31 Days in Buenos Aires: The Story of a TDY

The following recounts a month spent in Buenos Aires on TDY (Temporary Duty) as a visa adjudicator.  Posts worldwide often put out the call for assistance to Consular Affairs - usually during the summer transfer and vacation season - and consular employees are dispatched to help fill the gaps.  While my colleagues were assigned to India in the wretchedly hot summer months, I was assigned to Buenos Aires, Argentina in July, i.e. their January.  I still think I got the better deal, climatically speaking. This is what it looked like:

Day 1
Recoleta  Cemetery Recollections 

Nearly four years ago, my husband and I visited Buenos Aires for the first time.  Part of our explorations brought us to the famous Recoleta Cemetery (eternal home of Eva "Evita" Perrone) where we saw more than just tombs and memorials.  We also met cats.  One cat in particular was exceptionally friendly.

Today I returned to Recoleta with a friend now assigned to the embassy here.  I remembered the spot where the kitty was, sat down, and over he came.  He didn't even seem upset at having to wait so long to see me again.

Day 4
Making a Tea Connection

A few blocks from my hotel is The Tea Connection, a restaurant/tea emporium with recycled wood floors and wall paneling, an encyclopedic menu of teas and corresponding selection of Asian tea pots and mugs for sale, a cozy loft and a wonderful menu of healthy, nothing-artificial foods. With the Beatles' "Rubber Soul" playing in the background, I ordered a broccoli and brie "tarta" which is like a quiche, side salad and glass of Malbec.  As the waiter pours and pours the Malbec into the large tulip glass, I suddenly realize he's waiting for me to say "when!" and so I do just before he reaches the lip of the glass.  I look around the three cozy dining areas, including the loft above me, and see teens chatting over their individual pots of tea, and a solo woman reading, pen in hand, marking the pages as she goes. Maybe a teacher or maybe she's preparing for a meeting tomorrow? In the next room are two middle-aged men deep in discussion about something intelligent-seeming, and behind me are two couples in their (at least!) 70's enjoying a few beers and conversation. Seeing all this reminds me to not hurry, even though it's already nearly 8:30, and to take a breath between bites and sips and enjoy the life unfolding around me.  The restaurant motto posted on the back of the register is #MejorConSonrisa - "Better with a Smile" and I couldn't agree more. 

Day 5 Rear Window

My hotel is in the heart of the neighborhood Palermo, surrounded by multi-story apartment buildings. Please, don't think me creepy when I say, "Who needs telenovelas when you have neighbor-vision?"  After less than a week, I already feel I know the woman who lets her big yellow lap sleep on the couch, the family who fries up burgers at 10:00 pm, the couple with the big tabby who has its own round ottoman, and the woman in pink sweatpants who still can't get her pilot light to ignite.  
I might just miss them when I leave.

Day 6 Subte Surprise

The Subte is Buenos Aires' metro, short for "subterráneo" and I hopped on today to get across town.  It was a nice surprise to see each of the stations beautifully tiled in patterns, murals or mosaics.  

Day 8 - Family Dinner

My new favorite pasta place across the street from the hotel apparently doesn't even open for dinner until 8:00 pm on weekends, so when my hunger hit at 7:40 - I ended up at a new spot a block away.  I took a cozy back-room table and shortly thereafter was joined by two families at one long table: four parents and (count 'em) seven children between the ages of two and nine. 
I gotta' say... they behaved themselves quite well, chatting and playing with each other, even without any mobile devices to distract. When their plates of spaghetti and chicken milanese arrived, the sound of forks and knives rapidly slicing and dicing their dinners erupted as the mothers got to work prepping the food for the little ones.  And then... to my astonishment, ALL the kids fed themselves as the parents resumed their adult conversations at the other end of the table.  My favorite chica was the dark, curly-haried Lourdes, who at probably 3 years old, already has developed a penchant for spaghetti with parm.  Lots of parm, which she first spooned generously onto her pasta, and later just ate straight from the bowl.  Go Lourdes!

Day 8 - How You Can Tell You're Not in North America Anymore

When these are the birds in the park...

...and this is a tree...

...and this is a bush.

Day 14: San Telmo

There's nowhere as vibrantly full of activity and life as the neighborhood of San Telmo, with its weekend market taking over the streets and daily indoor market with stalls selling everything from toilet brushes to antique brooches and a nice lunch to boot (and some nice boots!). 

Street performer demonstrating a very windy day :-)

Day 15 La Rural!

