In February, the weather in Islamabad was quite chilly in the mornings, but warmed up nicely by afternoon. My garden was doing well, and I had continued harvest of broccoli, cauliflower, radishes and lettuce. At work, I was now quite comfortable with my job, and my partner headed back to the USA on R&R.
R&R stands for Rest and Recuperation, and it is a Foreign Service benefit to offer us a chance to get away from stressful posts. Many (indeed most) Foreign Service assignments offer R&R. The more stressful, dangerous, isolated, or uncomfortable a post is, the more frequent we get an R&R. For example, in isolated Fiji my wife Megan is entitled to one R&R during her 3 year tour. In Pakistan (as in Iraq and Afghanistan) we get 2 per year. My next post, Singapore, gets none, which indicates how comfortable that assignment is.
Those posts that get an R&R have a designated “R&R point”, and the State Department pays the airfare for a member (and his dependent family) to that point. Those have family members back in the USA, could have those members flown to the R&R point, which was a wonderful benefit.
The R&R point is a large city that offers a comfortable place to relax. For example, from Fiji the R&R point is Sydney, Australia. From Pakistan it was London, England. Alternatively, we can choose any U.S. State or U.S. Territory. During our assignment in Poland, who’s R&R point is Rome, we instead choose Miami, Florida. Another option, is to choose a point that is neither our R&R point or a U.S. State/Territory and the State Department will up to the cost of a flight to the R&R point. For example, if the cost of a flight to London (full fare) from Pakistan is $2,800, then we could probably go anywhere else in the world, as the Government would pay $2,800 of the ticket! For Megan, who’s R&R is Sydney, the cost is only $600, so she is quite limited as to where she can go from Fiji. For this reason, we’ll probably do our R&R back to the USA.
My co-worker went on R&R back to her home state of Florida, and so I ended up running the office alone. It was not too bad, and offered me a chance to learn many of the duties that she alone had been responsible for. I needed this experience as I will be the sole Office Manager when I get to Singapore.
The day to day life in Islamabad remained unchanged. My daily routine consists of taking an armored vehicle to work, working 12-14 hours, and then heading home in time to watch an hour’s worth of TV before heading to bed. With my co-worker gone, I worked 7 days a week. Exhausting, but I really can use the overtime, which approached 30 additional hours a pay period. My paycheck is now triple what it was in Washington – but almost all of it was being used for our daughter’s college tuition.
I will take my first R&R at the end of March. Until then, life drags on here in Islamabad.
