Creating a Perfectly Curated International Life

One Trip at a Time

25 Years of Being a Global Nomad

Entry One - In the Beginning

This year, I am celebrating 25 years of being a global nomad. I took my first international trip when I was a baby and I traveled abroad to Canada, Europe and the Caribbean throughout my childhood. But it wasn’t until I studied abroad in 1997, that I felt like I made a conscious choice to approach living, learning, and working abroad with intention and purpose. 

In some ways, I feel like I have really just begun – there’s so much that I still want and need to see. I am fortunate to have done a deep dive in a few countries, spending a year or two to really soak up both the remarkable and the quotidian in Burkina Faso, Mexico, and South Africa, with months-long stays in Italy, Greece, Germany, France, and Ecuador. In all, I have visited nearly 45 countries in Africa, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Some of my greatest lessons, triumphs, and failures, have taken place on foreign soil. 

I am gearing up for an international move to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia later this summer. I will work at the U.S. Mission to the African Union. This will be my third time living in Africa and my first time in East Africa. Now seems like the perfect time to reflect on the breathtaking, hilarious, and beyond-my-wildest-dreams moments I have had in two and a half decades of being a student of the world.  In 2022, I want to acknowledge and celebrate the ways in which I have been shaped and nurtured by my interactions with people of different races, cultures, religions, beliefs, and backgrounds, from across the globe. Stick with me and learn more about my global adventures and where my vision for Perfectly Curated Life came to life.

25 Years of Being a Global Nomad

Entry Two -What’s In a Name?

For my second post celebrating 25 years of my @perfectlycuratedlife as a global nomad, I had originally planned to write about spending a semester in Florence, Italy during my junior year at Spelman College. But life threw me the most delightful surprise this week, and as such, my tales about bella Italia are on pause until next week. In the meantime, watch Stanley Tucci’s superb “Searching for Italy” on CNN. 

Now, let's get into it. Do you see this sweet newborn baby girl? She was born on Wednesday January5, 2022, in Taiwan, and her name is…wait for it…Heather! I have my very own namesake, halfway around the world.

It’s clear that we don’t bear much of a physical resemblance,aside from having a head full of hair, but she’s my cousin. As with many other important events in my life, the story of how I came to have a Taiwanese family has an international twist. 

There are two people who are vital to this story - my cousin by blood + love, Wesley, and my cousin by love alone, Wen. More on them, shortly.

I lived in Johannesburg, South Africa from 2008-2010. I was there on my first diplomatic assignment with the Department of State and I was having the time of my life. My family is close-knit and I have always adored my cousin Wesley, as if he was my own child. And in a way, he is. Wesley was a cherubic toddler when I started college. His parents lived in suburban Atlanta and I used to babysit Wesley and his beautiful siblings, Lee and Atria, often. 

When I lived in New York after law school, Wesley spent a summer with me learning how to become a true Harlemite (Uptown, baby!) and a bona fide New Yorker. 

By the time I moved to Joburg, Wesley was a high school junior and I wanted him to spend a semester living with me, so that he could have the kind of transformative international experience that I had had when I moved to Florence. Unfortunately, the stars didn’t align and our family wasn’t able to get all of the pieces in place in time for him to begin school during the fall semester. 

I was crushed, and so was he. But his mom, Gloria, was determined not to let the setback ruin the chance for her son to broaden his international horizons. So she quietly made plans to host an international exchange student - cue Wen Li. 

When was born and raised in Taiwan and when he first arrived in Atlanta, his English was halting. He is the same age as Wesley and they spent their entire junior year as roommates and classmates. They were instant besties. Gloria became Wen’s second mother and he and Wesley repaid her kindness by eating her out of house and home! I have NEVER seen two children who ate as much as those two boys. 

Wen quickly gained native-level English proficiency and after that, you couldn’t tell him and Wesley ANYTHING. They thought they were the kings of MLK High School! You couldn’t convince them that they were not fine and fly…Crockett and Tubbs, remixed for the aughts. 

