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Am I Going to Starve to Death?: A Survival Guide for the Foreign Service Spouse
How do you get a Great Dane onto an airplane? What happens when you have a medical emergency in a country where they don’t speak English? Can you find guacamole overseas, and if not, how will you survive a two-year tour of duty?
Longtime Foreign Service spouse, blogger and freelance writer Donna Scaramastra Gorman regularly fields questions from incoming FS family members, military spouses and expats, all wanting to know what they can expect of a life lived overseas. After years of responding to each request individually, and building on the success of her blog Email From the Embassy, she finally compiled her answers into a book.
Am I Going to Starve To Death? is the quirky result. Part memoir, part Q&A, part simple reassurance that yes, you can survive and thrive overseas, Gorman’s book provides detailed accounts of everything from bidding on jobs to having a baby to dealing with a crisis while overseas.
The book provides a wealth of information for longtime Foreign Service family members and newcomers alike. Whether you long ago embarked on your overseas adventures or are just getting started, Am I Going to Starve to Death? is a must-read for all international families.
Longtime Foreign Service spouse, blogger and freelance writer Donna Scaramastra Gorman regularly fields questions from incoming FS family members, military spouses and expats, all wanting to know what they can expect of a life lived overseas. After years of responding to each request individually, and building on the success of her blog Email From the Embassy, she finally compiled her answers into a book.
Am I Going to Starve To Death? is the quirky result. Part memoir, part Q&A, part simple reassurance that yes, you can survive and thrive overseas, Gorman’s book provides detailed accounts of everything from bidding on jobs to having a baby to dealing with a crisis while overseas.
The book provides a wealth of information for longtime Foreign Service family members and newcomers alike. Whether you long ago embarked on your overseas adventures or are just getting started, Am I Going to Starve to Death? is a must-read for all international families.
- GenresTravel
152 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 10, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 14, 2023
good read
I really enjoyed reading this! I hope this author writes more with this approachable, humorous, and informative perspective. Especially the book they mentioned, should they be able to tell that story some day.
I really enjoyed reading this! I hope this author writes more with this approachable, humorous, and informative perspective. Especially the book they mentioned, should they be able to tell that story some day.
September 16, 2025
COMPLETELY Enjoyed this! The humor was hilarious, writing was great, and it was a great reminder that ‘every other FS family has dealt with whatever-hard-thing-that-currently-feels-overwhelming’ which is a really nice feeling.
May 5, 2025
Such a quick read that as an EFM, first time mom about to go to our first post and do the first medevac I’m so thankful for 💕
September 30, 2015
For anyone interested in living overseas at all, this book is valuable even if some of the agency specifics don’t apply. There are questions you have to ask yourself and discuss with your partner and family before making the decision to live and work overseas. Although I don’t agree with every single piece of advice, Ms. Gorman is honest and it’s important to hear what worked and what didn’t work for others if nothing else than to know you’re not alone.
We are ten-year veterans with the Foreign Service, so this book was less how-to for me and more nodding my head with recognition. Mix up with my birth control prescription causing me to go without for several months? Resulted in a wonderful daughter a few years before we’d planned to have kids, plus the fun of being pregnant in Burundi.
My wedding ring accidentally packed into the shipment for the slow boat? When my husband went to training and I decided to spend the summer at the beach with our daughter instead of hot and humid D.C., single dads practically fell out of the sky every time I appeared in public.
Losing a pet overseas? That happened to us, too.
Watching my husband pack a bag before leaving for work in case he had to sleep at the consulate because local authorities wanted to arrest him for doing his job? Living in fear that we’d be PNG’d any day because he continued to do his job, even after they decided not to arrest him?
Worrying about terrorist attacks, malaria, ebola, food riots, etc., have all become so much a part of my daily life that I’m almost completely desensitized to them. When they happen (when, not if, in the countries we live in) we’ll deal with it. Oh, and have you heard of acid bugs?
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Seeing the Taj Mahal? Taking a three-year-old hiking through Bhutan? Having a five-year-old whose French is better than mine? Eating great new foods? Making friends all over the world? Yup, all that great stuff happens, too. (We’ve also wrangled three assignments in a row on or near the equator, so the endless summer is pretty nice, too.)
These are the experiences that happen to all of us and you can either learn to roll with them or not. You’ll be happier if you relax and roll. I eventually learned that I’m going to make a fool of myself somehow every time I go out so I may as well be resigned to it.
We are ten-year veterans with the Foreign Service, so this book was less how-to for me and more nodding my head with recognition. Mix up with my birth control prescription causing me to go without for several months? Resulted in a wonderful daughter a few years before we’d planned to have kids, plus the fun of being pregnant in Burundi.
My wedding ring accidentally packed into the shipment for the slow boat? When my husband went to training and I decided to spend the summer at the beach with our daughter instead of hot and humid D.C., single dads practically fell out of the sky every time I appeared in public.
Losing a pet overseas? That happened to us, too.
Watching my husband pack a bag before leaving for work in case he had to sleep at the consulate because local authorities wanted to arrest him for doing his job? Living in fear that we’d be PNG’d any day because he continued to do his job, even after they decided not to arrest him?
Worrying about terrorist attacks, malaria, ebola, food riots, etc., have all become so much a part of my daily life that I’m almost completely desensitized to them. When they happen (when, not if, in the countries we live in) we’ll deal with it. Oh, and have you heard of acid bugs?
Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro? Seeing the Taj Mahal? Taking a three-year-old hiking through Bhutan? Having a five-year-old whose French is better than mine? Eating great new foods? Making friends all over the world? Yup, all that great stuff happens, too. (We’ve also wrangled three assignments in a row on or near the equator, so the endless summer is pretty nice, too.)
These are the experiences that happen to all of us and you can either learn to roll with them or not. You’ll be happier if you relax and roll. I eventually learned that I’m going to make a fool of myself somehow every time I go out so I may as well be resigned to it.
February 15, 2016
Hilarious but honestly accurate
Best "how to" on the Foreign Service that I've ever read after 18 years as a Foreign Service Officer and mom of three Foreign Service brats. And more importantly a very enjoyable read.
Best "how to" on the Foreign Service that I've ever read after 18 years as a Foreign Service Officer and mom of three Foreign Service brats. And more importantly a very enjoyable read.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews