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33
Foreign Service
WALKING INTO THE OFFICE Tuesday morning was almost like having never been gone. Josie met us as we carted our suitcases and camera equipment to our office, which was undisturbed, despite having been mostly vacant for a year or more.
“We have two units down,” Josie said as she launched into her report. “A mob attacked the US embassy in Nicosia, Cyprus and killed two people. The passport tech threw the kill switch on the device when the ambassador was shot. The Deputy Chief of Mission ordered all non-essential personnel evacuated after that. It was a real mess.”
“I can’t believe we were just there in January,” I sighed. “The ambassador hadn’t been appointed yet, so we never met.”
“Without the equipment, of course, the techs were non-essential and were evacuated to the British air base and then flown to Athens,” Josie concluded.
“Where’s the other malfunctioning unit?” Ronda asked.
“Damascus, Syria,” Josie said.
“We didn’t install equipment in Syria,” I said.
“When the embassy was established in June, there was a backlog of visa requests. Since you weren’t there, the techs in Amman, Jordan were flown to Damascus along with the equipment in July. Unfortunately, the equipment was damaged in transit. That will be one of your first stops this fall.”
“The equipment should have transported just fine,” I mused. “I’ll bet it wasn’t secured properly. Okay. Syria first.”
“No, Oman first. The embassy was formerly under the ambassador to Bahrain. This year, separate ambassadors have been assigned to each of those Gulf States. He arrived in July. Since you’ll be based in Oman, it is only appropriate that you install equipment and train people there first,” Josie said. “Though, I have to tell you, I think there are only eight or ten Americans working in the chancery. And a few Foreign Service Nationals for support. The chancery is an old building next to the British embassy and the ambassador lives on an upper floor of the same building.”
“Okay. What is on our schedule this week?” I asked.
“After a couple of general staff meetings today, and your initial briefing with Mr. Martin, you need to cross-check the shipment of equipment to your base to be sure everything has been properly included. Tomorrow, you fly to Washington DC for your mission briefing with the Foreign Service.”
“I’d almost forgotten that we were officially part of the Foreign Service,” I sighed.
We started the day’s work.
Wednesday, we headed for the airport with Mr. Martin and Josie to go to Washington DC. We met with everyone we interface with from diplomatic services, courier services, passport services, and visa services. They all had goals for the coming season and much of the meeting was negotiating a balance among the responsibilities. I was glad Mr. Martin was there to defend the primary mission. We had a lot of countries to deal with in the next eight months. Probably nine months. Even though my time in Alternative Service would officially end at the end of April, I’d probably stay on through May to wrap things up.
About three o’clock, just when I thought we were finished for the day, Robert Brice from the London embassy showed up. Turns out he’d just been promoted into the Bureau of Diplomatic Security as Regional Manager for the Facilities Security Division in the Middle East and Africa. It looked like we’d be seeing a lot of Robert and his wife, Joanne, this year. I liked the guy and Joanne had been a frequent companion of Anna and Patricia when we were in London.
He’d been promoted to the new position right after the attack on the chancery in Nicosia. His major interrelation with Ronda and me would be the ID badge program. However, he’d chosen to be stationed in Oman and was requesting inclusion on our missions and input into the order in which we served countries in the Middle East and Africa. There was a tough negotiation between him and Mr. Martin, with Ms. Clark in visa services, and with Mr. Phillips in the Courier Service, which was also now a part of Diplomatic Security.
“Anything else?” Martin asked Brice.
“Just one thing. We recognize that Nate and Ronda carry mission critical equipment and sensitive documents and materials. We’d like them to be trained and issued a personal protective device.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Robert?”
“I think you should be carrying a handgun for emergencies, like you had when you were hijacked.”
“No.”
“It should be a job requirement,” he insisted.
“Robert, I am serving alternative service in the State Department under Section 6(j) of the Military Selective Service Act of 1967. That section clearly states, ‘Nothing contained in this title… shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form.’ I will carry documents, carry equipment, carry my lunch, carry on, carry out, and carry over, but I will not carry a gun.”
Robert looked to Mr. Martin, who just shook his head.
“There is nothing in either Nate’s or Ronda’s job description that requires them to carry a weapon,” he said. “We have to block that request, Mr. Brice.”
“I was just trying to make it safer for them,” Robert said, settling back in his chair. “I don’t have any further input or requests.”
