{"id":6149,"date":"2020-10-11T03:53:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T07:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6149"},"modified":"2020-10-11T03:53:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T07:53:59","slug":"much-needed-boost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/?p=6149","title":{"rendered":"Much-needed boost"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6150\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6150\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-6150\" src=\"http:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/A96D3BD2-B022-4D72-B1F9-E63D2766D7F8-300x225.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/A96D3BD2-B022-4D72-B1F9-E63D2766D7F8-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/A96D3BD2-B022-4D72-B1F9-E63D2766D7F8.jpeg 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6150\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Another pretty sunset!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>I talked to several friends this week via video chat &#8211; lots of fun! Last Sunday, John and I visited with Wendy and Nick in DC, and got to see their baby who was born before we left for Africa. I also talked to Jamie and Jackie, my cousins David and Alison, and Mary &#8211; who became a grandmother this week! Welcome to the world, Samantha!<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been a good boost to see friends\u2019 faces, as we grind along here in Liberia. This week marked ten months with no break, other than weekends, and even those we usually work at least one day. There\u2019s no end in sight for the foreseeable future, since there\u2019s really no where to go. COVID cases seem to be ticking back up again.<\/p>\n<p>On the upside, the new immigrant visa chief is out of quarantine, so I took his family shopping yesterday. It will be a big relief to have him in the office. And with more people transferring in, the embassy is starting to feel less empty and some sense of community returning.<\/p>\n<p>John and I watched \u201cMilitary Wives\u201d last night with Kristin Scott Thomas and Sharon Horgan, and really enjoyed it. It\u2019s one of those feel-good movies based on true events that embarrassingly always makes me cry!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I talked to several friends this week via video chat &#8211; lots of fun! Last Sunday, John and I visited with Wendy and Nick in DC, and got to see their baby who was born before we left for Africa. I also talked to Jamie and Jackie, my cousins David and Alison, and Mary &#8211; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6151,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6149\/revisions\/6151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.criplomats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}