The Foreign Service Journal, June 2008

trouble with the police; and for all of them, tumbling grades in school and college. They were scared, and no one knew how to help them. The only support that I received was the much-appreciated occa- sional telephone call and lunch meeting with Ambassador Pat Kennedy, who traveled to and from Baghdad, and a wonderful visit from Sheila Casey, General George Casey’s wife,” says Mrs. Negro- ponte. “Otherwise, from the State Department perspective, I might not have existed. I was alone in New York, our previous post, with no support. ... The stiff upper lip worked more or less for me. It did not work for our children.” It should be noted that although a formal structure for regular counseling of unaccompanied family members has yet to develop, FLO personnel are available for infor- mal counseling. In addition, State Department unac- companied spouses were recently made eligible for a lim- ited number of free telephone or face-to-face counseling sessions through MHN, a health-care network contract- ed by the Department of State and funded by a grant from the Cox Foundation. For more information on this service, contact FLO. For foreign-born spouses of Foreign Service employees, the problem of isolation may be com- pounded. About a third of all FS spouses are foreign-born, and they represent a comparable percentage of unaccompanied spouses. In addition to the other difficulties described here, they may be unfa- miliar with life in the U.S., and also more isolated from their own fami- lies. As such, some choose to live in their home countries for the dura- tion of the tour, despite the potential additional expense. Silvia Froats, an Austrian-born spouse whose husband served for a year in Banja Luka, chose this route. “As a foreign-born spouse, I did not have a good support sys- tem of family and friends in the U.S., and I therefore chose to take the kids to my home country for the dura- tion of the tour. From talking to other foreign-born spouses, I think this would be the natural choice for most of them,” she says. Spouses who choose to live in their home countries are still a part of the U.S. Foreign Service community, however, and would like to stay connected. Froats sug- gests that “if foreign-born spouses elect to spend an unac- companied tour in their home country, there should be a way to include them in the mission’s community, so they can get some support from the Community Liaison Office and the Local Employment Adviser.” The Transition Center offers a course called “Trans- ition to Washington for Foreign-Born Spouses.” Coping Mechanisms Unaccompanied spouses, particularly those with chil- dren, all speak of a need for more hours in the day. Capie Polk describes the life of a busy unaccompanied spouse: “In addition to caring for my child, myself and our pets, I service two cars, maintain our house, manage all the finances, plan vacations, and communicate with my family and husband’s family. By that I mean I buy and send all holiday, birthday gifts, cards, etc., plus call them all to relay whatever my husband has communicated to me. And I manage health care for myself, my son and my husband, making appointments for when he is here on leave. You get the picture. The only thing I find I do less of this year is laundry, and I make up for that when my F O C U S 32 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 8 The Family Liaison Office has just one unaccompanied tour support position — and no funds dedicated to that purpose. Unaccompanied Posts as of March 2008 Unaccompanied AFGHANISTAN: Kabul IRAQ: Baghdad PAKISTAN: Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar SAUDI ARABIA: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dhahran Limited-Accompanied ALGERIA: Algiers BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA: Banja Luka CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC: Bangui CHAD: N’Djamena KENYA: Kisumu KOSOVO: Pristina LEBANON: Beirut LIBERIA: Monrovia REPUBLIC OF CONGO: Brazzaville SUDAN: Khartoum YEMEN: Sanaa