Thursday, we received regional briefings on Africa, the Middle East, and Australasia. These were accompanied by detailed documents on each of the countries in that region and the type of diplomatic presence the US had there. Ronda and I agreed that we could share one set of documents rather than pack another entire bag with nothing but paper in it.
Friday morning, Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs Johnson and a representative of the Bureau of Near East Affairs met with us, in the company of Mr. Martin.
“This meeting is just to wish you well on the next leg of your journey,” Johnson said. “Ms. Carmichael is here to show you various support lines that can be used. We do have some coordination among the embassies in this region.”
We shook hands all the way around and Josie settled beside us to keep notes. Most of the short meeting was spent with a view of existing channels of communication among the embassies and how we may be asked occasionally to step in for a courier or messenger if it was convenient.
“This is your official assignment to the Embassy in Muscat, Oman,” Johnson said, handing us each a folder with our assignment in it. “You will present this to the ambassador at the chancery. This next folder contains your diplomatic credentials, which the embassy will lodge with the Omani Foreign Ministry. They’re routinely accepted, but it might take a few days and you won’t be able to do official business in Oman until they’ve been accepted. You can use that time to settle in. You’ll have an office assigned and will be expected to show up in it periodically. A courier will meet you at the end of each trip to accept your packages for the State Department, and your continued deliveries of exposed film. We still want to get everyone with an official photograph on post. A courier will arrive before each of your trips to give you packages for your stops along the way. We are on good and improving terms with the Sultanate of Oman, though there continue to be human rights issues. Progress is being made. You’ve proven yourselves capable in all aspects of your job. Therefore, it is also my privilege to promote you both to Senior Foreign Service Specialist with an accompanying general schedule upgrade to FS2. Congratulations.”
“FS?”
“New ranking for senior foreign service employees. Equivalent to the old GS16.”
He shook hands with Ronda and me. All we could do is mutter our thanks. Then we joined Martin and Josie for the return flight to Chicago.
Anna met us at O’Hare and took us to Camp Otterbein where Patricia and the children were entertaining Mom and Dad. The last children of the camping season had just left. The camp was extremely quiet.
“Oh, it won’t stay quiet for long,” Mom said. “We have six long weekend adult retreats scheduled before Thanksgiving, and then there are holiday camps in December. We won’t be sitting around getting fat and lazy.”
“Not to mention that your mother is scheduled to speak someplace different in the conference almost every weekend,” Dad said. “We won’t be simply stuck in the wilderness all winter.”
“Well, Monday, we have to go back to the airport and catch our flight to Oman,” I said. “The meetings this week in Washington left me so exhausted that I am already dreading going back on the road.”
“Did it strike you as odd that they gave us something like ten times the briefing for this assignment than they did before sending us to India or Mexico?” Ronda asked. “Our only meetings in Washington were to drop off packages and your one week of training regional techs.”
“I guess having to cover so much of the world this winter merits the change,” I said.
“I’m just excited to be spending the winter someplace warm!” Anna said.
“I will speak Arabic language all the time,” Toni said. Then she translated what she’d just said. Ronda spoke back to her and they laughed.
“What did you say?” Patricia asked.
“That if she spoke Arabic in the British School, no one would understand her,” Ronda chuckled. “I think she’s just figuring out that school will be in English.”
“Why’d we learn Arabic?” Toni asked indignantly.
“Because everyone outside of school and the embassy speaks Arabic. We need to buy groceries and learn how to take a bus,” Patricia said. “And you speak the language much better than I do, so we’ll be depending on you to help us with shopping and finding where things are.”
“Mommy, I need to learn the alphabet. Arabic makes funny letters and they go backwards!”
“The letters will make sense to you very quickly,” Ronda said. “I’m sorry I didn’t share my book with you while we were learning to speak. I thought it would be too advanced. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, Mom Ronna. I will learn.”
“She certainly will,” Mom said after watching the interchange. “I hope you have her in a good school in Oman.”
“We were going to send her to the British School because it was chartered by the Sultan,” Ronda said. “But we just found out from our briefing that there is also an American school at the airport. They call it the TWA school because a lot of the kids are children of staff at TWA and Pan Am. If you want us to check it out when we get there next week, just tell me, Patricia.”
