The Foreign Service Journal, October 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | OCTOBER 2021 49 Kovia Gratzon-Erskine joined the Foreign Service in 2007 and currently manages monitoring, evaluation and learning (MEL) and organizational development at USAID/Guatemala. Her previ- ous postings as a public health specialist include Antananarivo and Port-au-Prince; she also rendered support from Washington, D.C., to Monrovia, Freetown and Conakry during an Ebola outbreak and served in Moldova as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer. In 2016 she became a resilience trainer through the State Department’s Center of Excellence in Foreign Affairs Resilience. Her Speaking Out column, “Compassion Fatigue in the Foreign Service,” was published in the March 2019 FSJ . I am no stranger to fire. I have been posted overseas driving past burning buildings during riots or through roadblocks with stacks of burning tires and rock-throw- ing protesters. What I had never experienced until the fall of 2020 was an out-of-control forest fire, sweeping through a drought-ridden valley, taking out homes and old growth forest, and threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands. At 3 a.m. irksome chirps frommy cell phone woke me. The alert: “Phase 2: Be ready. Stand by for evacuation orders.” Not wanting to wake my parents whom I was visiting in As climate change boosts the frequency and severity of natural disasters, diplomats will increasingly find themselves dealing with the fallout. BY KOV I A GRATZON - ERSK I NE FOCUS ON CLIMATE CHANGE DIPLOMACY Climate Change: It’s Personal Oregon, I quietly began packing what I considered most crucial: grandma’s writings and instruments, family photographs, papers frommy dad’s adoption, my passport, electronics, some clothes and creative projects. I filled gallon jugs of water and stashed away Clif bars, trail mix and Gatorade. At 5 a.m. the sound of clanking metal and heavy tires sent me out to the usually quiet rural road. There, recreational vehicles and trucks full of livestock, tools, tractors and anything else that could fit barreled through the dark morning. These people reacting to “Phase 1: Leave now” lived a mere 20 minutes away. I woke my parents. “Time to pack,” I said. “Take what you can’t imagine losing.” By 8 a.m. the kitchen table had turned into evacuation stag- ing. I grabbed pillows and blankets. Barely a week out of surgery, my mother could hardly get out of bed. While she packed one small bag, I collapsed her walker, bed bolsters, shower chair, makeshift toilet, medicines and ice machine. My dad packed his CBD products for arthritis and SSRIs for depression and anxiety. “How long are we going to be gone?” He wanted to gauge how much dog and cat food to bring. “Is that right?” he asked, point- ing to the clock. It said 8:30, but outside it was dark as night. At 9 a.m. the sky was red. I rushed outside to look for fire. The smoke made me cough, and I ran back in. “Time to go. Dad, get the animals; I'll get Mom.” White ash fell as I packed