Embassy Furniture Part III

I just finished reading A Crocodile in the Pool, by Janet Ruddock. The book is a compilation of letters to friends and family written by a diplomatic wife, Janet, during her and her husband’s 1978-1980 posting to Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). During their posting, Janet wrote, mass-photocopied, and mailed via the diplomatic bag, long letters home on the adventures and misadventures of their two years in Africa. Clearly the precursor of both email and the blog, these letters were meant to be (mostly) lighthearted accounts of their life overseas. With Zaire constantly on the brink of some kind of disaster – political, economic, social, or natural – Janet assumed that her readers were likely worried enough about her and her husband Frank’s safety and did not need to have their fears confirmed in her letters. I have no doubt that many close calls never made it into the letters.

I have to say that reading Janet’s letters while on posting gives it added humour. Although Brazil of 2004 and Zaire of the late 1970s likely have little in common, it is clear that the Canadian Foreign Service has not changed much in the last twenty-five years. A hundred pages into the book, one passage in particular made me howl. I will quote it here, and you will just have to believe me when I say that I only received a copy of this book this past December, several weeks after writing my blog entry on the embassy lamps.

"... During our absence in Rwanda and Burundi, a new couch and matching love seat arrived for the living room. Two co-ordinating chairs, a hassock and a set of coffee tables complete the ensemble. Unfortunately the shipment included no lamps. After seven months with no lamps, one of our two wall scones has stopped working. Hearing that we had only one functioning light in the entire living room, the ambassador’s wife invited me to choose from unneeded lamps kept in the storeroom at the residence.

Wondering why Frank and I had not spoken up sooner, she encouraged me to take whatever she had available. Admittedly, she confessed to relegating said lamps to the storeroom due to their unfashionable appearance. We chuckled at the wide variety of truly ugly lamps and lampshades shipped from Canada for our use and pleasure. Selecting the least distasteful of the lot, I thanked her for the much appreciated, if somewhat unattractive lamps...."

There you have it. Apparently these lamps were not even attractive in the 70s!! Perhaps a useful government survey would be to survey what percentage of diplomatic lamps permanently reside in storerooms.

Published in 2001, copies of A Crocodile in the Pool can be ordered from the General Store Publishing House.