The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2022 47 important papers better and donated some things I had been meaning to get rid of.” She also advises others to “set aside emer- gency funds, as there are lodging, transportation and clothing expenses that may never be fully reimbursed.” Identify family and friend helpers or potential hosts, says a Kyiv evacuee, “and have conversations with them about being part of your ‘just-in-case’ team.” Have U.S. dollars and a working credit card on hand, and consider keeping a U.S. SIM card active so you can text family and access the internet as soon as you land in the States. Evacuations can be triggered by war, civil unrest, local criminal violence or natural disasters. The Hayden children make their way to their flight out of Ukraine in late January. COURTESYOFJESSICAHAYDEN The Need for Good, Timely Information When it comes to evacuations, says one anonymous Foreign Service specialist: “Nothing is centralized. You’d think it would be. But it all depends on the RSO [regional security officer] and the front office. It becomes a leadership thing at post—did they plan for this or not?” One spouse in Kyiv said: “The lack of good information shared with the community prior to the drawdown was a real stressor, and those whispers and rumblings among us only served to ratchet up the tension. That is a fact of an evacuation—you are not going to get good information when you want it. This will frustrate you and maybe make you angry. Please don’t direct that anger at people who are working to help everyone through the situation.” Be prepared to be your own advocate. You may need to pur- chase your own plane tickets to leave post. You may need to get yourself and your family to the airport or drive across borders. You may need to figure out the bureaucracy of exporting a pet in a foreign language on your own. Although there are always things you can do to be better prepared, each departure will look and feel different—and there is never a way to be fully prepared. Flex- ibility and the knowledge (and acceptance) that you can’t control how the path will unfold may be your best tools. “There were a lot of people who were not happy with the way things were communicated/handled,” an FSO assigned to Kyiv said of the recent evacuation. They felt their boss did a good job sharing information, but acknowledged that not everyone may have thought so. “I don’t have EFMs to update,” the FSO said, “but as we’ve seen on Trailing Houses [Facebook group], commu- nicating honestly to spouses is not something at which all direct hires excel.” Make sure your family members have the informa- tion they need to make decisions. Pages from their wedding album that Laura Gehrenbeck’s husband preserved during the evacuation from Ukraine. COURTESYOFLAURAGEHRENBECK