Wesley and When were adorable and they were a mess! One time, I picked them up from school. They asked if I would mind getting out of my car and walking to meet them down the block from the school, so that they could take a spin around the school parking lot in my convertible. They didn’t want me in the car to bust up their parking lot pimping. I’m going to let you guess what my response was. Starts with boy, ends with bye.

Wesley and Wen’s bond has endured for almost 15 years and they have remained as thick as thieves. I love them both to pieces and our family has been in constant contact with Wen, and his family, over the years. In 2020, before COVID shut down the world, my mom and Aunt Gloria went to Taipei to celebrate the Lunar New Year. 

In the summer of 2020, Wen and his wife, Veronica, had their first baby - a boy named Hines, whom I post photos of often, because he is so stinking CUTE! Hines is named in honor of my family; it is my aunt’s and mom’s maiden name, straight out of the Black Belt of Alabama. 

On Wednesday, the Li family welcomed their second baby, a girl, whose name is HEATHER!  I am brimming with happiness and pride that they named this sweet new human after me. And clearly Little Miss Heather is my day one - two minutes in the world and she is already sporting Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.’s beautiful colors! Look at her, so lovely swaddled in her pink and green. 

International education created the bond between our families and love has sustained it over the years. Until next week…

-HJ

25 Years of Being a Global Nomad

Entry Three – Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Sisterhood and the importance of building relationships and coalition with like-minded women, was impressed upon me from the moment I stepped on Spelman College’s campus in Southwest Atlanta. If not for Spelman, and three powerful women I met through being a Spelman Woman, my life would have turned out differently and I certainly would not have become a diplomat and permanent nomad. 

Khalisha Wiggs was my classmate and friend and she’s the person who first planted the seed about studying abroad. She practically dragged me by my ear to attend the study abroad information session during our sophomore year. That meeting, and the semester in Florence that ensued, set my international travel foundation. Khalisha stayed on top of me about submitting my application on time; I needed that motivation. She studied in Spain and we met up in Italy during our semester abroad. Khalisha’s encouragement and the ways in which she held me accountable for timely submitting my application didn’t seem like that big of a deal, at the time. In retrospect, I know that without her, and the magical experience that I was able to have in Italy when I studied there, I would not have developed an appetite for international living. What was seemingly a small thing, turned out to be seminal and trajectory shifting.

Margery Ganz, Ph.D. was my study abroad advisor, and years later, one of my biggest supporters when I was going through the competitive selection process to become a State Department Foreign Service Officer. Dr. Ganz possesses the knowledge of a thousand brains. She doesn’t suffer fools, and she speaks plainly and directly. When I appeared not to be taking the study abroad application and essays seriously, Dr. Ganz bossed up and told me to get my stuff together - NOW! Two things: Ouch! and thank you! 

Dr. Ganz helped to transform Spelman’s study abroad program and she has been a strong advocate of diversity and inclusion in international education throughout her career. I have been lucky enough to see the power of her vision as a student and as a professional. One of the great honors of my professional life is mentoring aspiring diplomats. Many of my mentees are Spelman students and alumnae who have been shaped and encouraged by Dr. Ganz. Over the years, I have done my best to pay forward the love, encouragement, and honest feedback I received from her.

A month after I graduated from Spelman, I boarded a flight bound for Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Burkina is a small landlocked country in  French-speaking West Africa, where I served as a Peace Corps volunteer. While it offered a lot in the way of culture, it was sorely lacking in medical infrastructure. At one point, I had to go to Washington, D.C. for medical services that I could not get in Burkina. During that trip to the States, one of my Spelman sisters recommended that I get in touch with one of her friends who worked at the Department of State. She sensed that we may have a lot in common. I heeded her advice and called her friend, who agreed to meet me for lunch at a cute Thai restaurant in Arlington, VA. 

When I walked into the restaurant, I was warmly greeted by a tall and regal woman, who emanated grace and kindness. We discussed life over spring rolls, and pad thai and she peppered me with questions about my Peace Corps service and my career plans for when I returned to the United States after my service ended. I told her that I planned to go to law school. She looked at me and said “I think you should consider a career in the Foreign Service.” I promised her that I would think about it, and that was that. 

