The Foreign Service Journal, April 2021

42 APRIL 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL Most difficult for Brown, however, was that extensive efforts to take her dogs with her proved futile. “I’m fortunate that friends and family are willing to take care of my pets,” she said shortly after arriving at post. “I know of many others without such a back- up plan.” Get in Touch with Folks Who’ve “Been There” Anne and Aaron Schofield and their six children were sched- uled to fly out of the United States to Amman, Jordan, on July 15. But there were many wrinkles along the way: securing medical clearances, obtaining eight diplomatic passports despite the passport office’s limited operations early in the pandemic, and setting up the kids’ schooling, for starters. Two months later, just before their departure date, the family’s school of choice unexpectedly said it was denying all the kids’ applications. Five days before boarding one of the last repatriate flights to Jordan, “we applied to another school without any time or ability to consider whether it would be a good fit for our kids,” Flexibility and proactivity are at the heart of some of the lessons we and others have learned. Anne Schofield says. (The kids were accepted.) The family finally landed in Amman on Sept. 10, “just as cases locally started to skyrocket.” Post didn’t have any available houses large enough for a fam- ily of eight, so the Schofields boarded in a hotel for five weeks. The family was given a choice of quarantining for three weeks without COVID-19 testing or quarantining for two weeks with two tests two weeks apart. “If any of the family tested positive, we would be evicted from the hotel with exactly nowhere to stay,” Schofield says. “We voted for three weeks of quarantine.” Fortu- nately, she adds, good folks at post arranged loaner toys for the kids, groceries and adapter plugs for the family’s many laptops. Schofield recommends that people with upcoming PCS plans join Facebook groups such as Trailing Houses, which, she says, “has kind people with many years of experience PCSing.” Many posts have private Facebook groups (usually organized through the Community Liaison Office) that can prove invaluable. You might also find good expat Facebook groups in the city to which you are moving. Schofield also recommends taking care of health care appointments in the United States before PCSing. Be Flexible and Proactive “2020 has been a year like no other in so many ways,” says Jimmi Sommer, the management counselor at Consulate Gen- eral Guayaquil in Ecuador. While working remotely in Bogotá, a city under rolling lockdowns, USAID legal counselor Monica Smith (at right) takes advantage of a biking outing to get to know her colleague USAID Mission Director Larry Sacks. CAMERONWOODWORTH