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ILLUSTRATION BY SARAH ALSHUHAYEB, 8, VIENNA
So you want to be a diplomat . . .
Knowing different languages and cultures is key
D
oes the idea of traveling the world, meeting people from dif- ferent cultures and who speak
different languages sound like fun? If so, maybe you’d like to be a diplomat when you grow up. KidsPost caught up with diplomat Wendy Henning to find out what it takes to have a career in diplo- macy. “You need to really like living in a place very different from where you come from,” she told us. Second, since you’ll be working with people who come from different back- grounds, you’ll have to “be willing and wanting to un- derstand someone else’s point of view,” Henning said. Henning has worked as a diplomat for the United States government for about seven years. It combines two of her favorite things: trav- eling and helping people. Her journey started in the
Central African Republic, where she spent two years after college volun- teering with the Peace Corps, a group es- tablished in 1961 for Americans to help people and communities in different countries all around the world. Part of her mission was encouraging girls to stay in school. (Unlike in the Unites States, the law there doesn’t require kids to go to school.) Her experience inspired her to attend graduate school to learn more about international affairs. Diplomats do a lot of jobs that involve working with people from different countries. Henning’s job is to help refu- gees. Refugees are people who have to
RICHARD HARTOG/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Abby Sunderland, 16, will head to South Africa for boat repairs.
Teen ends her sail
ABOVE BY MARK GAIL/THE WASHINGTON POST; LEFT FROM WENDY HENNING
As part of her job, diplomat Wendy Henning travels to Africa a few times a year to help refugees.
leave their homes be- cause their country has become unsafe. She makes sure refugees have things such as food, water and shelter. Then when their home countries become safe again, Henning helps them return. She does
much of her work from her office in Washington, where she works with oth- er groups, including the United Nations. But a few times a year, Henning trav- els to countries in Africa, including Tan- zania, Uganda and Burundi, where she stays for two to four weeks. It may be hard to imagine living in a country where the nearest school or hospital may be 100 miles away — and where families don’t have cars but feel lucky if they have a bike. Recently, Henning spent two weeks in Zambia, helping 500 people return home to southeast Congo. She traveled by bus and boat with the refugees. When they arrived in Congo, she made
sure they had a place where they could rebuild their huts and replant their crops. Safety is something else to keep in mind if you want to be a diplomat. Sometimes diplomats working in for- eign countries have to leave suddenly because it becomes dangerous. According to Henning, lots of people
with different skills become diplomats. She encourages kids, no matter what they want to do when they grow up, to
learn languages. Henning speaks French, Spanish, Sango, which is spoken in the Central African Republic, and a little Dari, which is spoken in Afghani- stan, where she lived for a year. Even just trying to speak someone else’s lan- guage, she said, shows people that you are “interested in learning about them.” And learning about different people and countries is what being a diplomat is all about.
—Moira E. McLaughlin
FRAZZ
JEF MALLETT
around the world
California teen Abby Sun- derland has ended her quest to become the youngest person to sail solo nonstop around the world. The 16-year-old adven- turer has been struggling to keep the auto-pilot working on her boat, so she has decided to head to South Africa for re- pairs rather than risk the rest of the voyage with faulty equip- ment. Sunderland had just fin- ished about half her journey and the most difficult part of her route, going around the bottom of South America. Meanwhile another teen, 16- year-old Australian Jessica Watson, is a few days from completing her solo sailing trip around the world. She is five months older than Abby. You can follow Jessica’s final days on her blog at www.
jessicawatson.com.au, where
she just wrote about a pretty scary encounter with rough seas that even knocked her boat over — but it popped back up, as it’s supposed to.
TODAY’S NEWS
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KLMNO
TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 2010
THEATER REVIEW
Fascinating travel experiences for Washington Post readers
‘Son of a Stand Up Comedian’: Even Dad might be disappointed
Paul Scott Goodman’s solo show at MetroStage lacks shape, and punch
by Nelson Pressley
Paris, Provence and Monaco
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Ride the TGV (high speed train) to the south of France in only
4 hours 40 minutes Explore Aix- en-Provence: capital of Provence, Avignon: home of the Pope’s Palace, Arles: one of the greatest cities of the Roman Empire and the Luberon hills: the epitome of Provencale landscape
Enjoy a fine lunch and wine tasting in the exclusive Chateauneuf du Pape wine region
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All tour prices are per person from, in U. S. dollars based on two adults sharing a double room. Price includes all hotel accom- modations, meals as specified in the itinerary, land transportation, sightseeing, baggage handling and the services of Driver and Tour Directors. Vacations are offered by Riviera Tours LLC, 501 Kings Highway East, Suite 200, Fairfield, CT, 06825, and do not involve the news or editorial departments of The Washington Post. If you would like to receive further information please provide us with your mailing or email address.
