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Big Update! Disregard the bit below the dotted line about Haiti; late in April the state of evacuation for US personnel in Haiti was extended, and we were offered an alternative assignment: Dhaka, Bangladesh! We quickly accepted and are very excited about this - we had put Dhaka quite high on our original bid list, since hearing from a Peace Corps friends of Crystal who was working there that it was a very family-friendly post. Our schedule now is that we will be here in DC until February, so Adham can take a full course of Bengali language before departing for post. That means that we'll be able to stay together throughout the pregnancy and birth. Hooray! --------------------------------------- The months drift by, and our lives just get more and more interesting. April was a busy one for us; Adham completed his basic training, Gramma and Grampa Loutfi came to visit, we continued preparations for another visitor, we found out where our first posting is going to be, and at the end of the months we moved into a new apartment. Flag Day happened on April 13th. This is where all the new Junior Officers, Adham included, found out where from their bid list (see the April news page for an excerpt of ours) were going to be posted. We found out that we were going to be posted to Haiti, the western part of the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean - hey, there are worse things than living on a tropical island for a couple years, right? We now have to figure out how to best time our arrival in Haiti. Why is timing so important? Well, we are expecting our second child in late October! We knew this when we put together our bid list, and greatly favored those jobs that started after the due date, so that we could stay here in DC until after the birth. The Haiti job is supposed to start this summer though, and we'll probably end up going in July - that is if the current evacuation order for embassy personnel is lifted. We would then return to DC in September for several months, so Adham can do additional training and be around when Crystal has the baby, and then return to Haiti in December. Swearing-in was on April 23rd - the formal end of Adham's training. Gramma and Grampa Loutfi were just finishing up their vacation in Egypt, and swung through town to be here for that. It was held in the Diplomatic Reception rooms at the main State Department building in DC - a beautiful venue. We were lucky and honored to have Secretary of State Colin Powell swear the new Officers in. He spent about 15 minutes with us, giving us a pep talk, giving us the oath, and having pictures taken with us. He is a great speaker! We're now moving from our initial apartment in Arlington to another apartment in Arlington, just for a week. That's because we previously found a house to rent from a current Foreign Service Officer that we can't move into until a week from now. That house is in Alexandria, Virginia, just a few miles from here, but with a very different atmosphere. We're looking forward to getting to know the neighborhood! | ||||
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