Tag: Hope

Finally, Bangkok for Tourism

by pennypostcard • May 14, 2026 • 0 Comments

One of the amazing delights of serving a tour in Rangoon is its proximity — via a one-hour flight — to Bangkok. Similarly to how we viewed the southern Kazakh city of Shymkent (located within driving distance of my first posting in Tashkent, Uzbekistan), Bangkok offers shopping, international cuisine, real banking and medical care. It’s also a genuine reprieve from the stresses of Rangoon, such as burning garbage and electrical outages.

On our prior trips to Bangkok, we have been most interested in what it offers that isn’t otherwise available to us. With that said, Bangkok is a world city with plenty of things that make it special and worth visiting, not just in comparison to Rangoon but independently. In February we finally took that kind of trip to Bangkok.

Burma, Foreign Service

A New Normal

by pennypostcard • April 18, 2026 • 1 Comment

As I mentioned in a previous post, February was the month where life started to slowly feel like it was getting back to normal again for us in Burma. We returned from our R&R in Vietnam and Indonesia with some fresh perspective and gratitude, ready to hit the reset button.

As we reached the halfway point of our tour and I was finally able to leave my walker and cane behind for good, we focused on making memories and ensuring my accident neither became the legacy of our time in Rangoon nor overshadowed the time we had left.

Burma, Foreign Service

A Moment of Silence

by pennypostcard • March 28, 2026 • 0 Comments

It was a year ago today (March 28) that a 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck Burma (Myanmar), leveling buildings, destroying infrastructure, and killing and displacing thousands.

A few hours later, on the other side of the world, March 28 dawned in northern Virginia. I arrived at FSI early in the morning before Burmese language class and sat down to do my homework. Checking the news for any Myanmar-related stories I could do a report on, I stumbled upon news of the disaster that had happened in Sagaing, near Mandalay, while I was sleeping.

Foreign Service, Travel

Pool Villa Life, Part II

by pennypostcard • March 25, 2026 • 5 Comments

Before too much more time elapses, I want to finish sharing my thoughts about the third part of our January R&R — in Bali, Indonesia.

Burma, Foreign Service, Health

On My Own Two Feet

by pennypostcard • March 1, 2026 • 2 Comments

I’m pausing my recounting of our January R&R travelogues to share an update—and a few reflections—on my recovery from my truck vs. pedestrian accident last November. Although it occurred three-and-a-half months (15 weeks) ago, the importance of rehabilitating my injuries during the remainder of my tour in Burma still looms large.

Foreign Service, Travel

Pool Villa Life, Part I

by pennypostcard • February 23, 2026 • 1 Comment

I planned our January R&R from my hospital bed in Bangkok last December. My intention was to pack the beginning of the trip with sightseeing and activities, then gradually slow the pace into a more leisurely vacation as the days went on. After our busy four-day visit to Hanoi, we headed to our second destination in Vietnam—the coastal city of Da Nang—where a private pool villa awaited us.

Foreign Service, Travel

Holiday in Hanoi, Part II

by pennypostcard • February 19, 2026 • 1 Comment

January found V and me on R&R in Vietnam, a country we had never visited before. Our first stop was Hanoi—the country’s vibrant capital. Its streets buzzed with the cacophony of commerce and the chaotic crush of cars and motorbikes. It felt so different from Rangoon—more optimistic, more productive, life moving in fast-forward motion. I had only been out of the hospital for a month after being hit by a truck eight weeks prior, and I was still using a walker. But I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying Hanoi as much as I could.

[This post is the second in a series. To read the post about the first half of the trip, please click on the link.]

Burma, Foreign Service, Health

Both/And

by pennypostcard • January 28, 2026 • 2 Comments

My truck-versus-pedestrian accident was 10.5 weeks ago — almost two and a half months. One of the most difficult aspects of my recovery, aside from the physical injuries themselves, has been holding space for very different, simultaneous thoughts and feelings about what happened and how to move forward.

Balkans, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Foreign Service, Leadership & Work Culture, Travel

Flag Day Announcement… VI

by pennypostcard • January 27, 2026 • 3 Comments

Last week, I received the exciting news I had been anticipating since last September when sixth tour bidding opened for me: the title, location, and timing of my next diplomatic assignment.

