¿Where in the World is Carly Santiago? (or WWCS?)

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First of all, brother Evan had a baby boy on Friday at 5 am, an hour Evan has rarely seen. They named the boy Waylon. My attempts to get Montgomery and Ulysses into the mix were quickly rebuffed. This disappointment came on the heels of another; Broc crumpled at the 9th hour and failed to name his boy Thor. Nevertheless, nice work to all of those who have successfully reproduced.

In Chile, I spend much less time grappling with baby names and more trying to understand the bewildering aray of acronyms that permeate life when living in the zone of influence of the United Nations. Unfortunately, the idiot level ones (WTO, IMF, UN, EU) make up about .01% of the total. Consequently, when happy houring with folks from CEPAL (Commision Economica para America Latina y el Carribe, i.e. where carly works), I often get lost in the alphabet soup of the conversation and find my attention irresistibly drawn to whatever drink happens to be in my hand. Emails, however, prove harder to ignore. This is especially true when the subject line reads ‘to keep you in the loop’. I had hoped to reproduce in its entirety an excerpt from a recent email, but carly worries that exact reproduction of personal emails may be a breach of etiquette. Attempts to convince her that none of the 17 bored people skimming this over lunch were likely to violate anyone’s confidence proved futile, so imagine more words connecting the acronyms. To be honest, it makes about as much sense with the other words as it does without:

. . . everyone who came in on the NCRE . . . the P-2 in the unit is nice. . . the MRP is great for that . . . people in DPKO's situation center . . .if OHRM hadn't assigned me to OCHA. . . but not ESCAP.

Luckily, carly often provides an acronym key so that I can understand what is being communicated. In this particular case, it is quite important as the MRP, the Managed Relocation Program, begins today. A much anticipated list will soon appear with worldwide vacancies for all the positions occupied by P2s, people at a given level within the system. The thing about the MRP is that everyone has to participate. Everyone includes carly. The justification for this is something about combating institutional stagnancy and maintaining vitality within the global organization. Soon, this list will be pored over be people in every corner of the globe (isn´t it a little bizarre to talk of corners on a globe?) trying to decide if true happiness, job satisfaction, meaning, access to keys to world dominance, and/or a pot of gold might be found in Santiago, Geneva, Vienna, Beirut, Addis Ababa or a mess of other places. Given that I am along for the ride, I am curious where we might be in 4 months.

The only thing that has been confirmed is that Bangkok sucks. Not the city, but the commission, ESCAP, there. So much so that the witty acronym happy UNers have started adding an E to the end of the acronym. Hilarious. This is terrible news as I like the idea of South East Asia. Though the Spanish that I have been failing to learn for the last two years would be less useful in Thailand, at least they don’t speak English. If we go where people speak English, I may have (greater) productivity issues. Beirut would be interesting if Israel can refrain from dropping bombs on it for a while. Europe is expensive but has Easy Jet. Santiago would be easy. Then there is Africa. My lack of knowledge of Africa is sweeping in its comprehensiveness. On the upside, I assume if I step foot on the African continent, I can make an unwanted donation to the locals and move closer to my ‘robbed on every continent’ life time achievement goal. We shall see what the List reveals.

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Photos

Peacock
One of the flock that roam the commission shitting everywhere and making an ungodly (but in my opinion pretty entertaining) amount of noise.

CEPAL identification
notice that my official designation is ECLAC husband. ECLAC, obviously, is English for CEPAL.

Comments

[Lisa]

sweet bulletin board
I admit that this is the first blog that I have read in its entirety. Thank you Colin for taking that pic of Carly with the pics of my bambinos in the background- took my breath away and brought tears to my eyes in a surprisingly quick fashion- apparently I allow myself to be on the edge of my experience more often now. My broccoli is probably mush at this point- and we're having spanish tortilla sobras con pimientos rojos- for dinner. I love to hear your voice in your writing. You are very clever and witty- in your cynical way. ;) ha. You sound optimistic and happpy- anticipating the next chapter. xo

[Matt]

Corners of the Globe
I always tell people that I live at the 3rd corner of the Earth.

[Karen Bachman]

Earth
The four corners of the earth phrase is a holdover when scientists thaought the world was flat!!!!

[MM]

That badge
WTF? The UN gave you an access badge?

[John Beck]

The window design appears to be inspired by a dog scratch prevention cone.