Kith & Kin: a recurrent issue

[Dayuhan]

Yep, there are some strange folk at the fish bowl (embassy), and some do need a wake up call. I used to think State forced most to have multiple lobotomies as I had no other explanations when queried

Lobotomies were probably not necessary, they simply imposed an incomprehensible labyrinth of restrictive and contradictory rules governing every aspect of what anyone is allowed to do or say, which has the same effect. The embassy here is not at all like a fishbowl. You can look into a fishbowl.

Many of the reasons the embassy is incapable is due to a lack of knowledge of the country they occupy and call home for a scant 2 years. The expats fill that gap - assuming the embassy personnel realize they are not the center of the universe and that the expats are in fact humans.

I've never heard of anyone from the embassy here asking an expat for information or an opinion. Certainly nobody has ever asked me, though I might conceivably be useful. Maybe they talk to the expats who frequent their (very limited) social circles, who of course are the ones least likely to be able to tell them anything useful.

The embassy local staff generally have the greatest amount of experience and get to deal with all the disgruntled locals and Americans while the US staff barely figure out how to get home each evening before their tour is up.

Disgruntled locals don't get in the door here. The numerous disgruntled Americans are dealt with by a corps of unreasonably pretty local girls, which I guess is suppose to defuse the disgruntled. We have large numbers of retirees here, mostly male, perennially disgruntled, and often with serious alcohol problems... that's a stereotype of course, but it is not without basis. Of course those who meet that stereotype are the ones most likely to have problems and least likely to be able to solve them on their own! There always seems to be some old geezer in there shouting about how he built a house for some girl he picked up in a bar and she threw him out of it and gawdemmit the US guvvermint oughta do something about it!

In short, without people like you and I, the embassy can't help the rest.

Here they're so isolated that I can't imagine how I'd help them, or even offer to. They aren't even allowed to reveal their names, for security reasons.

I doubt the embassy in the PI could even give you a list of local funeral parlors Not sure about your situation, but if I was dying I would drive myself to the graveyard - it would be faster !

I know they have lists of approved doctors they give to people who are sick, and lists of approved lawyers they give to people who have gotten into legal issues. There's a possibly apocryphal tale of someone who called a lawyer on the list and discovered he'd been dead for some time. A funeral parlor list wouldn't half surprise me.

I don't fully blame them for the distance and the mess over there; it really is an awkward job. I know they are constantly inundated with requests to locate Americans who have gone AWOL and immersed themselves in a sea of booze and hookers, with families imagining kidnapping or worse. Then there's the mail-order bride seekers, the pedophiles, the crooks on the lam, and other assorted dregs. Good reason to stay away from the expat scene, for those who can.

They have a system here for reducing traffic in the offices. There's a deal with FedEx where you send docs in, they process and send back by FedEx. I had a phone conversation once with someone who absolutely refused to believe that FedEx does not deliver to the place where I live, in fact that they'd have to deliver c/o someone else 120km away, who would then send stuff up on a local bus. She kept telling me that "FedEx delivers everywhere".

It's not just the US embassy, of course. Some years back an Irish fellow went in the caves here (where I live) without a light or a guide, fell down a shaft, died. The local guides retrieved the remains and set up a proper drunken Igorot wake. The embassy was notified. No reply was received. Eventually he started to stink, so they buried him in the local cemetery. Nothing was ever heard from the embassy. Months later some family members showed up, decided he was ok where he was, and left. Sic transit gloria mundi...