U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

The mission of a U.S. diplomat in the Foreign Service is to promote peace, support prosperity, and protect American citizens while advancing the interests of the U.S. abroad. The work that diplomats do has an impact on the world as they serve at one of any of the more than 270 embassies, consulates and other diplomatic missions in The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.

The duties of a Consular Officer include to provide emergency and non-emergency services to American citizens and protect our borders through the proper adjudication of visas to foreign nationals and passports to American citizens. We adjudicate immigrant and non-immigrant visas, facilitate adoptions, help evacuate Americans, combat fraud, and fight human trafficking. Consular Officers touch people’s lives in important ways, often reassuring families in crisis. They face many situations which require quick thinking under stress and develop and use a wide range of skills, from managing resources and conducting public outreach to assisting Americans in distress.

Halloween at a primary school

Last week some of Sean's students asked him if he would be willing to volunteer an afternoon to celebrate and teach about Halloween to some children at a nearby primary school. He said that he would and asked if I wanted to come along which I did.

There is a group of students at our university who visit this primary school every week to help out and hang out with the young students. The school does not have a lot of money and all of the students are children of migrant workers - people from outside of our province who probably moved from more rural areas to our city in search of more work and better pay. I was impressed that the students are willing to volunteer their time every week. I asked one of them why she decided to commit to this and she said it was because she wanted some more experience in teaching and that she has really grown to love the kids.

When we got to the school there was aboslute mayhem and madness. It was in-between classes and the students were really excited to see us and do something different than their normal lessons. Some of them were really shy but others came right up and started shouting as much English as they could muster.

Sean and I didn't really prepare anything but we knew that we would be expected to entertain for awhile and we were right. Fortunately some of the university students had brought some balloons to decorate "pumpkins" and some construction paper for making masks.

After talking about Halloween for a little bit and teaching some common words we got out the balloons and masks. The students loved it and things got out of control very quickly; students were running around and yelling. playing with the masks, drawing on each others' faces . . . It was crazy and I was reminded once again why I could never teach in an elementary school. To all those of you who do you have my sincere respect and admiration.

After about an hour and half of chaos and over 500 pictures later (everybody wanted their picture taken and all of the student volunteers wanted a picture of everything and everybody) Sean and I headed back to campus. I was exhausted and my ears were ringing from the excitement and noise. It was really fun to see a different type of school and to see so many kids who were incredibly excited about a visit from two Americans and a discussion about Halloween.

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Wanderlust

In Mandarin: 旅遊癮 (lǚyóu yǐn)

According to my Mandarin teacher, the term 'wanderlust' can best be translated as 'a travel addiction or craving'. In the above translation, 'yǐn' has several meanings such as 'a strong impulse', 'a longing', or 'a desire'.

U.S. Foreign Service Officer headed to Wuhan, China

Halloween at a primary school

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