Every July, Argentina's agricultural industry leaves their fertile plains (pampas) to gather in downtown Buenos Aires in the county fair to end all county fairs.  It's two weeks of gauchopalooza packed with animal judging, harvester selling, 4x4 testing, choripan eating, mate sipping and deal making between farmers, ranchers, equipment producers and artisans from not only Argentina, but all other continents as well.  It showcases the unique flavor of Argentina and it can't be understated: La Rural is a really big deal.  And fortunately for me - it's held directly alongside the Embassy. Here's what I saw:

Day 16 Bird Watching in Buenos Aires

While looking for fun things to do in close by that would get me outside instead of only shopping and eating - I stumbled onto the website BirdingBuenosAires offering bird watching tours within urban Buenos Aires and the surrounds.  I chose a full-day tour on a crisp Saturday with the completely bilingual and incredibly knowledgeable Marcelo, the business owner and sole guide (and really interesting and fun guy), including a picnic lunch and door-to-door pick-up. He brought a spotting scope and extra binoculars and we set out to Costanera Sur and Vicente Lopez ecologic reserves along the Rio Plata that forms Buenos Aires' northeastern coastline. Marcelo showed me at least two dozen new species of birds and taught me how to take pictures through his spotting scope.  
Here is a bit of what we saw:

We saw more than just birds. This mustachioed gentleman is a nutria.

Day-20-22 Iguazu Falls

In the far northern tri-border region between Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil is the world's largest waterfall system, with multiple falls ranging in height from 197 - 269 feet.  To celebrate a significant wedding anniversary, my husband made the long flight south to join me in Buenos Aires for a week including a weekend visiting Iguazu Falls.  While they can (and should) be viewed from both the Argentine and Brazilian sides, we chose to stay in Puerto Iguazu in Argentina. This small town is devoted to supporting tourists from all over the world with an airport, lodging from hostels to 5-star resorts and the Iguazu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The walkways in the National Park take you RIGHT OVER the lips of the falls.

The mischievous and naughty coati.

Capuchin monkeys galore!

Day 26 Walking Home from Work When a Parade Breaks Out Around You

We've all seen horses in parades, and military in parades, and bands in parades, but walking home from work one day, suddenly all three combined and passed by.  Just 'cause.

Beats me how they play AND control their horses!

A singing-along kind of horse.

Day 31: Time to Go Home

After a month of adjudicating over 2200 visas, getting to know a section full of new friends, learning something about the country, the politics, the food, the natural beauty and their quirky version of Spanish (Castellano) - it's time to go home. Back to a hot and steamy Virginia summer. Back to my regular life and job already in progress. This month has been a pleasant detour - both culturally and climatically - and I had to regularly remind myself that this wasn't my new tour; I still had a job to take care of elsewhere. However, Buenos Aires will be included on my bid list in the coming weeks, so who knows - maybe this expedition will prove to be the ultimate try-out (them of me and vice-versa) for our next assignment?  Until then, I just have to follow the signs and head north:

TDY: Lessons Learned

Last summer I was selected to come to US Consulate General Monterrey for an entire month with three coworkers to help them in their busy season, and it was a great experience.  So this year I raised my hand again when the call for volunteers went out for more TDYers (Temporary Duty-ers) to go to Monterrey to help them segue into their brand new Consulate.  This time it was only for one week, but perhaps that was the right amount of time given that I only have six months left in Juarez and a husband and three Tabbies to miss.  

Ten of us from Mission Mexico were selected, along with numerous  local staff (two from Juarez, including one who always makes me laugh, like the time that she said that her horrible handwriting was only because she "had her own font").  We descended on Monterrey to Adjudicate In Their Time Of Need!  Well.... fate had something else in store for us.  Perhaps you heard it on the news that the CCD was "down."  In English, that means that the Consular Consolidated Database was, basically, broken leaving all posts worldwide unable to fully adjudicate visas.  We could interview folks, but we couldn't complete the process to send the visas to the printing queue.  This system snafu included American citizens who were trying to renew their passports and a bunch of high-profile celebrities and world leaders who were awaiting their US visas for legitimate travel.  Bottom line - a headache on a world scale.  (My favorite appropriate quote: to err is human, but to really screw things up takes a computer.) 

So here we are, over a dozen of us in our hotels in Monterrey, excited to be out on assignment with suitcases packed with appropriate clothing and our brains locked and loaded to work hard and work fast to help out this busy season and Monterrey in their new facility.

And the CCD was down and we couldn't do 85% of what we came to do. 

The powers that be decided that there was no point in sending us home because we still couldn't do there what we couldn't do here.  Especially considering all the airline change fees and additional administrative hassle that comes with changing airline and hotel reservations.  Therefore we interviewed as many folks as we could (Thursday appointments were completely cancelled) and finally by Friday afternoon were able to actually issue about 15% of the cases we had adjudicated.  

