The Foreign Service Journal, May 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2022 67 anthropology from Columbia University. After living in Côte d’Ivoire for several years and having two daughters, Ama Otubia Dei and Ajowa Obeaku Dei (who passed away in 1989), Ms. Dei went on to have a distinguished career with the U.S. Agency for International Development. During her time with USAID, she served as an officer and mission direc- tor in Haiti, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa and Mali before retiring in 2015 from the Senior Foreign Service. She con- tinued to work as a counselor for USAID until a few months before her death. Drawing on her childhood experi- ences, Ms. Dei was driven by a profound need to help others. Friends and family recall that she often engaged in acts of kindness, sharing whatever she had and serving as a mentor to many. She loved colors, patterns, jewelry, music and art. She relished a good mango sorbet and a well-written story or TV show, long walks and crossword puzzles. She was witty and had the gift of repartee. Ms. Dei is survived by her daughter, Ama Dei, and son-in-law, Paul Davis; her granddaughter, Zara; her brother, Wycliffe Bennett, and sister-in-law, Dothlyn Bennett; her niece, Kahrin Ben- nett, and nephew, Kendal Bennett; her nephew-in-law, Lenny Lefebvre; grand- nephews, Kahlayo and Keanu Lefebvre; and her grand-niece, Willamina Lefebvre. Her article on the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, published in the January-February 2020 FSJ , can be read here: afsa.org/ tremblement. n John Paul Modderno II , 79, a retired Foreign Service officer, passed away from lung cancer on Jan. 8, 2022, in the comfort of his home in Washing- ton, D.C. Mr. Modderno was born on Nov. 20, 1942. His mother, Agnes Elizabeth Brod- erick, after giving birth to him, wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt asking if her husband, John Paul Modderno I, could leave his military post in Greenland to meet their new son. The first lady agreed, annoying the commanding officer and kicking off a novelesque life for their child. Mr. Modderno graduated from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service and, following a short stint in the Com- merce Department, landed his first State Department assignment in 1969. His career included promoting fish farming in the Vietnamese countryside, negotiating the first tax agreements with China and throwing dinner parties that fostered free elections in Nicaragua, where he served as chargé d’affaires. He raised four children with his signature gallows humor and tales of adventure across Brooklyn, Maryland, D.C., Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Cuba, Nica- ragua and the Philippines. After retiring as a member of the Senior Foreign Service in 1993, Mr. Mod- derno moved between Beijing, Naples (Fla.), New Haven (Conn.) and Washing- ton, D.C., always eating well, raising his family and chasing his curiosities. He read widely and eclectically, and audited Yale classes and online lectures ranging from Roman architecture to the birth of Judaism, the paintings of Kerry James Marshall, Bayes’ theorem, the dominance of the U.S. dollar and, of course, foreign policy. Friends and family members say he never stopped seeking to “fill the gaps” in his knowledge. Those who knew him will remember him for his brilliance, appetite for life and wicked wit. In addition to his loving wife, Jamie Patricia Horsley, and their children, Eliz- abeth Shires Modderno, Anne Vanessa Modderno, John Paul Modderno III and Jane Casey Modderno, he is survived by four grandchildren, two great-grand- children and four siblings: Mary Law, Joseph Modderno, James Modderno and Patricia Ryan. n Jose Tito Ledda Nakpil , 69, a retired Foreign Service officer, passed away on Jan. 20, 2022, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Born Feb. 6, 1952, in the Manila area, Philippines, Mr. Nakpil was the oldest son of Sim Pingul and Julia Nera Ledda Nakpil. He graduated from Notre Dame of Greater Manila high school in 1969 and attended the University of the Philip- pines before immigrating to the U.S. with his mother and siblings in 1971, two years after his father had done so. Mr. Nakpil became a U.S. citizen in the late 1970s. He obtained a B.S. degree in 1979 and a master’s degree in computer science from Pennsylvania State Univer- sity in 1981. He worked for IBM for 13 years. In 2001 his sister Vicky, a Foreign Service officer, persuaded him to join the State Department. While on assignment to Burkina Faso, he met his future wife, Martine, in 2003. They married in 2005. During his State Department years, Mr. Nakpil, his wife and their children lived in Niger (2004-2006), Nigeria (2006- 2008), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (2008-2010) and, finally, Washington, D.C. He worked at this last post as an information system officer until retiring in August 2013. Mr. Nakpil’s many eclectic interests included doing extreme sports such as motor biking, mountain biking, kayak- ing and hang gliding; reading constantly; camping in the snow (once for two months); and traveling to all 50 states (driving to 49 of them).