We remained in regular contact over the next few years, as I finished up Peace Corps, moved back home to Michigan, and started law school. By the time I was a second year law student, I was clear that I didn’t want to practice law after I graduated. “A career in Foreign Service” kept running through my mind. I decided to take the Foreign Service Officer Test. I didn’t know much about the Department of State, outside of what Jamie Kantrowitz, my friend from study abroad in Florence, had told me about diplomats having cool careers. 

The test had a reputation for being very difficult and I knew I needed a study strategy to have a fighting chance at passing. So, I reached out to Dr. Ganz – I instinctively knew that she would be able to give me guidance. Dr. Ganz told me to get in touch with the Diplomat-in-Residence at Howard University, who was a Spelman alumna. It turns out that the woman Dr. Ganz recommended was the same lovely woman with whom I had Thai food a few years prior. She explained the testing process in great detail, shared advice on how to manage my time and how to prepare, and connected me with her colleague in Atlanta, who ran frequent test-prep sessions at Spelman. She spoke to me as though I was already an esteemed colleague, even though I hadn’t yet stepped foot inside of the Department of State. She treated my career in diplomacy as a foregone conclusion and the written and oral exams as mere formalities that I needed to complete before my real work began. She was wayyyyyy more confident about it than I was but her belief in me rubbed off - I took and passed the exam on the first try. 

In early 2008, when I found out that I had been invited to join the next diplomatic cohort at State, she was the first person I called. Through the ups and downs of my career, she has been a constant source of wisdom, cool-headed advice, and encouragement. By now, you’re probably wondering who is this woman I am lucky enough to call a mentor and a friend? She is Ambassador (retired) Aurelia Erskine Brazeal, the first African-American woman ever to be named  ambassador by three different presidents. She was also the first Black woman to rise from entry in the Foreign Service to its senior ranks. During her 41 year career as a diplomat, Ambassador Brazeal served as a United States Ambassador to Kenya, the Federated States of Micronesia, and Ethiopia. You can read more about her storied career here: https://diplomacy.state.gov/u-s-diplomacy-stories/the-composure-and-leadership-of-ambassador-aurelia-brazeal/

And here: https://www.academyofdiplomacy.org/member/aurelia-brazeal/

A final note - today is a special day for me and for tens of thousands of women around the globe who are members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. Our sorority was founded on January 15,1908 on the campus of Howard University. January is important for the Divine Nine, as three of the four historically African-American sororities celebrate their anniversaries during the month. AKAs and the women of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. and Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., rededicate ourselves to the service-driven missions of our organizations and reflect on the fearlessness and courage of our respective founders. These women were determined to create spaces where Black women could lead, serve, and grow. Khalisha…the woman who got me started with study abroad…she’s an AKA. Until next week…

-HJ

25 Years of Being a Global Nomad

Entry Four - Say What???

I spent the first semester of my junior year at Spelman in Florence, Italy. Spelman had a study abroad arrangement with Syracuse University, which had a campus there.  Syracuse’s mini-campus sits on Piazza Savonarola and its gorgeous main building is called the Villa Rossa; it’s a former private family home of a noble Florentine named Mario Gigliucci. My Italian language and Renaissance History classes were held there. My degree from Spelman is in Studio Art, and living in Florence allowed me to take classes in textiles and metalwork – batik, weaving, quilting, and jewelry-making – in an environment steeped in arts and culture. Syracuse had a four-day school week, so that students had  three days to explore each weekend. I visited the Tuscan towns of San Gimignano for gelato and Luca for olive oil. I branched out to Milan and Rome. I was trying to take it all in. 

