By Isabel Ovalle
Like any other career, the diplomatic one requires great doses of dedication. For some people the calling comes early, for others there’s an inclination for living abroad and merging with new cultures as if they were one’s own. For Angelika Renate Storz-Chakarji, the Ambassador of Germany to Qatar since September 2012, it was a little bit of both.
With thirty years of experience in her luggage, including participation in the German unification process and working in Germany’s embassies in Paris, Tokyo and New York, Storz-Chakarji arrived in Qatar after a three year stay in Oman. Coincidentally, next year Qatar and Germany will celebrate their 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations. This fact is a clear example of the “outstanding relation” between the two countries, said the Ambassador to The Peninsula, “we have had an Embassy here for 35 years, so the relations are excellent, very friendly and quite strong”.
In this context, Storz-Chakarji explained that when an Ambassador arrives in a new country many of the steps to take are already programmed. The first one is to present the credentials, in this case, to the Heir Apparent H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, “this is really important because then you are functional and it might take months after that to finish the to do list,” explained the diplomat. “Also, I have to attend to the German community, with over 1,700 nationals”. Luckily the Embassy and colleagues she is responsible for are already used to working together, so she is always dependent on their work, “which is crucial”.
All this work leaves little time for pleasure, but after six weeks in Qatar, the Ambassador has managed to go to the desert, “it was great fun going over the dunes. I also went to the Museum of Islamic Art, apart from that, hardly anything. I look forward to doing more things”. She also enjoys the food of the region; but admitted to missing a few things from her home country, such as pretzels -“but not that much”- or “the urban life of Berlin and the fact that you can go out walking and window shopping in the open air, that’s really lovely.” Another aspect of Germany she sometimes longs for is the crisp weather and the existence of four seasons, “while here we have basically two,” she added.
Storz-Chakarji would take home from the Qatari way of life the fact that “the family plays a big role,” while in Germany, maybe due to the modern life, the family gets smaller and doesn’t stay in the same place. “You can’t generalize, but the importance of family here is stronger. You have a bigger chance to live together and have a close relationship with them,” she concluded.
Almost three decades at the job make it very hard to pick out the best posting, especially when the Diplomatic career takes you to memorable cities like Tokyo, New York and Paris. Nevertheless, the German ambassador admitted that Tokyo, being her first destination, left a “special mark”. Still, she insisted that “it’s always difficult to decide which is the best posting; it depends on where you are in your life at that time.”
She acknowledges that she has been very lucky with the cities she has lived, in most cases for three years. “I was in Paris and New York, which I really loved, and now here in Doha. In my career I had a chance to have very interesting and positive destinations; I have no bad feelings, nothing negative to say,” she insisted.
Married with two kids who are grown up now, she is very thankful that her family was always with her. “My husband always moves with me and was able to develop a professional career, except during our time in Paris, when he stayed in Germany for professional reasons and the children stayed with me so we saw each other during the weekends,” she stated.
Children of diplomats also live itinerant lives, a circumstance which, of course, has advantages and disadvantages. Growing up in different countries, kids learn many languages and are exposed to different cultures. All this, said this mother of two, “moulds the child into being more open-minded but, at the same time, the kid becomes an outsider within his or her own culture.” In this context, the Ambassador referred to a study about “so called third culture kids, who are brought up in a third country, which leads them to relate better to children with a similar background”.
Thirty years of diplomacy put forward numerous opportunities to meet a wide range of personalities, from world leaders to entrepreneurs. However, the Ambassador is coy when asked to give names, “you meet many people, especially when you present your credentials, it’s a very unique moment in your professional life,” she stated.
There is, nonetheless, an event that was transcendental, not only for the ambassador’s career and personal experience, but also in history. “I had the chance to be with the unit which dealt with the process of unification of Germany, so I was very closely involved in a historical period. During that time I also had a chance to meet with all the people who were decisive in that historical moment”.
The Peninsula
