LAST month, the Malaysian embassy in Senegal said goodbye to one of its longest-serving staff member.
As we congregated to bid our translator farewell, I realised that the parting was more emotional for him than it could ever be for the officers of the embassy.
Ambadou Wele joined the embassy in July 1992, when the embassy moved from Mali to Senegal.
That same year, the embassy had its hands full with the G15 meeting, which Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad attended.
By the time Wele retired last month, he had completed 27 years with the embassy, serving seven ambassadors, and a multitude of different Wisma Putra officers, most of whom have retired.
But most of all, he had the distinct honour of serving Dr Mahathir on his first year and final year in service with the embassy.
Wele became the institutional memory of the embassy, remembering when it was that we had started a programme, which officer had had a good rapport with which member of the Senegalese administration, and how a budding problem had been solved before it became a crisis.
Wele’s post as translator made him privy to most of the important conversations between Malaysia and Senegal, and he knew how to get in touch with which ministers when an appointment needed to be made.
In essence, he was the pillar that kept the embassy standing.
We often forget that Malaysia’s outposts — its embassies — are much more than its eyes and ears and representatives to the host countries.
The buildings that house these 106 embassies and consulates may be just bricks and stones, so it is the people who work there who provide the heart and soul of the embassies.
And since embassies are about human connection — whether to the citizens of the country or to Malaysians abroad — locally-recruited staff members are the lifeline of the mission itself.
All around the world, we have embassy staffers who have been with us for two or more decades.
In The Hague, house caretaker Anna Maria was with the embassy for nearly three decades.
Anyone who has been to Rumah Malaysia in The Hague will know how hard she worked to keep the place a Malaysian showcase.
While Anna Maria kept house, her husband tended to the grounds — a husband and wife team without equal.
In Washington, DC, where I started off as a wide-eyed rookie, there were two dynamic staff members. Diana Mahmut, an Indonesian, was the social secretary to the deputy chief of mission and a constant whirlwind, making appointments, organising events and ensuring that the officers could focus on more substantive matters.
Then there was Savariar, who took care of the security of the embassy. He was also our go-to person for where to eat, who to meet and where to be seen.
Savariar was a second-generation staff member — his father had worked at the Residence since 1957.
It was only when these two staffers retired and left the embassy that we realised how much they had worked, all for the interests of Malaysia.
Thirteen years on, that void they left has still not been filled.
While officers come and go, these local staff soldier on and keep the embassy machinery churning.
They are the reason why no matter who the government sends as its envoy, work at the embassy is rarely interrupted.
Very few Malaysians actually work as local staff in our missions. Those who do, choose to live their whole lives abroad.
And before anyone wonders, no — it’s never the pay that draws them.
We tend to pay local Malaysian rates even in developed countries like the United States.
One such gem of a staffer is Norizan, who completed three decades at the Malaysian Mission to the United Nations in New York just this past year.
In the years she has been there, it is probably not a stretch to say that she handled thousands upon thousands of UN badges for our officials and politicians.
Her networking with the UN was so good that she could just call the UN office, and everything would be taken care of.
On the days that she did make a foray into the UN to accompany the Malaysian delegation, she would be welcomed as one of their own.
“Where everybody knows your name” is the phrase I would use.
This is not an ode to the foreign service officers whose mandate it is to keep relations on an even keel. It is an acknowledgement of the selfless service of the men and women — mostly all foreign citizens — who work for the Malaysian government.
They are the invisible civil servants, the ones we often forget when we talk about “serving king and country”.
They too serve our king and our country, and should be honoured as the honorary Malaysians they are.
The writer is a foreign service officer who writes on international affairs with a particular emphasis on Africa