| Since then:
It's a daunting task to summarize forty years in a page. I skipped a year of high school and jumped up into the Class of 1961, then went off to college to become a medical technologist. Thankfully, a year of chemistry and biology and my diplomat father convinced me I was in the wrong track, and I finished college with a degree in international relations and economics. I met my husband in Washington while I was attending American University. Gene's a small town boy from Oregon who had already managed to spend time in half a dozen countries and wanted to keep on moving, and we married in 1966. We've been moving every since! Over the years, I've worked when I could and volunteered when I couldn't. I've been an economic analyst, teacher, researcher, medical transcriptions, community liaison officer in several embassies, and finally a Foreign Service Officer. I've loved working with women's co-ops, handicapped groups, orphanages and international women's groups during many of our assignments.
Our adventures began with three years in Ghana, 69-72, where Gene taught at the University of Ghana and I taught at a small British school. Our daughter Nancy was born in Ghana. We returned to a relative's cattle ranch in Oregon, where Gene wrote his Ph.D. dissertation and tended cattle and I again taught, and then Gene joined an oil company. That job took us to London; Paris; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; and Reunion Island in the South Indian Ocean-all in less than four years. Our daughter Lora was born on the tiny island of Reunion, just 30 by 40 miles. Gene left the Oil Company to join a Boston-based consulting firm, and we were off to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for a year. Transferred back to Boston and then offered more short assignments in the Middle East, Gene instead worked for small petroleum inspection companies for the next five years, first in Miami and then in Houston-more moving.
Finally, in 1983, Gene joined the Foreign Commercial Service. Our moves continued but became more predictable and less frequent. It's a life we continue to love. We've had assignments together in Alexandria and Cairo, Egypt; Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire; Dublin, Ireland; and currently in London. In 1994, we had just arrived in Nairobi, Kenya when I was accepted into an entrance Foreign Service class. My first assignment, in June 1995, was to Kigali, Rwanda. For three years I commuted for a long weekend a month in Nairobi, and Gene stopped in Kigali as he traveled extensively covering commercial activities in East and Central Africa. As the first consular in Kigali post-1994 genocide, I reopened our consular section but also covered economic affairs and traveled extensively in this beautiful but troubled country. Gene left Nairobi just weeks before the 1998 bombing, in which two of his Kenyan staff died and two more were horribly maimed. We're in London until 2002.
Our daughters are great travelers, but chose careers in science. Nancy, 30, is a geologist with Chevron, living with her Swedish partner in San Ramon, CA. Lora, 25, is a Ph.D. candidate at University of Rhode Island in marine biology, and her husband, Scott, is a talented architect. Gene and I talk about retirement and still don't know where we'll settle down, perhaps Oregon, Gene's beautiful home state, or perhaps first in Washington, DC. Whatever we decide to do, travel will continue to be part of our life-but from a fixed, U.S. base! |
