Life Abroad in the U.S. Foreign Service
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 07.27.06 | 11:40 AM ET
National Public Radio’s Morning Edition had an interesting two-part series this week on what life is like for American Foreign Service workers these days, at a time when anti-American feelings are so pervasive. “More and more, diplomats are assigned to serve in countries that are too dangerous for their families,” reports Megan Meline, a Foreign Service spouse whose husband has served in Dar es Salaam and Manila. “There are about 700 of these unaccompanied positions, in places such as Kabul and Bujumbura, Burundi.”
Meline spoke to one woman who recalls a different kind of diplomatic life almost 50 years ago in Sudan.
In bygone days, the Foreign Service wasn’t such a risky career. Phyllis Oakley remembers when she and her husband Robert lived in Sudan. It was his first diplomatic posting and the year was 1958.
“The cook and I shared a bicycle,” Phyllis Oakley says. “And we didn’t have a car yet. He’d take the bicycle to the market in the morning and then I’d ride the bicycle around town going to play bridge or see other people….”
Today, Khartoum is so dangerous that families aren’t allowed to live there anymore. Phyllis Oakley, a former assistant secretary of state, says the world she knew is gone forever.
“Well, the thought of an American diplomat’s wife these days riding a bicycle around a city like Khartoum—it just wouldn’t happen.”
But it isn’t stopping people from wanting to be Foreign Service workers. Meline reports: “Despite the dangers, the State Department isn’t having any trouble finding new recruits. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, applications to the Foreign Service are up. This year, 17,000 people took the written exam. The department estimates it will accept only 340 new officers this fall.”
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
