed in the airport bombing. Grown men wept as they told of family members still in Afghanistan, fearful of Taliban reprisals. As a retired Foreign Service officer, I know that interagency