The Foreign Service Journal, May 2011

48 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 1 1 bucking me on school. HIM: You aren’t interested in the city council? HER: I have my own city council here, with four citizens, and they need their father to help sort them out. HIM: From Iraq? HER: You have Internet con- tact with the kids? HIM: Yes, I have . . . HER: I talked to Katie today. She and Seb are doing well, but Seb’s parents are not. HIM: I’m happy to connect with the kids; what’s the issue? HER: They are not in good health; real problems with walking now. HIM: The kids are having problems walking? I thought it was just schoolwork. HER: Are you paying attention to this conversation at all? Seb’s dad has some health issues. HIM: We got a new guy coming onto the team today — very impressive. HER: That’s nice. Is he any good working with kids remotely on school work? HIM: He’s having trouble getting around, walking? That’ll be tough. HER: Great, your new guy has trouble walking. What the heck kind of a system do you have out there that they send you people that can’t get around? No wonder you don’t have time to help the kids. HIM: He gets around fine, and he will be a real asset as we set up the city councils. HER: Impressive in math, science or English compo- sition? HIM: The City Council members I have met didn’t impress with any math or science skills, but I can check. Anyone studying Arabic? HER: You didn’t answer my question about the new guy. HIM: Can we go back to letters and leave this chat thing alone? HER: Coward. HIM: Really, I need to get to a meeting. Will write you later. HER: Don’t tell me, a “team” meeting? HIM: Right, and my new guy is not a coward just because he has trouble walking. After that, we stuck with e- mail, supplemented by the ran- dom face-to-face visit. But even that was fraught with challenges. Home for the Holidays In December 2003 I took the opportunity to get home for Christmas. I felt guilty since my military colleagues were not al- lowed a similar break, but not guilty enough not to do it. I had met several times with Hungarian diplomats who had traveled to Ramadi to investigate the killing of a Hungarian citizen at a U.S. army checkpoint. They men- tioned a direct two-hour flight out of Damascus. In- cluding the seven-hour drive to Damascus, the trip is about 10 hours door to door — compared to the 48 hours it would have taken to drive to Baghdad, fly via military air to Kuwait, and then take a commercial flight to Bu- dapest through Frankfurt. So on Dec. 23, 2003, I donned a kafeeyah, bundled myself in the backseat of a black BMW and drove with Samir, the governor’s translator’s brother, to a house in Ramadi where we switched vehicles. We then drove to his house where we had breakfast, switched vehicles again and then proceeded to the Syrian border. The drive was uneventful until we arrived at the border itself. I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the border post, knowing there were U.S. soldiers on the Iraqi side that we could rely on in a pinch. Suddenly, without explanation, the driver turned around and went back into Iraq. I asked what he was doing. “Petrol,” he said. “It is a fraction of the cost in Iraq. We need to fill up.” “Look,” I said, “I’ll pay the difference, whatever it costs.” “No, Mr. Keith, no need. I know a guy who knows a guy, who has a barrel of gas. It will just take a minute.” And so we gassed up, at 17 cents a gallon. The border post itself was right out of central casting, with long lines, lots of stamps, and absolute bedlam inside and out. The confusion was not helped by the appear- ance of the first-ever American diplomat crossing into Syria from Iraq. The border officials were not at all sure F O C U S I took the opportunity to get home for Christmas. I felt guilty since my military colleagues were not allowed a similar break, but not guilty enough not to do it.