“If it is decent as a school, I don’t have a preference. You should decide where we’re going to live and we’ll enroll in the school nearest,” Patricia said.
We really had a wonderful and relaxed weekend with Mom and Dad. We even had a campfire Saturday night and sat around singing songs and toasting marshmallows. I discovered Toni had already mastered the art of catching a little white pillow on fire and blowing it out to sandwich it between graham crackers and chocolate.
Monday, the family took us to O’Hare to start our trip to Oman. Anna, Patricia, and the children would be spending a few days in Tenbrook before returning to Camp Otterbein to await their summons to join us. Ronda and I were carrying more baggage than we were accustomed to. We each had two large suitcases, my camera cases, tripod bag, and our courier bags. I sincerely hoped that Josie had made the necessary arrangements for a pick up when we arrived in Muscat.
That would take a while. We had three connections on this trip. We were flying to New York, from there to London, then to Istanbul, and finally to Muscat. Total elapsed time would be some 30 hours, not including the time from when we left Camp to the airport, or from the airport to our hotel.
That would get us in between three-thirty and four in the morning on Wednesday.
The good part about this trip was flying first class all the way on some interesting airlines. And, our black passports made clearing customs at each stop-over a breeze, though we still had to collect our luggage in London and Istanbul to change airlines.
We quickly hired porters in each location to transport our bags.
Upon our eventual arrival at Seeb International Airport, we saw a familiar person waiting to meet us.
“Nate! Ronda! You’ve made it!”
“Nancy, we’re just as happy to see you here,” I said. Ronda hugged our stewardess. “We have to pick up a lot of luggage.”
“Not to worry. Jay is waiting at the luggage arrival. We weren’t sure if you’d manage to leave the area up here or down there. Come on. I’ll show you the way.”
“It’s good to see you, Nancy. When did you guys get in?”
“Just last week. We had the plane down for a full service check in London, and then flew from there to here. It was a long trip.”
“We’re going to have a lot of those, I’m afraid. Where are we staying?”
“The crew has taken three suites in an apartment hotel for as long as we’re here. We have a suite there for you until you find a place to live.”
“Great. All I want at the moment is a bed,” I said.
We located Jay and claimed all our bags. He had rented a van for us. We got loaded up and he drove into town. I didn’t really see much of the town because my eyes kept drifting closed. We were at the hotel by five and didn’t even need to check in. Nancy had the key to our apartment and led us straight to it.
We thanked our crew for getting us and saw them enter the same room, just down the hall from us.
“Looks like they’re saving money by rooming together,” Ronda laughed. That was all the clever conversation we had. We just stripped and fell into bed.
We pretty much just stayed in bed Wednesday. We didn’t need to present ourselves at the embassy until Friday, but I thought we’d probably stop in on Thursday, then try to get our bearings for the city. We had a lot of tasks to accomplish before we could send for our family. We met the crew for dinner and they showed us a restaurant they’d found. We had a good meal.
“The only thing is to not expect any pork or bacon or sausage here,” Luke said. “It’s going to be a miserable year.”
“I sympathize,” I said. “We’ll have to keep an eye out for countries where we can get bacon and eggs for breakfast.”
“And starting next week, don’t expect to eat anything before sundown. It’s Ramadan. The restaurants don’t even open until sundown. Except at the airport. It’s run by Pan Am and they hire European cooks,” Jay said.
“And really, what Europeans and Americans do is up to them. There’s no law that a non-Muslim has to fast,” Nancy said.
“It could be hard on the children,” Ronda said.
“Children are exempt anyway,” Nancy responded.
“So, Nance. Are you and Jay an item now?” Ronda asked.
“We’re trying it out,” she said, squeezing Jay’s hand. “Seems to work okay so far.”
“The summer schedule was pretty chaotic,” Jay said. “We were out as much as a month at a time, shuttling diplomats and couriers from one country to another.”
“We kind of leaned on each other for support,” Nancy said.
“Okay. I was wondering what you guys did all summer,” Ronda said.
“I’m guessing it’s not over yet,” Luke said. “We were given clear orders that you are our priority, but if you’re spending a week at the embassy, we might be called to go anywhere while you’re grounded.”
“Like next week,” Jay said. “You aren’t scheduled to fly anywhere, but we’ve got a run from here to Tehran to Ankara to Riyadh and back here.”
