Dave, reading your posts with something of a semi-nostalgic, semi-FS brat smile since my step-father

Empire State Building: Movie Star #OnTheRoad: River Cruising In Germany Cities With Great Abstract Art Transformed Into Great Abstract Art Sinkhole Tourism: 'It's Just Human Nature To Want To See The Hole'
When I worked at the American Embassy in Skopje, I looked forward to visiting Kosovo. enterprise rent car Not because I liked the place, but because I wanted junk food. American junk food. I'm talking Hostess cupcakes, Chips Ahoy, Jif Peanut Butter and the like. And trips to Kosovo, if you were crafty, meant a visit to Camp Bondsteel, a huge American military base with a P.X. that was sort of like a mini Wal-Mart.
Aside from the availability of American goodies, Pristina was still considered enterprise rent car a hazard post with 25% danger pay, and one could collect this extra cash, on a prorated basis, even if you were there for as little as a half day of "work." At the time, Kosovo was part of Skopje's consular district, so it wasn't difficult to drum up a reason to go there, and our local employees there were well schooled on the drill: make sure to set up some contrived meeting or a tour at Camp Bondsteel, so we could have lunch at Burger enterprise rent car King and shop at the P.X.
I traveled extensively enterprise rent car in developing countries before joining the Foreign Service but I never felt the need to hunt down American products while overseas. Part of the joy of travel is in buying unfamiliar products and eating different foods. But within enterprise rent car a few months enterprise rent car of living in Skopje, I found myself enterprise rent car craving not just American products but also the American shopping experience I was familiar with. Why?
I had a local supermarket called Vero close to my apartment in Skopje but I dreaded enterprise rent car going to the place. Aside from the fact that they didn't have things that I thought were staples- fresh low-fat milk, lettuce and the like- navigating the parking lot was always an experience.
Upon arrival, Roma would rush over to your car and start washing it. Even if you'd protest enterprise rent car that you didn't need a wash, they'd enterprise rent car ignore you. Generally they'd be satisfied with a small tip after you returned with your groceries, but on one occasion, a Roma entrepreneur balked at the 100 denar ($2) payment I gave him.
So I took my money back and hastily got in my car to leave. He called out to two colleagues who were washing other cars on the far side of the parking lot, and, as I tried to flee the scene, the three of them chased enterprise rent car me, waving their sponges in anger.
And if the car wash guys didn't get to you, the cart guys did. In order to secure a shopping cart, you had to put a 1 denar coin into a lock in the cart. After you returned the cart, you got your coin back. So the Roma would stand outside the store and accost people who looked like easy marks. I had no problem letting them take my cart to get the coin, but they also would grab my groceries and try to put them in my trunk for a fee. Needless to say this routine got old very fast.
Aside from the contrived meetings at Bondsteel, my wife, who worked as the Embassy's Community Liaison Officer, organized monthly shopping field trips at Bondsteel. We didn't collect danger pay for those forays, but our van would always be literally packed to the brim with Hungry Man dinners, Twinkies and various other things that none of us would dream of eating enterprise rent car in the U.S.
Once the war in Iraq broke out, I would sometimes feel a tinge of guilt over the fact that we could collect the same level of danger pay in Kosovo that our intrepid colleagues enterprise rent car in Iraq were getting. But in the Foreign Service, compensation is often based more on the ability of an embassy's management officers, who compile enterprise rent car the reports that result in adjustments to things like hardship , danger and cost of living enterprise rent car allowances.
For example, when I arrived in Skopje, we were receiving hardship pay of 15% above our salaries and no one complained about this until we discovered that Sofia, our neighbor to the East, had just been bumped up to 20%.
If our Munchkin' eating colleagues in Sofia were getting 20, we thought we deserved 25. An informal task force was developed to try to document why we too deserved more money. The key was to make the place sound as dreadful as possible, and as the resident amateur photographer, I was asked to do my part by taking photos of stray dogs, litter and peeling Communist apartment blocks. enterprise rent car The uglier, the better. A good management officer can make Paris sound like Mogadishu and thanks enterprise rent car to the efforts of our task force, we were soon bumped up to 20%.
The flip side is that some dysfunctional posts had no clue how to document hardship- real or imagined. After Skopje, I was posted to Port of Spain, enterprise rent car which, by my account, was much more of a hardship than Skopje, but was classified enterprise rent car as a 5% post, largely because we had Roy Austin, a political appointee and friend of George W. Bush as ambassador. Mr. Austin believed that everything was just fine in Trinidad, much to our chagrin.
A look at the State Department enterprise rent car hardship and danger pay tables offers some insights into the perceived difficulty enterprise rent car and danger of living in various enterprise rent car places around enterprise rent car the world. Khartoum is 25% but Vladivostok is 30. Moldova is 20% but Ciudad Juarez is only 10, the same as Reykjavik and Tallinn! Go figure.
