Life in the land of the pure, episode 10, 2024-25 season: more people in my neighborhood

 

I’d like to take a moment this time to write about some people who have been in the news lately.  Not by name but by category.  Probationary federal employees, USAID, and FBI. 

Lisa is a consular officer and a double vet.  She was a veterinarian in a private practice, then joined the army and served as a veterinarian overseas.  Her skills saved one of the Embassy dogs that was attacked last November. She has four daughters, and because her commissioning papers have not been voted out of the senate, she remains on probation—some government agencies are starting to lay off probationary officers.  In the government it’s called a reduction in force (RIF), but it’s being laid off not for any cause on the employees’ part but … just because.  

   

Same with Susan, who bikes, golfs, and plays tennis.  She spent over a decade as an arms control specialist, then as a state department civil servant.  This is her second tour as a foreign service officer, and while we haven’t discussed it, she’s probably also on probation. You need to complete two tours, one of which is consular, and pass a language exam to be able to qualify out of probationary status.  

Cynthia has a doctorate in history and runs our Lincoln centers program that teaches English, US history, and civics to Pakistani citizens; these are elective subject on government exams.  The centers are run at little cost by Pakistani volunteers and in many locations that have no US government presence.  She came to government from academia, also is newish to state dept, and thus is also probationary. 

Charlie and Clarissa recently got their tenure. Which is great because they will be having a baby around August.  I sat with them at the Roaring 20s Masquerade Ball in early March … which in past years was held in February as the Black History Month Ball.  

It was not lost on me that at the Ball, Natalie, the charge d’affaires—which means she runs the embasy while we do not have a full ambassador— sat with a group of USAID officers.  

Kate isn’t on probation.  She’s a War College classmate of Natalie and me, and the USAID country director here. She’d previously served in Kyiv.  Many to most USAID employees have been unable to do their jobs for weeks, which in Pakistan include disaster and humanitarian relief, literacy, and polio vaccinations — only Pakistan and Afghanistan (and possibly now the United States) have “wild” polio.   I’ve gotten to know many other USAID officer here—Kate’s executive assistant, “ the other Lisa”; Jean-Jacques, who was born in Senegal, and worked in Haiti with a friend from my office; James, who took me, ruth, and heather birding; Rebecca, his long time partner, they have two terribly sweet dogs between them, Stevie & Shadow; the “other Kates,” eradi-Kate who worked on polio eradication and edu-Kate who worked on literacy; Rafia, who calls her parents every night at 9pm; Ian, who hikes with Lisa and me; Kareem, who is on every embassy sports team.  USAID had about 10,000 employees worldwide in January. It has about 900 now.  It is projected to have less than two dozen through layoffs planned for this summer. 

Jeff is Kate’s husband.  He’s an eligible family member (EFM), which means he’s employed locally by the embassy.  His current position is in the economics section.  EFMs are likely to be cut, too.  

Let’s quickly turn to the FBI.  Harrison & Tasha met the assistant legal attaché here.  Their jobs are to coordinate international law enforcement.  Did you see the ISIS-K terrorist that Pakistan caught and allowed us to arrest and bring to the US for trial, who was mentioned in the state of the union address?  Her office did that.  Before that though she had other jobs as an FBI special agent. She — 5’ 2” if that much but metaphorically punching way above her weight—once arrested a guy who assaulted a police officer.  Guy went to jail. Then got pardoned, got his weapons back, and her name was doxed.  She took another assignment away from her home office to reduce the odds that she might be stalked and assaulted by people who view FBI officers, and her in particular, as the enemy.  I’m not using her name to help keep low her digital footprint because, well, violent crazy people do violent and crazy things.   

That’s all for now, just a brief introduction to some of my friends and colleagues here. I’ll be back again soon for more Pakistan adventures.