Yonderations

Well, I can’t believe I’ve dropped so far behind in posting- sorry! I gotta post more cause I’m really ready to be done with the alphabet so I can try a new titling system. I gave up on the design for the blog that liked cause I didn’t want to deal with the technical difficulties, it was easier to create one myself that’s simpler but works.

This was a really weird week. It was my second-to-last full-time week at State. There are management changes that I haven’t totally figured out how they affect me. My supervisor, Deborah, who has been office director since I got here, has gone part time and will go into labor anytime and then she’ll be out the remainder of my time of course. In the meantime, the previous office director, whom I had barely met, came back for a short stint before he heads to Guatemala. Now he’s in charge, but he doesn’t really know how I fit into the dynamic in the office. We also now have a total of three “new guys” that have joined the staff in the past couple weeks. I like them all, they’re all Christians and come from various non-Govnt backgrounds so they have fresh contributions and thoughts. It’s also a lot of work to try and orient them. This week started out slow because David Young, the office director, isn’t accustomed to giving me assignments like Deborah does. Thursday kinda made up for the beginning of the week though, cause it was absolutely insane. An action memo needed to be written and gotten to the Secretary in one day to ask her to speak at a conference for Muslim Americans, and the memo had to include background on the organization, its leaders, and a speech for her to deliver. David Abramson, whose responsibility this would have been, called me and asked me to take it on. In the meantime, David Young decided it would be a good opportunity for one of the new guys, Warren, to learn to do Action Memos for the Secretary, since I have done several and he’s been here a couple months now and hadn’t done anything. He kinda became my “attachment” but it was so confusing cause he thought he was supposed to do it, but had no idea how to do it, and then as we got pressed by time, David didn’t want him involved because he knew I could do it faster, so I felt responsible to make sure it got done but was slowed down by warren the whole time. Everything he did, I had to redo, especially since he’s a journalist and says nothing in lots of words while the Secretary wants all memos to say lots in few words. Anyway, he was very well-intentioned, and I was stretched very thin. At 7pm as I ran up the stairs to the 7^th floor for the 10^th time of the day, I could not help but think it was insane that it takes more than one person’s entire day to move a simple memo into the Secretary’s hands. It got done anyway, but that was pretty much the most insane day I’ve had since I’ve been here. Friday I could breathe a little easier and catch up on the routine stuff that didn’t get done Thursday. Then Friday afternoon I had a meeting with a lot of Church leaders from Colombia. They had come to the States to talk to the US Govnt about their policies in Colombia and try to influence them. It was…well, I don’t know if I can use a positive adjective or not to describe sitting across from a Colombian lady as she looked in my eyes and cried talking about having been displaced from her home and how her family and church have found themselves victims of both sides of the Civil War—the rebels and the Colombian military because their neutrality not taken seriously and ends up incriminating. The meeting was strange in that they spoke openly of their faith being what has sustained them in the midst of the violence and they mission being bringing hope that peace is possible when both sides of the war seem equally evil at times. However, there were several State Dept officials with me, all of whom work on Latin American issues in different divisions, but I think I was the only Christian on the US Govnt side of the table. Their stories reminded me so much of tales I have heard of the situation in Peru in the 1980s…only this is happening now. They weren’t directly opposed to US policy, (we are very involved in Colombia now, partly because of our interests in fighting the drug war, but our involvement spills over) but they had concerns about the way we’re pouring money into the military that is committing atrocities and allowing the paramilitary (the rebels) to “demobilize” and not only go free but receive govnt aid while their victims have no retribution and aren’t eligible for that aid… One man told of his brother’s murder at the hand of paramilitaries, and now the “warrior” responsible for the murder lives across the street from the family, has had no penalties, and receives Govt aid—being paid to give up his weapon basically… the whole situation is screwy and while I understand US policy, I don’t necessarily agree with all of it either. What was strange was that in my heart I saw them as fellow Christians and yet they saw me as someone influencing USG policy with some responsibility for the injustice. I found myself in a position of being responsible to defend US policy, assure them we take their concerns seriously…while somewhat doubting that “we” do… There’s a lot of US foreign policy I would staunchly defend, including most of our actions in the Middle East and Iraq. But somehow when it comes to US policy in Latin America…while I would never incriminate the US as the reason for the region’s problems as many liberal “historians” choose to do… I still never seem to find myself very proud to be am American in that context. So much we could do and don’t, so much we don’t do and should. Ok, my mind is wandering now and I have too many thoughts on this subject to write them out cause I’m sure no one wants to read them anyway…

I’m at Starbucks now. I came to do homework but go here and realized the files I need I forgot to download. I need to get two weeks worth of assignments done since Holly comes in next weekend and I don’t want to be behind.