“You’ll be headed back almost the same direction the following week when we go to Damascus,” I said.
“Fine with me,” Luke said. “I’m not all that fond of the courier runs. They really aren’t very considerate passengers.”
“Speaking of which, you remember Robert Brice? He’ll be traveling with us a lot. At least on the Middle East trips. He got a promotion and will be stationed here, too,” I said. “I wonder if he’s arrived yet.”
“Guess we’ll find out tomorrow,” Ronda said. “Have you guys reported to the embassy yet?”
“Not formally,” Luke said.
“You should come with us tomorrow, then. From what I hear, the five of us represent a fifty percent increase in the staff based here.”
The ambassador was cordial and welcomed us to Oman. He was also significantly younger than most of the ambassadors we’d met. It seemed that getting to the level of career ambassador usually took until a guy was sixty, but Ambassador Wells was only in his mid-forties. He and his family lived on the floor above the offices in what was a rather plain building with a lot of steps out front.
“We’d like to start training your passport techs and get the equipment set up next week,” I said.
“Of course,” he said. “I think we’ll have a couple of our Omani staff train. They speak English.”
“Sir? Our directive indicates that the passport technicians must be American staff members. I don’t believe we can train people who are not American citizens,” I said. “It has to do with the level of security. They will have access to everything needed to create authentic passports and visas.”
“Ow. That is going to hurt. When I was in Kenya, we were using nationals, but the information and application were sent to a processing center to have the visa or passport manufactured. I see the problem. We’ll be able to produce a passport or visa locally. Hmm. That was an oversight in our instruction. I’ll have to review our staffing and decide who I can spare for the task. The good thing is that we don’t have that many requests at the moment, though requests for student visas are increasing.”
“I hope it doesn’t create too much of a problem,” I said.
“I understand you are bringing your family to live here,” he said.
“Yes, sir. As soon as we find a place for them to live.”
“What if we trained our wives to operate the equipment? Of course, the application would need to be processed just as we always do, but it wouldn’t really take a staff person to do this manufacturing and photography, would it?”
“Sir, I believe that if you have clearance from the State Department, you could appoint anyone with a black passport. I assume that your wife, as an embassy adjunct, is traveling on a black passport. Our wives are,” I said.
“Your wives? That sounds interesting. I had assumed it would be your wife and Ms. May’s husband. I detect that you have a family that might fit right in with life in a Muslim country,” he chuckled.
He also welcomed our crew and we had to clarify that their mission was to support us and not the embassy. The ambassador took it all in stride.
After having presented our credentials and getting a thorough tour of the chancery, we stopped in our new office and put a call through to our family. It was only seven in the morning in Tenbrook, but we connected with Patricia and Anna at Tor and Elise’s house where Toni was having a good time entertaining her grandparents and Alex was copying everything she did.
“Work at the embassy?” Anna said. “That sounds cool. As long as it isn’t so much that I can’t help Patricia with the kids. Half the time they are into something together and the other half they are running off in opposite directions.”
“I could take the training,” Patricia said, “but I don’t think I’d be available for even as much time as Anna. We’ll have to see how the schedule with the children goes.”
“It’s just something to keep in the back of your minds as you get ready to travel. You won’t have quite as extensive a support network here as you did in London. You might be looking for something to do,” Ronda said.
Ronda and I spent the next few days looking for housing. There was plenty available, but the European and English-speaking communities tended to be gathered near the airport or near the oil shipping. We managed to get a bank account set up at a bank at the airport that was specifically geared to meet the needs of foreign nationals. Like us. It had a link to our bank in London and so it was not difficult to get wire transfers of our salary changed to this bank. I wished Anna was here to review everything, but she assured me by phone over the weekend that it would be okay.
The problem with the housing available in the English-speaking neighborhoods was that it was all the cheapest and poorest housing quality that could be seen in Muscat. It looked like they had imported post-war cracker box houses from a suburb of Chicago.
Ronda went to work, starting with the concierge at our hotel who referred us to the owner. Once we got through to him that we did not wish to buy one of his apartment suites or to rent one long-term, he agreed that he could help us find something. There were times when I wished Toni was with us because Ronda and I both struggled with some of the language issues.
