Pearl #13 ~ Excerpt from Walking With Inkas

This is an excerpt from my travel blog, Walking with Inkas, and was originally written on May 23, 2006  

. . . continued from Pearl #12

By Monday morning, I had been listening to Jared toss around acronyms fluently and mention names of other people at the Embassy. I was eager to get to work, and woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed with my business attire all pressed and laid out the night before. I was too preoccupied with the enormity of the fortress-like building to be too nervous about the intense investigation of our shuttle van as we pulled into the employee lot. Every vehicle that enters the compound is locked in this iron cage (along with its occupants) and submitted to a thorough investigation that includes looking under the hood and in the trunk and running a special kind of swab along the vehicle to be tested for traces of explosive materials. If everything clears, the gates open and the vehicle carries us the remaining 50 feet to the employee entrance situated under by a large cast iron seal of the U.S. Embassy in Lima, Peru. You can imagine the size of my eyes as I stepped out of the van.

Once in the building, Jared and the other passengers of our shuttle got me past the Peruvian security guard and the U.S. Marine checking everyone out, and I was taken up to check in at the main lobby since I didn't have my official U.S. Embassy Security Cleared American badge yet. That thing rocks (except for the picture, blah)! It gets me wherever I want to go with a mere entrance of a code at the classified doors, or a smile at the guard at the Embassy entrances. It's an impressive feeling, being able to go where others can't. But that's a whole different topic that I'm saving for a different entry.

Jared took me up to the MAO section, where I was going to work and met Licia, my sponsor and the woman I'd been exchanging emails with for the last month or so. She explained how things worked, introduced me to some people, and showed me my cubicle, which would be a very nice cubicle if it wasn't the one where they have both of the printers (b&w and color) and all of the specialty paper. There's not a lot of excess space and no pens and if somebody prints on the color printer the fan blows directly into my eyes. Amazingly, it only took me about a day and a half to tune out the constant buzzing and blowing and traffic of people to come and pick up their documents. Unfortunately it's also made me somewhat antisocial since I'm so busy tuning out the distractions that I sometimes forget to acknowledge people when they say hi to me. Oh well, ya can't win them all. I'm getting better at balancing the two extremes and am even becoming fond of my little crowded space. After all, I don't have to go far to pick up my printed documents, and I've stored some Werther's candies and Take 5's in one of my drawers so there's always a treat at hand (thanks Mom)! I've decided that will be my first rule for all future cubicles I inhabit: Stock up on treats.

My first order of business was to fill out a bunch of forms to give to Licia, and to begin the check-in process, which I just finished yesterday, since it involved scheduling appointments and running all over the building and meeting people and going to briefings and such. The first person that I talked to was Nancy, who works for GSO (General Services Office) and pretty much rocks if you ask me. GSO is in the MAO department, so she told me that I would be helping plan the Fourth of July reception, and asked if I was interested in attending a meeting an hour later. I said yes, of course, and agreed to meet her downstairs by the infamous Dunkin' Donuts case (Right by the entrance, with a can to deposit 3 soles (about $0.70) if you want one. I haven't caved yet. I can get Dunkin' Donuts at home any day. I go for the ever-so-scrumptious potatoes in the cafeteria instead.) at 9:30. 

Little did I know that I was about to take my first field trip! I thought the meeting was in the building, so you can bet I was curious when we headed outside and got in a car. We drove for about 20 minutes, and just when I was beginning to wonder if we were ever going to get wherever we were going, we pulled up in front of this huge, yellow, museum-like building with the usual iron gates and security guards to greet us. As we got out of the car, I leaned over to another worker, Jennifer, and asked where we were. My eyes had begun to return to their usual size after recovering from that morning, but they shot wide open all over again when I learned that I was on my way into the Ambassador's house!!!!

I know, I know, I got you all excited, but no I did not get to meet the Ambassador that morning. However, I did drink Ambassadorian (I made that up) coffee, and eat Ambassadorian banana bread, and swiped a napkin with the official Department of State seal for my journal. And to top it off, the Ambassador's wife is one of the committee members and was present at the meeting, as well. Sounds pretty impressive, no? Well, in the interest of proper perspective, I must say that my only role in helping to plan the banquet thus far has been to Google Fourth of July mylar balloons and hanging thing-a-ma-jigs for about two hours. And I think the only reason I got that task was because they wanted me to feel included. Jennifer rolled her eyes when she heard about it, though, and Nancy and I have since bonded further, so I'm hopeful that there will be more for me to do as the holiday approaches and plans develop. As we headed back to the Embassy, I was eager to meet more people, get my Internet access, and get to work!

I should note here that Peruvian driving is by far the worst I've ever experienced, by the way. It tops Jamaica, which had me fearing for my life about 90% of the time I was there. But I've come to realize that if I had gone to Jamaica for more than just spring break, I might actually have gotten used to it. Granted, they drive on the wrong side of the street (former English colony), but Peru is much worse, and after about seven days of gripping the handles till my knuckles are white, I learned to relax and appreciate the underlying rhythm that makes the chaos possible. The secret to Peruvian driving is to anticipate that cars will straddle your lane, or cut three inches in front of your own moving vehicle, or turn right from the far left lane in front of oncoming traffic, or squeeze next to your car on a one-lane on-ramp. I, of course, would never drive down here myself. I'm not that good of a driver in the US, where there's order and structure, let alone in Peru! But I wholeheartedly trust that the taxis will get me from place to place or else I won't pay them.

On that note, it's time to start packing up my stuff to catch my shuttle home for work. I'm looking forward to a relaxing evening of watching Memoirs of a Geisha. A woman from another department lent it to me after she saw me reading the book on the elevator last week, so I'm looking forward to a relaxing evening before heading to bed at my usual time of 10:00 or 10:30 or so (such a structured life I lead, not like in school when bedtime varied from 10:30 - 3:00 a.m. depending on the workload). There's still plenty more to tell from my first week here, so I'll pick it up where I left off tomorrow morning and will hopefully have you all caught up by the end of the day! I hope all is going well with all of you, keep in touch!