Being a TDYer is relaxing in a way because one can focus simply on doing the Consular work we came to help with: interviewing.  There isn't the additional pressure of taking care of all the outside portfolio work (whatever projects, teams, visits you've been assigned to) that your home post demands.  Plus, you have a new environment to explore.

In the case of Monterrey, I had already checked off a good bit of the tourist list last summer and felt comfortable in familiar environs.  Same hotel, same shuttle van, same restaurants for dinner, same hotel breakfast buffet, same pool of applicants - it all came back even after one year of absence.  But what was the cherry on top was the incredible new Consulate facility that opened just a week prior to our arrival. The post went from an outdated, cramped, stinky, sitting-on-each-others'-laps Consulate that did not have enough windows for everyone to adjudicate at the same time, to a building that looks and feels more like a modern art museum - all I can say is Wow!  

This time my Juarez colleagues and I were mixed in with officers from Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo and Tijuana, giving us a great opportunity to share "how do you do it? here's how we do it" best practices (and war stories, of which Consular officers have many).  We got to meet and work with new folks and learn more about posts we may/may not want to work in in the future.  It's great, to be honest, even if for a week.

Going on two TDYs isn't uncommon when assigned to Juarez, and a bunch of officers have even had three assignments.  We're used as a "donor" post to Mission Mexico because we are well-staffed and generally not over-stressed as some posts are. Therefore we have the luxury of being able to send a few warm bodies hither and yon to help out as needed.  

It's Friday night and we've done all we could and tomorrow we'll scatter back to our home posts.  The CCD is still not functioning 100% and the case load at home is not going away nor is the tide of incoming applicants receding - but for now we can enjoy a bit of ignorant bliss. And enjoy the views.

Please enjoy a few snapshots taken from the new US Consulate General in Monterrey.  If anyone reading this is considering bidding on Mexico - take these pictures into consideration:

View from the terrace where you can eat your lunch everyday

Now that's a backdrop!

Nearby American School - families with kids can now return to Monterrey

Yeah, this could be the view from your desk

On my final evening here, I took advantage of the free drink coupon we got upon check-in to have a glass of white wine by myself in the hotel atrium lounge. The view was only slightly different from this one above, different mountain peaks mostly.  Sitting alone, I tipped my head back against the overstuffed lounge chair and gazed out over the hotel's lush landscaping and fountains to the rocky peaks of the Eastern Sierra Madre.  Birds flitted by the atrium windows, doing their birdy business, and in this absence of modern world distractions, I digested all I'd seen and learned in the past week.  The cases I'd heard and decisions I'd made; the personalities and management styles and what I could learn from them; the stresses of the CCD crashing and how we all worked around it.  It all pales in comparison to the sight of these volcanic peaks, making me and my preoccupations seem silly and minute.  Life moves on, CCDs crash and then work again, applicants come and then go, puzzles are solved and either learned from or forgotten. Yes, this is what goes on behind my eyes while I sit mesmerized watching water coursing around rocks in a stream, a campfire or a 12,000 foot peak.

Being surrounded by the beauty of nature helps me put things in perspective and not let myself get wound up in the drama de jour, which is so easy to do wherever one is. Tomorrow brings the return trip home and the excitement of seeing husband and Tabbies again.  Then Monday morning when I slip my badge over my neck and head back to the window, I'll have all that I absorbed here still in mind: both the calmness gained from being in beautiful surroundings and the collective wisdom of working with dozens of new people in a challenging situation.  Who knows if the Data Engineers will find that one loose plug that started this all, or fire the guy who spilled his coffee on the server and everything will be dandy again, but either way, there's no use getting too wound up about it.  Just look out the window and enjoy the view and remember that this too will pass. 
Thanks TDY.

TDY Monterrey

TDY = Temporary DutY

About six weeks ago, the management at our Consulate asked if any officers would be interested in helping out other Consulates or the Embassy in Mission Mexico with by doing TDY assignments. They couldn't yet tell us when, where, or for how long, we just had to be willing to go where told. During the summer months, officer turnover is high as people transfer in and out, and this leaves big staffing shortages.  I volunteered immediately, and a few weeks later was told that I'd be going with three coworkers to US Consulate General Monterrey for one month to work in their non-immigrant visa section. I'd heard of Monterrey before, from friends at FSI and from a few other coworkers here who'd gone there on TDY before. It's one of the busiest visa sections in the country, particularly for the H2 visa program. The H2A and H2B visas are for temporary agricultural (A) and non-agricultural (B) workers and these are the guys (almost completely a male work crew) who pick berries in Georgia, work on golf courses in Colorado, in vineyards in California or in forestry in North Carolina. They work for a short time, depending on the jobs they do, and return home to their families throughout the Mexican countryside after earning a good wage legally. Consulate General Monterrey processes the same amount of this class of visa in ONE WEEK that Ciudad Juarez processes in an entire year. They have a well-oiled machine to handle this volume, but when the H2 visa season coincides with staff transfer season, as it is now, they need extra manpower to get through the numbers. 

