I vividly remember hearing the town where I lived in Texas was flooding, while I was deployed to Saudi Arabia. Those were the early days of the internet and e-mail and I received an e-mail from my daughter saying, “La Vernia is being evacuated because of flooding and I can’t contact Mom.” My daughter didn’t […]

The news this week was filled with stories of people who died while attempting to cross the sea from Libya to Italy. Hundreds of people trying to escape lives of oppression, war and poverty only made it to a watery grave. Those desperate people paid huge amounts of money to be smuggled in cramped vessels

We recently spent a week in Manila enjoying the tropical heat, crowded streets, chaotic traffic and many other familiar sights and sounds of that busy city. It had been six years since our last visit. Even with our joy at being back, we needed a short break. We signed up for a tour of a

Looking out from my room on the 18th floor of the Diamond Hotel, Manila Bay was tranquil as far as I could see; traffic flowed along the tree-lined Roxas Boulevard; passenger “Jeepneys” competed with tricycles and taxis on the streets below and people didn’t seem to be bothered by the hot and sunny day. I

During our time in the Foreign Service we have been assigned in many of the capitals of the world. In each of these places we were provided a safe and secure place to live. We stayed two or three years at each location and became very familiar with what we could see from our window.