Friday: Jail; Monday: The Morgue; Tuesday: Crisis

Summer has hit DC, but it seems as if we've had it pretty easy compared to a lot of the country. We've had a few days in the 90s, but that's it so far. Julio will be here for the Fourth of July weekend, and we're going to a friend's house to watch the famous DC fireworks show from his rooftop balcony.

Tomorrow marks the last day of my consular training, which has occupied my time over the past 30 days. During my training I have learned about Passports and Nationality, Immigrant Visas, Non-Immigrant Visas and American Citizen Services overseas. We've had exams along the way and I'm proud to say that, out of the 100 total questions on four different exams, I only got one answer wrong (and I'm still kicking myself because I originally had the right answer and changed it!). However, the past 4 days have proved to be the most interesting.

Throughout training we've participated in role plays to practice our skills- mock interviews with clients, etc. Friday's role plays were visits to American Citizens (AmCits) who have been arrested and are in jail (we even have a jail cell at the training center to make it real). I played one of the incarcerated AmCits, and if I may say so myself, did an excellent job of portraying this woman who was off her rocker. Wait, should I be proud of this?????

Monday proved to be even more interesting- we were treated with a visit to the Morgue. Now this was the real thing, not a simulated morgue in our training center. We went to the Washington DC office of the Chief Medical Examiner where we met with the staff to learn about their mission and responsibilities. We had the opportunity to see the autopsy suite, learn about the autopsy process, and view a deceased individual. This was all to prepare us for the possibility of having to identify a deceased American overseas- so that our first visit to a morgue is not when we are in an official capacity.

Then, to top it all off, Tuesday we had the mother of all roleplays: A plane crash in our country with injured and deceased AmCits followed by a bomb/terrorist attack with even more dead and injured. We were the consular section and had to respond to the crisis, which included taking calls from concerned Americans inquiring about their family members, fielding questions and orders from the Operations Center in Washington DC, dealing with local military and police authorities, and caring for not only the injured and dead AmCits on the plane and at the bomb site, but accounting for all of the AmCits in our region (including how to eventually evacuate them all out of the country). The role play lasted a little over an hour but it felt like 5. By the end, I was frazzled, stressed out and had a headache- and this was just pretend! I now have a much greater respect for my colleagues around the world who have responded to these same types of crises in real life.

Today was tame, all in all. We had our last exam and a lecture on ethics in Consular work. Tomorrow we have a few more lectures in the morning and graduation in the afternoon- then most of my class is off to their posts. I, however, will start language training on Monday. I'll be learning Spanish in preparation for my first assignment in Matamoros, Mexico. I'll have language training through December and will leave for post in May, 2010.

That's it from now. Maybe my next post will be in Spanish!