Parking diplomacy

Technically he’s leaving his car on African soil. The strange rules of diplomatic privilige and structural neglect

Steve Gifford has found a bright side to living next to an eyesore—in his case, Congo’s former embassy. In exchange for Gifford and his partner spending $200 a month cutting the grass and cleaning up, Congo granted that most elusive of city perks: parking in the embassy’s driveway. “Everybody wins,” Gifford said

from “Once Grand, Now Bedraggled: City Officials and Neighbors Peeved by Abandoned Embassy Properties,” by Paul Schwartzman, The Washington Post, 8 June 2008