T174 2X10.5
Make sense of this: a spiky- haired guy hammering rock chords on a 12-string guitar while displaying a soft spot for Broad- way show tunes. Eventually he lapses into the shameless, self- confessed hamminess of a stand- up comic. This is Paul Scott Goodman as he appears in the apparently au- tobiographical solo musical “Son of a Stand Up Comedian.” The 70- minute piece is a mash-up of con- fessional storytelling and aimless guitar jammin’ (with jokes) at MetroStage, and it’s not exactly what you’d expect from the man who wrote the recent off-Broad- way show “Rooms: A Rock Ro- mance.”
“Rooms” enjoyed a successful
run at MetroStage two years ago, then was nicely received in New York. But that two-character mu- sical, about a pair of romantically involved musicians swooning and bickering in the late 1970s, was crunchy and terse, while “Son” stumbles over the same family- and-entertainment terrain. It’s no fun to say so. Goodman, whose Scottish roots are audible in every syllable he utters, is an amiable presence onstage, beam- ing and unguarded. And his saga of trying to break into the theater,
lines in his son’s blood, Goodman would seem to have no shortage of original angles. You want to like a performer who can sound a little like Lou Reed and still crack wise about Tevye from “Fiddler on the Roof.” The show is surprisingly shape- less, though. As Goodman chroni- cles his crisis of show-biz faith just when he and his wife are ex- pecting a child, songs like “Arthur Miller” ramble forever, telling a windy tale while vamping through a simple cycle of chords. “The N Train” is exceptionally dense, heaped with feeling and incident that aren’t really chan- neled into an alluring musical form. Michael Baron directed, and
while Jessica Lee Winfield’s lights shift smartly behind Goodman, everything else could use a stron- ger hand. Even percussionist Greg Holloway, tucked behind a drum kit at the side of the stage, has a hard time keeping in rhythm with Goodman’s unruly beat.
style@washpost.com
Pressley is a freelance writer.
CHRIS MUELLER
RAMBLING MAN: Paul Scott Goodman’s mixes rock, show tunes, comedy and drama in his meandering tale at MetroStage.
this time the 1980s, could be win- ning. The in-jokes are savvy and silly — take the one about the amateur Jewish Scots troupe re-
doing “My Fair Lady” as “Hi There, Sadie” — and as a Broad- way-smitten rocker whose part- time comedian dad put punch
Son of a Stand Up Comedian
Music and lyrics by Paul Scott Goodman, book by Paul Scott Goodman and Miriam Gordon. Directed by Michael Baron. About 70 minutes.
Through May 9 at MetroStage, 1201 N. Royal St., Alexandria. Call 800-494-8497 or visit
boxofficetickets.com.
The Washington Blade returns to the streets Friday
blade from C1
carry on,” Naff says. “We’ll be a leaner publication and we’ll grow as we can afford to grow, but Fri- day’s issue, as of now, is 56 pages, which is remarkable considering Agenda launched with eight pag- es.”
The acquisition replants Blade ownership in the District under Brown Naff Pitts Omnimedia Inc., which Naff, publisher Lynne Brown, sales executive Brian Pitts and other staffers formed in Jan- uary to publish D.C. Agenda. The Blade is currently renting office space at the Metro D.C.
GLBT Community Center on 14th Street NW.
Plans are under way to find a more permanent newsroom headquarters, to restore 10 years of digital archives on www.wash- blade.com, and to find a suitable home for its print archives, which chronicle 40 years of the gay
rights movement and are kept in two dozen filing cabinets. The moniker “D.C. Agenda” will live on inside the Blade as the title of its arts and entertainment section.
zakd@washpost.com
Diplomats work for the Department of State, which is responsible for the country’s international relations.
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