Burma, Foreign Service, Health

So Glad You’re OK

by pennypostcard • January 17, 2026 • 3 Comments

I came home to Burma the Friday before Christmas and stepped back into my Rangoon life from the before times. Only I didn’t look the same on the outside, and I didn’t feel the same on the inside either. I had been medically evacuated and hospitalized in Thailand for over a month after being unexpectedly hit by a truck while crossing the street in front of my house. I’d broken my pelvis in three places, along with cracking two ribs, breaking a toe, and suffering a bilateral concussion and extensive road rash.

My traumatic injuries were still healing when I returned, and I was only 50% weight-bearing on my left side. Returning to my house and my work, nothing fit quite the same—it was like trying on someone else’s clothes. I had to contend with other people’s reactions to my visible injuries and the shock of what had happened to me, while sorting out my own feelings and struggling with my new limitations in real time. And as I settled back into post and the external cuts, wounds, and bruises slowly began to fade, I heard one thing over and over again: “I’m so glad you’re OK.”

Burma, Foreign Service, Health, Travel

Ableism and Access: Return to Burma

by pennypostcard • December 29, 2025 • 2 Comments

About 10 days ago I returned home to Burma. I’d spent a month hospitalized in Thailand after being hit by a truck while crossing the street in mid-November.

While I was in the hospital, I wanted nothing more than to come home and “get back to normal.” But the two days I spent in a hotel between my discharge and my return home illustrated how difficult navigating the real world would be as long as I could only bear about 15 kg of weight on my left leg. Most able-bodied people simply never notice the ways in which the world is inaccessible to those who move through it a bit differently.

Foreign Service, Health, Travel

Release

by pennypostcard • December 24, 2025 • 1 Comment

Four and a half weeks after my accident, I was discharged from the hospital. That was one week ago. After being released, I spent a couple nights in Bangkok on my own, flew back to Burma, and returned to work.

Foreign Service, Leadership & Work Culture

Sixth Tour Bidding: Showing Up

by pennypostcard • December 10, 2025 • 1 Comment

When the U.S. government closed for more than six weeks this autumn, it completely blew up the Foreign Service bid-season timeline for summer 2026 bidders. Summer 2026 bidders are those of us completing our assignments next summer who need an onward. Our bid cycle was meant to begin at the end of September 2025, with bids due in October and handshakes coming out in November.

But as the shutdown dragged on through October and into November without appropriations, bidding—an activity not deemed “excepted”—was at a full stop. Posts and bureaus weren’t permitted to interview candidates, and bidders couldn’t express interest in projected vacancies. In an attempt to create parity between excepted employees who were working without pay and non-excepted employees who had been furloughed and weren’t allowed to sign on during the lapse, the organization even took the portal used for most bidding activities offline, cutting off bidders’ visibility on capsule descriptions for open assignments.

Foreign Service, Health

Claustrophobia

by pennypostcard • December 8, 2025 • 5 Comments

My accident—the day I was hit by a truck and my life took a hard right turn—was just over three weeks ago. It feels like a lifetime has passed, yet it’s also difficult to believe I’ve already lost so much time. During a one-year tour, each week makes up 1.9% of the assignment. By that math, I’ve already lost 5.8% of my time in Burma (along with post allowances like danger and hardship pay), and the count keeps climbing because of this accident.

Over the 20 days I’ve now spent hospitalized in Thailand, the overall ordeal has felt a bit like Groundhog Day, even as the details of my daily lived experience have shifted subtly over time.

Burma, Foreign Service, Health, Travel

The Land of Smiles

by pennypostcard • December 4, 2025 • 0 Comments

Taking an international flight in a wheelchair is something I never imagined I’d experience. Yet when I arrived in Bangkok a little over two weeks ago, that’s exactly how I traveled—having not taken a single step except for the small ones over the seam between the breezeway and the plane, the only gap the wheelchair couldn’t bridge.

The morning three days after my truck vs. pedestrian accident, motorpool drove me from our house to the airport. An embassy nurse and my husband accompanied. I was pushed in a wheelchair through check-in, immigration, security, and Rangoon’s mostly-empty international departures terminal. I was the second passenger to board the flight, transferred into the tiny, narrow wheelchair that fits down the plane aisle. I settled into a comfortable business-class seat and never got up during the 70-minute flight. When we landed in Bangkok, an ambulance—and finally, answers about my injuries—waited just beyond baggage claim.

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