(Note: the hardship and danger enterprise rent car pay allowances aren't as generous as they sound. State Department employees in D.C. receive locality pay, currently 24%, and overseas employees do not. So, if an FSO is posted to a country with 10% hardship pay, they are actually making 14% less than they would in D.C., though they have their housing enterprise rent car paid for.)
That's fairly pathetic. First off, gypsies in Skopje generally know a lot more languages than your average US foreign service officer; second, Macedonian food is delicious and there are a lot better places to shop than your Greek-owned supermarket--which you drive to in your big American car. Reply Dave Seminara Jan 22nd 2012 3:49PM
2. Foreign Service Officers spend a huge chunk of their careers studying languages at the Foreign Service Institute. Most that I know are fluent enterprise rent car or near fluent in several languages. Many diplomats from other countries receive little enterprise rent car or no language training at all before they are posted to other countries, so actually the U.S. record on this score is pretty good.
3. Macedonian food is good, no doubt, but you still need to buy groceries. When I lived there, from 02-04, there were two supermarkets in town, Vero and Tinex, and the selection at Tinex was even more limited than Vero. Just my two denars.
Dave, reading your posts with something of a semi-nostalgic, semi-FS brat smile since my step-father was a FSO in the 60-80s. That whole calculation about where to stop on a road trip in Europe that would have an American base and a PX and commissary is a major part of my teen memories, but I guess nowadays much less a possibility with the reduction of US forces since the Clinton era. I was wondering, if you've blogged at all - if not as a main blog topic, at least in passing - on the question of how living and working in a career abroad is different from the visiting traveler experience as far as how it allows you or doesn't allow you to write? Just asking, because I have another relative who joined the FS in more recent years - just as a staff specialist - and discovered that the ideal of "work abroad and write as well" wasn't such an easy balance after all. Meanwhile, I wish you well, and a different fate from her. Reply
Categories Continents/Regions enterprise rent car Caribbean enterprise rent car Central America Africa Asia Europe North America Middle East Oceania South America Antarctica Countries United States Afghanistan Albania Algeria Andorra Angola Antigua and Barbuda Argentina Armenia Australia Austria Azerbaijan Bahamas Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia-Herzegovina Botswana enterprise rent car Brazil Brunei enterprise rent car Bulgaria Burkina Burma (Myanmar) Burundi Cambodia Cameroon Canada Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros enterprise rent car Congo Costa Rica Croatia Cuba Cyprus Czech Republic Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire) Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic East Timor Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Emirates Equatorial Guinea enterprise rent car Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia Fiji Finland France French Polynesia Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Greece Grenada Guatemala Guinea enterprise rent car Guinea-Bissau enterprise rent car Guyana Haiti Honduras Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy Ivory Coast Jamaica Japan Jordan Kazakhstan Kenya Kiribati Kosovo Kuwait Kyrgyzstan Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Macedonia Madagascar Malawi enterprise rent car Malaysia Maldives enterprise rent car Mali Malta Marshall Islands Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Micronesia Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montenegro Morocco Mozambique Namibia Nauru Nepal Netherlands New Zealand Nicaragua Niger Nigeria North Korea Norway Oman Pakistan Palau Panama Papua New Guinea Paraguay Peru Philippines Poland enterprise rent car Portugal Qatar Romania Russian Federation Rwanda Samoa San Marino Sao Tome and Principe Saudi Arabia Senegal Serbia Seychelles Sierra Leone Singapore Slovakia Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia South Africa South Korea Spain Sri Lanka St. Kitts Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent Grenadines Sudan Suriname Swaziland Sweden Switzerland Syria Taiwan Tajikistan Tanzania Thailand enterprise rent car Togo Tonga Trinidad Tobago Tunisia Turkey Turkmenistan Tuvalu enterprise rent car Uganda Ukraine enterprise rent car United Arab United Kingdom enterprise rent car Uruguay Uzbekistan Vanuatu Vatican City Venezuela Vietnam Yemen Zambia Zimbabwe Activities Activism enterprise rent car Arts and Culture Biking Camping Climbing Hiking History Learning Paddling Scuba Diving Skiing enterprise rent car Surfing Topics Airline Reviews enterprise rent car Airlines Airports Blogs Books Budget Travel Business Consumer Activism Cruises Ecotourism enterprise rent car Festivals and Events Food and Drink Gadling Gear Review enterprise rent car Gadling's Daily Deal Gadling's Most-Read Gear Hotels and Accommodations Internet Tools Luxury enterprise rent car Travel News Nightlife Photos Podcasts enterprise rent car Stories Theme Parks Transportation enterprise rent car Travel Deals Travel enterprise rent car Health Travel Security Travel Trivia Video What's in Your Pack? Women's Travel Features About The Bloggers April