My three coworkers and I were sent to Monterrey, three hours' drive south of the Texas border in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, to help out with the other visa classes - the tourists, the students, and the professional work visas. We arrived on a Sunday afternoon and were instantly amazed at the Alpine-like setting. How had I not heard more about this city before?! Monterrey is known as the "Beverly Hills of Mexico" due to the amount wealth that has accumulated in homes and businesses inside the city and its various suburbs. Like Ciudad Juarez, it has been greatly affected by the narco-related violence in recent years, and the assignment is currently a no-school-aged-kids post. Therefore the crew of 20+ entry level officers are primarily young, single and on their first tour. Unfortunately, the city is like an island for the Consulate staff, as the recent violence prevents them from driving in any direction out of the city. However, the situation seems to be stabilizing and we're all hopeful that these restrictions can be lifted in the near future.

Housed in a cramped and outdated old Consulate building in downtown Monterrey, this team does an amazing job of handling the volume of work that crosses their threshold each day. As a Consular Officer, working in Monterrey in NIV will teach anyone excellent skills, just as working as an Immigrant Visa Officer will do the same for an officer in Ciudad Juarez. I thought of it as a "finishing school" of sorts to sharpen my skills by exposing me to a new range of applicants. Monterrey did not disappoint in that respect. From private drivers and household staff applying to accompany their bosses on US vacations, to students attending private boarding schools, to high-level executives from multinational corporations being transferred to the firms' US branches - the applicant pool was far more diverse than that in Juarez. Naturally, there was also the familiar mixture of university students wanting to go shopping in Texas with their friends, factory workers, homemakers, and grandparents from el campo hoping to visit their adult children in Denver, Los Angeles or Chicago and willing to spend days on a bus to get there. Hands-down, my favorite applicant showed up with his granddaughter assisting him. He appeared at my interview window under his own power, with a full set of natural teeth, straight gray hair down to his ears visible under his cowboy hat and dressed nattily in an embroidered cowboy shirt. He was 103. I told him it would be an honor to authorize a visa for him to visit his son in Texas. (My coworker then leaned over and asked me if I gave him the ten-year visa... which of course I did.)

On the weekends, Monterrey offered a great range of attractions, from the man-made river Paseo Santa Lucia which floats visitors from downtown Monterrey out to Parque Fundidora. The park was, up until the 1980s, a massive steel foundry that was cleaned up and "remodeled" into an expansive green zone dotted with remnants of its industrial past. In the center is "Horno 3" (Oven 3) which has the interactive Museum of Steel inside the former smelter and opportunities to climb around on various levels of the rusty steel machinery, including a zip-line and a smart restaurant to escape the heat and enjoy a cold mineral water, chicken salad and serious dose of air conditioning with a view. Ahhh....

Surrounding Monterrey are the northern reaches of the Sierra Madre, and located in part of this range is Parque Ecologico Chipinque. Just a short cab ride from our hotel, my coworkers and I explored a mere fraction of what the park offers. Organized like a ski resort, the park is criss-crossed with hiking trails, defined by difficulty in a color-coded system of black, blue and green. There is also a road that reaches a high peak called La Maseta where hikers, or those who drove up, will find playgrounds, snack shops, shade and a rustic inn with a swimming pool and an amazing view. I imagine that one could live in Monterrey for a full year and take a different hiking trail every weekend.

Prior to entering the Foreign Service, I had never even heard of Monterrey, Mexico, and how embarrassing that is to admit as it's a city of approximately 4 million residents (suburbs included). With the variety of natural diversions, mild climate (69-98 degrees year-round), strong economy offering all the shopping anyone could want, and easy proximity to both the US and Mexico City (3 hours driving to TX and a short flight to Mexico City), plus a new Consulate on the way in 2014 - I couldn't recommend Monterrey more! 

Cerro de la Silla (Saddle Mountain) seen from Parque Fundidora

Navigating down Paseo Santa Lucia

Dolomites? Alps? Rocky Mountains?  - Nope, it's Nuevo Leon, Mexico!

The "M" above Parque Ecologico Chipinque as seen from our hotel breakfast table.

Parque Fundidora view from Horno 3 looking west towards downtown.