Pearl #19 ~ Excerpt from Walking With Inkas

This is an excerpt from my travel blog, Walking with Inkas, and was originally written on May 25, 2006.

. . . continued from Pearl #18

As I near the end of my second weekend in Peru, I'm beginning to feel much more secure and am starting to find more kids my own age to play with. As nice as the full-time staff at the Embassy is, it's been fun getting to know some of the other interns and summer hires this week. Jared and I have been seeking out others "like us", and have found a couple kids of Embassy personnel that are just here for the summer. Two other interns arrived yesterday, too, so all of a sudden we've compiled what was referred to by one guy as a "gaggle of youngsters"! 

I'm sure that's the way it looks when we all head out to lunch together! Add in the fact that the Marines seem interested in hanging out (they've even offered to sponsor a movie night with features from their 500+ movie selection, which I am eager to take advantage of, since the intern house has little to no entertainment!), and there are more interns arriving in the coming weeks, and I'd say we're on the verge of taking over the Embassy! Jared moves out of the intern house to make space for some of the newbies (because he's here with a Fellowship, he gets to go live with the Ambassador!), but I'll be protected from future earthquakes and whatnot by Jason, a new intern arriving on Wednesday. I look forward to meeting him and breaking him into the ways of Peru/Embassy living.

Now, before I sign off for the week, there are a couple of learning and reflection points I want to write down (I haven't found my own personal perfect travel journal yet, so blogging is my substitute).

1. Humility: I know I've been dropping names and titles left and right throughout this blog, but all that is just for show. If there's one thing that I've learned in the last year, and that has been reiterated in the last two weeks, it's that a title is just that: a title. Ideally, it's something that someone has worked to achieve, and that reflects the job that they do, and hopefully their passion. While I stood gazing wide-eyed at the Ambassador and the President (who's about as popular in Peru as Bush is in America these days), it was not with blind admiration solely because of what's on their business card, but with admiration at the story they must have lived to get to their current position.
   
   This is why I love travel so much. It opens up new windows and grants access to people that one might not otherwise meet. I can't help remembering the business card that I received from a man from Mali while I was taking a train from Dijón, France to Geneva, Switzerland. He didn't speak any English, and I barely spoke survival French, but we had a great trip pointing out the scenery and gleaning what facts we could about the other person. When he handed me his business card at the end of the ride, it said that he was president of something or other, but to this day I have no idea what. Regardless of what it was, to me he was just the man on the train sitting next to me, somebody with whom I could gaze at the Swiss Alps for a moment.
   
   I've felt the same thing time and time again in the last week. As I enter the Embassy building and flash my security-cleared ID, I think to myself, how on earth did I get here? I hope I always feel like that. As long as I remember that I'm just another person doing a job, working alongside a different person doing their job, I'll hopefully avoid those dangerous pedestals that people are so prone to build--the ones that place one person above the rest. If I can avoid the pedestals and stay humble while doing my best, then maybe I truly can "work for the common good and change the world."
   
   
2. That brings up the question of what on earth I'm going to end up doing with my life. I keep telling people that August is "Life Decision Month" and that my options for where I'll end up have been narrowed down to the Twin Cities, Mexico, or some random place in the world. I won't go into detail on where those options came from, but it's a good problem to have and I want to thank everybody who got me to this point one more time. There's a whole entry (the first one) dedicated to everybody who's inspired and helped me to travel and learn, so I'm going to keep this one brief and just thank everybody who's reading this for your support, and all the encouraging messages I've been receiving. Whether you're family, a former (or current) educator, a fellow traveler, or just a friend/acquaintance/stranger that understands where I'm coming from, thank you. You are very much appreciated, and the inspiration behind this blog.
3. Bathroom rating scale. For those of you who have listened to my theories and ideas regarding world bathrooms and bathroom etiquette, which are primarily based on my original international living experience in Granada, Spain, I want to assure you that the study and analysis of bathrooms continues. Because of my largely American lifestyle so far in Peru, I haven't had adequately authentic Peruvian bathroom experience to draw any solid conclusions. But I'm working on it, and I plan to address this subject in more detail in a future blog entry. I promise to make it as entertaining as possible, so stay tuned.

Alright everybody, I think I've officially caught you up now. Whew! I'll try to be more current in my postings so that they can be a bit shorter, but you know me, I'm a storyteller. It comes from the half drop of Irish blood flowing through my veins, according to my mum. There should be plenty of stories to tell come next week, too! As I already mentioned, some of the Marines seem interested in hanging out with some of the interns this weekend, so we might be getting together with them to go out dancing tonight. Otherwise some of us might just take it easy and stay in playing cards and watching movies. 

It's not that we're boring, but we have a three day weekend with plenty of entertaining activities tentatively scheduled, including a bbq (sponsored by the intern house, aka Jared and me), a rodeo, some Saturday night clubbing, and a possible early morning bus ride (don't worry, I'm scoping out the safest buses) on Sunday to head down to Ica/Nazca/Cuzco. Once we get there we could be doing anything from chillin' with the humboldt penguins and flamingoes to sandboarding (like snowboarding but on sand dunes) to taking a prop jet up to see the famous ancient Nazca lines. See? Told'ja there was plenty of story potential for next week! Hope you're all doing well, keep the emails coming and I'll do my best to reply to them!

Ciao for now!