Training at FSI

It is a normal part of life in the Foreign Service that you must return to the National Foreign Affairs Training Center, known to us as FSI (Foreign Service Institute) for training at periodic intervals of your career. For me this time it was only a week of leadership training but for some it can be many long months of language training or tradecraft of their specialty. The odd thing about being back at FSI is that all the people you knew are gone, replaced by brand new foreign service officers, mid-level people transferring to a new post and senior staff preparing for the next phase of their careers.

Most everyone is unfamiliar, but the facility and its operation is so familiar...it is just an odd, weird sensation.

One of the things our trainers said to us (tongue in cheek, of course) during our initial training was "okay, we all know you are ALL water walkers..." Meaning that just to get this far you are "special," cream of the crop, high calibre people...but it is not that you have "arrived" and can now sit on your laurels, you must now work to set yourself apart, compete for promotions and prove yourself even further.

What I realized being back at FSI was that the air of "we are special, we are 'water walkers'" was palpable. It was a reminder that humility is always a good thing. Also after being overseas, working in what is a pretty small community where you support and know each other, you see the huge contrast when you are thrown into a very large group of colleagues that you do not know well.

I was blessed to have a couple of very dear friends in DC at the same time and getting to see them was wonderful. One has already departed for her onward post in Kabul and others are preparing to go to similar places. Much as I enjoy being home, I do look forward to going out again. I don't know if non-FS people can understand the draw of the opportunity to challenge yourself, but it calls loudly to me.