Eventually, we found a nice house that was fully furnished with five bedrooms. It was really the Omani equivalent of American cookie cutter homes, but they were more interesting cookies. There were ten homes on each side of the street that all looked identical. They were walled, had a square tower, and pleasant entry with a garage. This went on for half a dozen blocks in every direction. We’d need to be sure we were on the right street before we made any attempt to enter the house.
The owner of the property went to the bank with us so we could get a translator to help with the transaction and be sure we weren’t agreeing to live there for the next ten years. The price seemed fair, and the owner insisted that a housekeeper and cook would be employed to take care of us.
Then the banker mentioned that we were employed by the American embassy.
I thought we’d lost the property. The owner began waving his arms emphatically and spoke more rapidly than either Ronda or I could translate. Fortunately, our banker nodded and waited until the owner had run down before he began explaining to us.
“Mr. Al Saadi has explained that he thought you worked for the oil companies, which are known to pay far more than is just to their workers. As such, he thought he was merely taking a fair share of that bounty from you. When he found out you work for the American government, though, he realized the rent he was charging was far too high and has asked me to reduce it by twenty-five percent in the contract,” the banker explained.
“That is very kind of Mr. Al Saadi,” Ronda said. We bowed our heads slightly to the man, which seemed to make him very proud.
“Also, his cousin’s wife’s niece has a job at the American embassy and she speaks very highly of the people there. He says that if there are other Americans in need of housing, he knows of several similar properties in the same neighborhood.”
“That is very good to know,” I said. “I know another family that is moving here shortly and they would make good neighbors.”
The banker quickly amended the lease, and noted the changes. Then he had the lease translated into English—a process that didn’t take too long since it was a short document. It reminded me of the bill of sale for our property in Canada which was only a page long. Once we all had the documents and had read them, we signed the lease and the bank transferred our first month’s rent to Mr. Al Saadi.
We took great care to follow Mr. Al Saadi back to the house, marking our way on a map so we could find it again. Once we were there, he presented us with the keys and introduced our housekeeper and cook. They were lovely women, I would guess in their forties or so. They wore simple but colorful dresses and scarves over their hair. Their first question was whether we would want dinner that evening.
We declined and said we would move in the next day and would not require a meal before evening. We said ‘Salaam,’ and drove back to the hotel, where we surrendered our rental car. Soon we would need to find a car, I supposed.
Our new home was between the embassy and the airport and we agreed that it would be much easier to have Toni in school at the TWA school instead of the British school. That night we called our wives at Mom’s house at camp. They were thrilled that we were able to get the housing situation taken care of and that it was all furnished. That meant we would only need to transport clothes and personal items. I estimated eight large suitcases by the time they were finished packing two wives and two children. We had Josie make their flight arrangements and we would soon have our family with us.
We went into our office at the chancery and I immediately got one of our drivers to take me to the warehouse to pick up the camera and supplies for the Muscat embassy. For now, we set up the camera in our office. We really didn’t have all that much room in the office. Ronda and I shared a space about eight feet square, which was adequate for our needs.
We began summoning all the embassy employees in for their photo ID. We used the simple code of blue badges for American citizens and green badges for Omani nationals working for the embassy. That amounted to about twenty badges we produced that day. Then I locked up the equipment until we had qualified techs. I could see that if I didn’t get some people qualified on the equipment, I could easily be spending a day or two a month making visas or replacing passports.
“Well, Nate! Imagine meeting you here,” Robert Brice said as I came out of my office at the end of the day.
“Robert! Has your family arrived with you?”
“Much like you, I need to find a place for them to live before I can transplant them here. How goes your search?”
“In fact, we’re just about to pick up our luggage and go to our new house. It’s in a great neighborhood and reasonable rent. Care to join us for dinner?” I asked.
“Sounds wonderful. I happen to be staying in a hotel suite and saw your flight crew there.”
“We’ve been staying there as well, but now we can pick up our bags and move. The family will be joining us Monday.”
We had one of the embassy drivers take us to the hotel to load up the luggage and then drive us to our house.
“Wait!” Robert said. “How do you know this is yours? It looks just like all the rest of them.”
“We have to count the streets and then count the houses,” I laughed.
“But just to be sure, we’ll knock at the door before we go barging in,” Ronda suggested.
She did and our housekeeper, Ayesha, answered the door. We laughed and invited our driver in to join us as well. We carted all our luggage to the master bedroom and told the cook, Tariq, that there would be four for dinner. She was undisturbed as she had not yet begun cooking the evening meal. It was still an hour before sunset.
