calm panic

The attack in Saudi Arabia has, obviously, made for a very high-strung and sensitive atmosphere. While we are not personally under quite as much threat, the threat does always exist when one works in an American government compound, nowadays.

But concerns about personal safety are greatly outweighed by the fact that the Foreign Service is a very small and tightly-woven community. Chris has classmates from his orientation who are currently in Jeddah. A very brilliant co-worker here in Chennai, who has become a very good friend, just spent the last three years in Jeddah. Separated from his wife and three children when the post became designated as “unaccompanied”, his close friends and co-workers are still there. (The press will announce, as if it is some great triumph, that “no Americans were killed”. This means little to those who have worked side by side every day with the dedicated and wonderful people who make up the infrastructure of guards, support staff, drivers, foreign service nationals, and friends; precisely the people who WERE killed in Jeddah).

Rob is in Baghdad, also an unaccompanied post, and Chris will probably serve in one some day too. And there are bombs here in India. And there are bombs in Madrid where Rob will go next year. And there are bombs in Nepal where Elizabeth has spent the past year. And I remind myself that there are bombs in New York City too...

Enough of this.