I lived across the piazza from campus,  with an unconventional and very modern host family – Analisa, my host mother, her young daughter, Ginevra, and her Sicilian live-in boyfriend, Stefano. Stefano was an architect of around 50 years of age - gruff, loud, fun, very macho. Analisa was in her late 30s, beautiful, impeccably stylish and coiffed, and an amazing cook. I soaked up so much from her, her mother, and her friends during their dinner weekly visits. Analisa and her exish-husband (apparently, it takes years to get a divorce in Italy. Analisa and her husband had been separated for many moons, but their divorce hadn’t been formalized by the state) had a weekend home in Fiesole, a charming town in the foothills outside of Florence. We would go there some weekends for fresh air and food…always amazing food. One weekend, Stefano and ex-bae got to arguing and carrying on. It wasn’t a fight, per se, but there  was enough loud talking and chest puffing to let me know that something was about to pop off, despite my inability to understand every word being said. It was a scuffle-light…a piccola lotta in local parlance. I can’t say with certainty who would have won, but I’d put my money on Stefano. Ex-bae was conventionally handsome but quite thin and lacking in a certain emotional muscularity. He didn’t really want that smoke, but he had to save face in front of his ex-ish wife and their daughter, so he pretended that he did. I was afraid that if things got too wild, one of the men would tumble down the mountainside right into Florence.

Living in Florence helped me to understand that societies have fundamentally differing notions about the role of meals and approaches to food. In Southfield, Michigan where I grew up,  I knew we had regional food preparations and preferences (Coney!) but my meal times in Michigan were pretty much the same as in all the other states I visited. My parents went to the supermarket once a week – twice if my brothers were having a growth spurt and we needed to re-up on milk, cereal, and bread. On Saturdays, we’d go to Eastern Market, Detroit’s world class farmer’s market, to buy fresh produce. Weekday breakfast was cereal and toast, lunch was either a bag lunch or whatever the school cafeteria served, and dinner was our time to come together and share a meal as a family. We found everything we needed at Farmer Jack’s, we only went to the bakery for specialty items on holidays and birthdays, and our bread was encased in plastic and sealed with a twist tie. 

Florence was different. They had only a few supermarkets and no one shopped for the entire week. Analisa  shopped daily and purchased most of our food at dedicated bakeries, green grocers, and butchers. Analisa would never, and I mean NEVER, eat day old bread. There was a cultural belief that breakfast should be brief, lunch should be large, long, and languid, and supper should be simple and small. I was introduced to café culture – a walk up espresso bar on every corner. Bakeries where even a simple loaf of fresh bread was ensconced in paper, bedecked in ribbon, and presented with a flourish – loved it! 

Learning Italian language and culture from native speakers were the primary reasons I wanted to live with a host family, instead of in an apartment with other American college students. I was taking daily Italian classes at school and I came home to a fully immersive Italian language environment - Neither Analisa, Stefano, nor Ginevra spoke English. After two months, I was speaking conversationally. I made mistakes and grammatical errors but my Italian was good enough that I could make myself understood in all aspects of my daily life. In language, as in life, we sometimes run across things that are NOT what they appear to be.  Things that look and sound similar that turn out to be quite different from what we believed them to be. In language, we call these fake friends false cognates. Eg. “Educazione” looks like it would mean “education” but it actually means to be well-mannered, or properly brought up - “education” in Italian is “istruzione,” insegnamento,” or “pedagogia.” 

If you’re not careful, these fake friends can really trip you up.  They sure got a hold of me! My mom and grandmother both canned fresh fruits and vegetables and frequently made jams and jellies, which they called “preserves.” Well, one morning I was eating breakfast with Analisa et al and I asked Analisa to pass the preserves…or at least I thought I did. “Per favore, passami i preservativi” is what I said. The moment I uttered the phrase, I knew something had gone horribly awry. Analisa looked stunned and her mouth dropped open. Ginevra chuckled. Stefano guffawed. I didn’t know what I had said wrong, but I knew it was something. The moment passed, and only later that day did I learn that “preservativi” means condoms, not fruit spread. Jam it! You live, you learn. 

Until next week…

-HJ

25 Years of Being a Global Nomad

Entry Five - You never know. You Never, Never, Never, Never, Never Know

I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Burkina Faso in 1999-2000. This week, I have been saddened by the news reports coming out of Burkina. It is a country in peril – located in the Sahel – a region that has been racked by violence and instability.  Last Monday, there was a military coup in Burkina and the Army overthrew President Roch Kabore. When I lived there, Burkina was peaceful but that tranquility is now a relic. Since 2015, jihadists linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State group have killed thousands and displaced an estimated 1.5 million people. I write about Burkina today, out of a sense of deep gratitude for the lessons I learned while living there and as a sendup to the kind and lovely Burkinabe men, women, and children I was lucky enough to meet all those years ago. I pray continuously for their safety and protection. 

