So how it works when you join the State Department as a Specialist is, they give you a bid list. There were 4 Facilities Manager Specialists including Garrett in his training class so we received a bid list of 4 locations. The 4 were Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Swaziland, and Equatorial Guinea. They give you resources and some time to research the different posts and then you turn in your preferences, ranked in the order you chose along with justifications. They met with Garrett a couple of times and talk through why he chose to rank the posts in the way he did, so they know what's really important to him, and then a board chooses where to send everyone.
The 4 FM families all had chosen different number 1's so we really thought we all knew where they'd send us, but we were wrong!
They called Garrett's name 2nd out of the gate and there were like 60 people receiving their assignments too, so that was a surprise to hear our names right at the beginning because we thought it might be alphabetical or something, only it was random instead. And then it was Dhahran, Saudi Arabia and not Bahrain like we had hoped. We thought Bahrain would be nice because it was right next door to Saudi Arabia but it wasn't as strict with rules (like closing stores for prayer times or women not being able to drive or having to wear abayas in public). They both had great schools and lots of nearby shopping and amenities so that part wasn't so scary. Plus, even though we bid Saudi 3rd on our list of 4, we also had realized in the back of our minds, that financially, Saudi would be best for us. It had the highest hardship pay (aside from Equatorial Guinea which didn't have any schooling in the English language so we ruled that out pretty quickly) and pretty much nothing to spend money on besides traveling!
So we found out it was to be Dhahran and I look back on my reaction and am sort of embarrassed... I cried. Kind of a lot. Right afterwards, people were shaking my hand and congratulating me on this thing that I was sort of devastated about. And then they'd get this look of sympathy, and anyone who knows me knows that sympathy just makes me cry worse, so then I'd just try avoiding seeing anyone.
Little did I know, that night would be the last of the negative feelings I'd have about Saudi Arabia before going!
I read this article online that day that taught that people should lean into their strong emotions, rather than keep burying them. So that night I decided to let myself feel. I felt scared and confused and angry and disappointed and worried and concerned and terrified and pessimistic and overwhelmed and all the negative feelings that I had only had little inklings of up until that point and I just let myself fully feel them. I expressed all my negativity to Garrett that night. And I cried. Oh how I cried.
After about 2 hours of just sobbing and voicing all my concerns, I actually felt so much better.
The next day I casually talked to one of the ladies on the board who helped send us there and also some other people who had also been there and they started telling us lots of the benefits of going there.
As I said before, good pay, nothing to really spend money on unless you want to, motorpool to drive me places, lots of American restaurants and shopping, near the oil compound Aramco with lots of other Americans and kids sports and things, great schools, etc.
So I started feeling a lot more optimistic after that point and that has continued to be my attitude now that I'm here.
I'm glad I was able to go through what I felt was a hard thing, so that I could practice feeling my feelings as well as adjusting when there are things that feel like trials. I feel stronger for it.
And next time, I'll actually update about what it's been like being in Saudi Arabia!
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