AND THE WINNER IS...

Today was “Flag Day!”  After 5 weeks of training, we found out where our first assignment will be… and when!  And the winner is…

BELMOPAN, BELIZE!

We will head there in January 2017.  Until then, we’ll be in DC while I finish all the various training programs, and then I'll spend six months learning Spanish at the Foreign Service Institute.  We are super excited!

And FYI... Belize is technically part of North America... which none of you picked as the continent where we would end up in my blog survey.  But don't worry!  You'll have a chance to redeem yourself when we start bidding on our next post in a couple years.

And now... some background.  In my first week here, we were given a list of available posts, and we had a couple of weeks to do some research on all of them.  There were 60 possible locations.  (Some posts had multiple positions available to accommodate all 98 of us.)  Lots of things to consider!  Language requirements… housing… the actual job…  Andrew was here and provided invaluable research and input into putting together our bid list.  We were allowed to rank all of the posts as high, medium, and low… although we could only identify a maximum of 15 posts as “low.”  We focused on those – let’s agree on where we DON’T want to go!  (A caveat here… “Needs of the Service” are the priority here, so even if we ranked something “low,” we could end up going there.  But they stressed that they really try to take our preferences into account.)  So, after lots of research, we turned in our bid list a few weeks ago.  Of the 60 available posts, we ranked eight of them “high” – mostly Mexican and Latin American posts where I could get Spanish under my belt (I’m required to be proficient in a language), where Andrew would still be able to work (remotely), where we could get out and explore without being too terribly constrained by security considerations, and… where we hope our friends will want to come visit!  Belmopan, Belize was one of the posts we ranked “high” – so we are really looking forward to what lies ahead! 

Flag Day!

Andrew and me before the flag day ceremony begins.

My parents are here this week playing tourist in DC... and seeing where Andrew and I will be going!

A thumbs up before the ceremony starts.  Let's do this!  (Our class sat together with family and friends behind us all.  Look closely and you'll see my parents a couple rows behind me.)

Receiving my Belize flag from our class mentor, Ambassador Ken Merten.

My assignment!  A consular position in Belmopan starting in January 2017.  Looking for a vacation destination next year?  May I suggest... Belize!!!