We led Robert through all the house and showed him the prayer room at the top of the tower. I thought it might be a good place to just come and meditate. According to the thermometer at the embassy, it had been about ninety degrees during the day, but the house was comfortable with stone tile floors and plastered walls.
According to the maps we’d studied, Muscat was right about on the Tropic of Cancer. We were moving toward the fall equinox but the hours of daylight only varied by about two hours from mid-summer to mid-winter. In London the difference was almost eight hours!
Tariq served a lovely meal after sundown. We’d gone to the prayer room in the tower to listen to the Muezzin sing the sunset call to prayer. It was quite beautiful. Our driver had joined the women downstairs with his prayer mat to recite the evening prayer. The meal was what Tariq called Kabsa. We were served a portion of grilled chicken and vegetables served on a bed of spiced rice. There was also bread and yoghurt and a tomato sauce. We needed to have a talk with Tariq about groceries and meals. That was up to Ronda. The woman had certainly proven her skill in the kitchen with this first night meal.
After dinner, our driver took Robert back to the hotel and our housekeeper and cook left. Ronda and I climbed to the second floor to our bedroom. That was our next surprise. Our suitcases had been unpacked and my clothes had been hung in the closet in the master bedroom. Ronda’s had been hung in the second bedroom. Hmm. We’d also need to talk to Ayesha and Tariq about our family. Even though the laws in Oman permitted polygyny—a man to have multiple wives—it forbade homosexual relations, even among the women of the household. Well, as long as we were discreet and made sure the staff were gone, I figured we could do what we wanted in our own home.
I hoped.
Wednesday, we joined the flight crew and Robert at the airport and carefully loaded equipment and materials for the problems in Syria and Jordan. Robert was making official security visits to the two chanceries as Ronda and I installed and trained. We also had documents for the ambassadors.
In Damascus, I looked at the damaged equipment and determined it would need to be sent back to Polaroid or scrapped. I could probably use parts of it for replacement of other damaged equipment, but the device would not function for its intended purpose again.
We talked with the techs from Amman about what had gone wrong in transporting the equipment. Then we trained two new techs at the embassy in Damascus and installed their own equipment. On Thursday, we all flew to Amman, Jordan. By ‘all,’ I mean the two techs who were on loan to Damascus, Robert, Ronda, and me. It didn’t take long there to install new equipment and make sure the techs were comfortable with it. We were invited to dinner with the ambassador, though, so we spent the evening and took off for Oman Friday afternoon.
We called home from the embassy before we left for the day, getting the operator to connect the call just before she left. Anna and Patricia were still with Mom and Dad, who would take the family to the airport Saturday morning.
We suggested that if they could manage it, they pick up a couple of pounds of Bokar coffee from A&P and have it ground fine. The qahwa we’d had was delightful—a combination of Arabian coffee and cardamom that is drunk at any time of day. It was also the official welcome to a home when guests arrive. People even take a pot of qahwa with them when they visit another household. And of course, there were coffee houses where men could sit for hours drinking qahwa. My suggestion to bring the Bokar coffee was not to replace the Arabian coffee, but to have a uniquely American twist when we entertained. I somehow thought we would be doing a lot of entertaining this year.
We’d had to speak to Ayesha and Tariq before we left on Wednesday to clarify that we expected them to take two days off work each week. They understood this was the American way, but we gave them Friday and Saturday off since the principal prayer was on Friday afternoon. This was consistent with the business hours of the banks and the embassy. They were open from eight till four-thirty Sunday through Thursday.
There was a protestant church in Muscat, but I didn’t expect that our family would be attending often this year. Perhaps on Christmas and Easter. We would become what Mom called Christian CEOs: Christmas and Easter Only.
For our part, Tariq had left qabuli in the refrigerator that was to be served and eaten at room temperature for our dinner. It was basically a simple but flavorful rice and lamb dish. Ronda and I wandered around our new home, just exploring and trying to decide how to use the space. It was a larger house than the apartment in London had been.
Eventually, we found ourselves in bed, making slow and delicious love. In twenty-four hours, our family would be making the long trip from Chicago to Muscat and we could hardly wait to greet them.
