(I tried to think of some witty and imaginative intro for this post, but then I realized nothing can be catchier than that!)
Yes, folks EverAfterLand will be learning the Espanol (Ok, I am very aware that this word needs a ~ over the ‘e.’ Note #1,064 on the list of things to do before we move: Figure out the ~ on the keyboard.) We will be in the possession of Diplomatic Passports and new-for-us immunizations. We are going INTERNATIONAL!!!
Well, um, INTERNATIONALE! (En Espanol. Where the hell is that ~?)
Details. Right, I’m sure you are wanting more details! (Thank you for your patience.)
Jimmy, The Hubs, had applied and was accepted into a program known as FAO. Not the toy company (although that would be very cool, too!), this one stands for Foreign Area Officer. This is a new designation for him, which means the rest of his career (long and storied, I’m sure!) he will be an FAO.
Now, those FAOs split up the world into five regions – Europe, Asia/India, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America. We, of course, are SOUTHCOM, which consists of South America, Central America and the Caribbean.
We waited another few months to find out our next duty station, and have recently been told it is Honduras!
BUT! We do not have paper orders yet, nor will they get here until a couple months prior to our Big Move, which won’t be till mid-summer.
Oh, ya’ll were biting your nails wanting to know WHEN this major move was happening? Oh, sorry, I’ll redo my intro for you…
We’re moving to Honduras!!!! Around Mid-Summer!!!!!
There, all better!
Anyway, like I said, we don’t have physical orders yet, but we’ve been tacked onto the wall as the family headed to Honduras.
But don’t be terribly surprised if that changes. (Can you tell I’ve been a Navy wife for a while? Yeah.)
Honduras!
What will he be doing? Well, I can’t delve too much into details, so I will defer to the Wikipedia definition (because if it’s on the internet, it must be true)…
“A Foreign Area Officer (FAO) is a commissioned officer from any of the four branches of the United States Armed Forces who is a regionally focused expert in political-military operations. Such officers possess a unique combination of strategic focus and regional expertise, with political, cultural, sociological, economic, and geographic awareness. Foreign language proficiency is necessary in at least one of the dominant languages in their specified region.”
So we speak the Espanol and go to parties and stuff, ya’ll! We are SO totally gonna represent the U.S., it’ll knock their pants off!!!
I will be blogging about all the preparation that will go into this next big move, and then, of course, blogging about our new Country Of Residence. It’s exciting! It’s amazing! It’s mildly terrifying! But there are few times in life when you get a heads-up that something so big is going to happen to you, it will change the essential core of who you are as a person. Preferably in positive ways! I am looking forward to this new journey, I am even more ecstatic to be sharing that journey with you!
And I’ll be looking forward to each and every one of you coming for a visit.
Ole! (Ok, that might be a Mexican thing. And how do I put the ‘ over the ‘e?’)