When I arrived back in the United States after my semester in Florence, I knew that I wanted to go back to living abroad, stat. Atlanta seemed quaint and parochial compared to Florence and I was ready to see the world. I thought I was GROWN-grown.

When I was a kid, I remember seeing television commercials touting the Peace Corps as “The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love.” At that time, I didn’t know the difference between the Peace Corps, Job Corps, and the Marine Corps! But I knew enough to locate the Peace Corps recruiting center in Atlanta. I met with a bright and bubbly Peace Corps recruiter. Upon learning that I had spent a semester in Florence, the recruiter, herself a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, who was no stranger to West Africa or Italy, told me “There’s something about the quality of the light in Burkina that really reminds me of Italy.” Okaaaay, sounds good! During the early part of my final semester, I completed my application and soon after, learned that I had been accepted. Country of Assignment: Burkina Faso.

I graduated from Spelman in the middle of May and just a few weeks later,  I was on an Air Afrique flight to Ouagadougou (Wah-Ga-Doo-Goo), the capital of Burkina Faso (formerly Upper Volta). Although my Peace Corps recruiter had said ‘Similar,’ ‘Florence,’ and ‘Ouagadougou’ in the same sentence with a straight face, moments after my plane touched down in Ouaga, I realized she was telling an epic joke that I wasn’t in on. 

Ouagadougou and Florence have about as much in common as an apple and a roach! Nothing, not even the light and its qualities, is similar about these two rich and majestic places. While I can see the beauty of Burkina now, the first minutes, days, and weeks there were brutal. I had a vague idea about the country before I went and I wasn’t walking into my service completely blind. I knew a lot of facts and figures, however, It was the vast UNknowing that did me in. Even now, I am blown away by the depths of my ignorance during that time - I really had NO idea what I had signed up for. 

KNOWNS:

• I knew it was dusty and landlocked. 

• I knew it was poor.

• I knew that my house wouldn’t have indoor plumbing, running water, or electricity.

• I knew there would be challenges with phone connectivity. 

• I knew that there would be foods that were new to me, some of which I probably wouldn’t like. 

• I knew that it would be hot. 

UNKNOWNS:

• I did not know what 110 degrees would feel like when it slaps you in the face for the first time. 

• I didn’t know jetways did not exist at the Ouagadougou International Airport. I didn’t know that anyone but the President and First lady descended the stairs of an airplane and walked straight onto the tarmac. 

• I didn’t know that the asphalt on the tarmac could get so hot that the heat could burn through the soles of your shoes, as you dashed from the plane to the airport.

• I didn’t know that the bags didn’t always make it the whole way around the luggage carousel before they were whisked back onto the Bamako-bound plane. Not enough time to set them all out today but don’t worry, the plane and its (your) bags will be back tomorrow, the baggage staff informed us — they were right. 

• I didn’t know that a VW van designed to seat eight, could be reimagined as a Kombi transport taxi with the capacity for 15 adults, six kids, some chickens, and a rope-bound live goat in its interior and 44 pieces of luggage strapped on the roof. 

• I didn’t know that Tô, a stiff paste made of pounded manioc, would feature in nearly every meal. I didn’t know that when Tô took a break, riz gras, an oil-soaked dish of rice and tomato paste, would take its place.

• I didn’t know that corn could be grilled on the roadside or that it was a ubiquitous daily snack – no salt, no butter, just charred corn on the cob. Black, crispy, and after a few timid nibbles, delicious. 

• I didn’t know a 200-mile trip could take 17 hours because of the condition of the roads nor that a road could be completely washed out by rain.

• I didn’t know you could have a life filled with joy and peace, even in the absence of material comforts.  

Today, more than 20 years after I completed my service, what I learned in Burkina and now KNOW to be unequivocally true, is that you can lack everything but want for nothing…if you get your mind right.

Until next week…

-HJ