“It’s hot here!” Toni exclaimed when she ran from the gate into my arms Monday.
In fact, it was a little over ninety degrees and the big fans in the airport were only moving the hot air and not really cooling anything. We managed to get all the luggage, in addition to what Anna and Patricia had carried on the airplane to keep the kids entertained and cared for. I finally got a chance to properly greet my wives with a kiss and hug before Alex was shoved into my arms.
I swear, my daughter had grown in the two weeks we’d been gone! She grabbed hold of my ears and slobbered a kiss all over my face.
“Daddy!” she declared. I hugged her and we hired an airport porter to roll our luggage to the embassy van we’d borrowed for the afternoon. I was thankful that they always sent a driver with us. This one had been to our house on several occasions and could be trusted to get us to the right one.
“I’m lost already,” Patricia said. “How will we ever tell our house from any of the others?”
“It’s a challenge,” Ronda laughed. “I carry a map with the location marked on it whenever I’m out. I can usually find a driver who will bring me here and they always find the right house. Nate has investigated and we’ve found out the development plans to install street signs sometime soon. With luck, the signs will be in both Arabic and English.”
“Alif baa taa tha jiim haa khaa,” Toni sang to the tune of the alphabet song. We let her finish the entire alphabet and all congratulated her on learning it. “Daddy, did you know they write backwards? It’s fun!”
“It is, honey. Sometimes we have to remind ourselves to read from right to left when we are finding a street sign or the name of a store. We’ll get lots of opportunities to practice this week,” I said.
The driver pulled through the gate to our house and helped unload all the bags. Of course, Ayesha and Tariq were right there to greet us and help carry the bags to the rooms.
“Ayesha and Tariq have kind of identified me as the first wife,” Ronda said. “Just because I was here first. We’ll need to work with them so they understand we are all equal. It’s not a common concept. Patricia might be automatically elevated since she is the mother of our children. That carries a lot of weight. Regardless, we each have a room with Toni and Alex in one room. When we get settled, we can start moving things around. Just make sure yours are the bags in your room. Don’t even open them. Ayesha will unpack for you.”
“Um… I hope I don’t have anything in my bags that will embarrass them,” Anna said. “Some of my underwear is kind of skimpy.”
“Getting daring are you, love? They lived through my negligees. They’ll live with yours.”
“Mr. Hart,” Tariq said, finding us upstairs. “Food is ready for your family.”
Tariq’s English wasn’t bad, but occasionally she slipped in words of Arabic and she’d been very helpful to Ronda and me in speaking Arabic since we got here.
“In the middle of the day, Tariq?” I asked. “But the fast…”
“You are not Muslim,” she explained. “You are not required to fast. And children should not suffer hunger.”
“That’s true,” I said. “Thank you, Tariq. We will learn the customs quickly.”
Tariq was younger than Ayesha, but had a much better grasp of English. We tried to use Arabic with them as much as possible. As we went downstairs to the dining room, we heard Toni carrying on an animated discussion with Ayesha in Arabic.
“Fatat saghira… ah, little girl Toni,” Ayesha said as they came into the room. “Very smart.”
We sat on the cushions surrounding the low table and Tariq explained the dishes she’d prepared for us. We’d discovered that most food was served from slightly warmer than room temperature, down to cool. It wasn’t really cold, though. I gathered that many homes in Oman did not have refrigeration, or even electricity yet. Ours was a very modern neighborhood, but we did not have a telephone.
“Are we always going to sit on the floor for meals?” Anna asked.
“Our landlord offered to get us a table and chairs,” I said. “I deferred the decision until you got here. I thought a first meal or two in traditional style would at least prepare us all for eating in a restaurant or if we are invited to an Omani home for a meal.”
“Is that likely to happen, Nate?” Patricia asked. “I assumed the only socializing we’d be doing would be with other embassy staff or people from Toni’s school.”
“It will be up to us as to how much we socialize with our neighbors. So far, I’ve found them to be very pleasant people. We exchange greetings on the street and most know already that my family was expected to arrive today. The coffee I requested you bring is for qahwa, traditionally served with dates when people visit. You’ll find the coffee to be a little different than we have back home.”
“I’m ready to jump in with both feet,” Anna said. Then she dropped her voice to a whisper. “And to jump in bed with my husband.”
“We’ll all have lots of opportunity, after the staff leaves this evening.”
