The Foreign Service Journal, April 2021

86 APRIL 2021 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL LOCAL LENS Please submit your favorite, recent photograph to be considered for Local Lens. Images must be high resolution (at least 300 dpi at 8” x 10”, or 1 MB or larger) and must not be in print elsewhere. Include a short description of the scene/event, as well as your name, brief biodata and the type of camera used. Send to locallens@afsa.org . T he moodiness of the Baltic Sea and Latvian summer—where it can be 75 degrees Fahrenheit one day and 45 the next, even in July—is captured in this photo taken at the beach in Jurmala, about 10 miles from Riga last July. It was my last visit to the beach before leaving Latvia at the end of my tour. I took the picture with an iPhone 8. n BY PAUL POLETES n JURMALA, LATVIA Paul Poletes is an Uzbek language student at FSI. He joined the Foreign Service in 1998 and has served in Athens, Dhaka, Bishkek, Tirana, Ashgabat, Riga and Washington, D.C.