Diplomatic Days Of Our Lives

Lord Mayor, Chef, Diplomat

Shelly at Chinese National Day, Mauritius

The public image of diplomats has been described as "a caricature of pinstriped men gliding their way around a never-ending global cocktail party".  Our month-long term as a diplomatic family isn't quite like that, but we have our momentary glimpses of that public image.  If we just take one day as a microcosm of our new lives, it would be today.  We did a live Facebook Skype with Damon at 0530, then Shelly and I headed for the Embassy at 0630 in our little Honda with the "Corps Diplomatique" license plates.  We greeted the Embassy guards in a smattering of French, English, and Mauritian Creole.  Shelly had scheduled meetings with a series of Embassy folks, and I had to deal with articles in the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal regarding pirate and terrorist fighting in this area of the world.  At noon, Shelly headed off for lunch at a German restaurant with a Mauritian, two Brits, and a doctor who lives in South Africa.  I went to a one-on-one lunch with the Lord Mayor of Port Louis, and talked about a new American sister city for the Mauritius capital.  In the afternoon, Shelly shopped for Indian pashima shawls with a new British friend while I worked on a series of email reports to Washington, and planned next week's election monitoring trip to the Seychelles.  In the evening, we subbed for the US Ambassador and were driven to and from the Chinese National Day celebration at Beijing's Mauritius Embassy.  (That was the only part of the day that looked slightly like a global cocktail party...conversing with Chinese, Russians, French, and Mauritians...and drinking Johnny Walker (wait for it . . . ) RED!) By 2100, we were back home at our place on the Indian Ocean, ready to do it all again tomorrow.  We're loving the days of our lives! 

Chinese Ambassador to Mauritius &
US Envoy