Of course, even though we were staying in town this week, Ronda and I had work to do at the embassy. We met with Robert and agreed to make our first longer jaunt the following week. We weren’t yet ready to leave our family for two weeks on a really long jaunt, but we’d be gone most of the week to Ethiopia and Yemen. We wanted to be sure everyone was settled in before we took off for too long. We’d leave on Sunday and be back on Thursday. It would take some adjustment to get used to our new work week.
There were all kinds of domestic details to take care of. We were helped by our embassy driver to find and purchase a car. It wasn’t really big enough for the whole family, but it would get Anna and Patricia around with the children when Ronda and I were out of town. Robert had also found a house in our neighborhood and had sent for his family. They were coming from London and would arrive as soon as we got back.
Before we took off, though, the ambassador had invited us to dinner with his family on Friday evening.
I found Ambassador Wells to be sharp and intelligent and a lot easier to talk to than most diplomats I’d encountered. He was a career diplomat, but was considerably younger than most ambassadors. In fact, he even referred to some of the other ambassadors as gray-hairs. Nearly all the newly appointed Middle East ambassadors were younger. I was told that the owner of our bank was very influential in pushing through opening the embassies and getting younger men appointed. There was even rumor of a woman who had been considered for an appointment.
When we arrived at the house Friday—we were admitted by the Omani national who guarded the door since the residence was on the upper floor of the chancery—we found the ambassador and his wife with their little girl to be truly delightful company. I introduced my wives and children, then stepped back as Toni shook hands with the ambassador and greeted him in Arabic. He responded to her in Arabic, which I barely kept up with. They spoke for a minute before he turned to the rest of us.
“Maybe your Toni can teach some of the local language to our Claire,” he said. “She has the makings for a future diplomat.”
“I’m going to the TWA school,” Toni affirmed.
“Really? That’s where Claire is going. She’s a bit younger than you are, but perhaps you will be friends,” Mrs. Wells said.
“I know how to be friends with younger children. This is my sister Alex. She is my very best friend,” Toni said. “Hello, Claire. Do you like horses?”
That was all it took to start a discussion among the children so the adults could enjoy themselves. Mrs. Wells had prepared the dinner herself and it had a decidedly more American flavor than what we’d been eating lately.
“Of course, there is no pork and very little beef here in Oman,” she said. “I chose chicken because that’s always dependable. You’ll find we generally have a choice of chicken, lamb, fish, or camel as far as meats go. I have sampled them all and I’d say the flavor is all based on the way it is prepared, not on the kind of meat. I thought you might enjoy a taste of home with a simple fried chicken dinner.”
“It looks lovely,” Anna said. “Is there anything I can help with?”
“Oh, that is such a polite American offer,” Mrs. Wells said. “It’s nearly ready, so come join me in the kitchen.”
Patricia glanced at me and meaningfully at the children. I nodded and she headed to the kitchen with Anna.
The dinner was very pleasant.
“Claire and I are going to be good friends. She likes Alex, too. I’ll keep an eye on her at school if I can,” Toni informed Ambassador Wells.
“That’s very good of you, Toni,” he said. “Hmm. We have a driver that takes Claire to school each day, usually accompanied by her mother for the drive. Maybe we should have him swing by to pick up Toni and Patricia as well. What do you think, dear?”
“I think that is a perfect idea,” Mrs. Wells said.
“You know, Mr. Brice has just acquired a home in our neighborhood,” I said. “His family will be arriving next weekend. I don’t know what his intentions are for educating his children. I believe his daughter is eight and his son is six. Toni knew them in London.”
“We may need an embassy school bus!” Ambassador Wells said. “Hmm. That puts me in mind of appointing Toni to a position of responsibility,” he said looking at her. Toni straightened up and paid attention to him. “Perhaps you could become the special envoy to the TWA school to coordinate activities of the embassy children. Besides the four of you we’ve named, I know two other children attend the TWA school. What do you think of that?”
“I would be honored to become the special envoy,” Toni said. “Uh… Could you tell me what General Schedule level that position is?”
The ambassador was taken aback and looked around the table. We just shrugged.
“I will check with the home office,” he said. “I believe that is a GS0 rating.”
“I’ll drink to that!” she nodded.
She held up her glass of lemonade and we all joined her in the toast.
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
