Walking with Inkas

The First Week, Part I

SUMMARY:

Have to relearn the alphabet with all the acronyms at the Embassy, but I got a "@state.gov" email address, so that's pretty neat. Jared, the other intern was a great host and we mainly spent our first weekend sitting around getting to know each other. The security on the house and at the Embassy is intense! It's fun having classified access to certain places, though. On my first morning, I got to attend a meeting at none other than the Ambassador's house! I enjoyed the coffee and banana bread and stole a napkin with the official Department of State seal as a souvenir. In general, I'm getting settled in and am learning fast, even getting used to the traffic!

FOR DETAIL LOVERS, ONLY:

APHIS
CLO
CONS
DEA
DHS
ECON
FAS
FCS
FMO
GSO
HR
HU
IRM
MAO
NMRCD
NAS
PAS
POL
RSO

There you have it. In less than a week, I have become proficient in a new language we at the Embassy like to refer to as Alphabet Soup. The place is filled to the brim with acronyms. The ones listed above refer to the various departments housed at the embassy, with MAO (pronounced "mow", like cow with an "m") being the most important in my opinion. But that's just because I'm the MAO intern, so I'm a tad biased. MAO stands for Management Affairs Office, and is one of the more confusing acronyms because it's apparently unique to our Embassy. Most other places refer to this department as MA/C (Management Affairs Consular) or simply Admin. But it's all the same. I know some of meanings behind the other acronyms, too, but it's less important to know what the acronym stands for than what it does, since nobody uses the full title anyway. Knowing the individual words of the title is just showing off.

My first couple of days here were mainly spent learning all about the Embassy and visiting the various offices to get all kinds of information, ranging from the proper procedure during an earthquake (a common occurence, I'm told) to how to access my new "@state.gov" email address. Oohlala! No worries, I'm only be using my State Department email for work purposes, so you can all continue sending messages to my gmail account. I don't know how quickly I'll respond, since I have limited personal Internet time at work and no Internet access at home, but I'll do my best to be prompt.

When I first arrived at the intern house, I was greeted by Jared, the only other intern here at the moment. It was Friday afternoon, but since I was tired from the trip down and he was tired from work, we decided not to go out and explore too much that night. He only speaks a little bit of Spanish, and I wasn't familiar with Lima or the culture, so after running to the grocery store so I could get the essentials, we settled down for the night and chatted until bedtime. He's more of a talker than I am (I know it's hard to believe), so it didn't take long to get to know one another. We were going to go down to Miraflores (the upscale, touristy part of town, right on the coast) on Saturday, but Jared hadn't stocked up on soles (the local currency), and I only had dollars, so we just stuck to wandering around our neighborhood, San Borja, which was fine with me. I later learned that we could have paid with dollars, since they're accepted it all the parts of Lima that Americans frequent, but it was good to scope out where I live, too. It's a nice neighborhood with plenty to do: Malls, shops, bowling alleys, theaters, you name it, they've got it.

After the week of graduating and moving from Winona to Milwaukee, and then packing up to fly down to Lima for three weeks, an utterly relaxing weekend was welcome. I got settled into my new house, which is very nice and practically a fortress. The Embassy is big on security, go figure. With a twelve-foot wall tops by iron barbs and electric fencing, not to mention the five keys required to enter through the two front doors and the iron gate (there are about 12 more keys to get in and out of the other house entrances, and to open the iron gates on the windows), we're pretty cozy. That didn't stop me from having a bad dream about someone breaking into the house the other night, though! Every time I started to fall asleep, I thought I heard a creak and got nervous all over again!

The house itself has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, not including the maid's quarters located off the back yard (No, we do not have a maid, although we could hire one if we wanted to. I'll do my own dishes, thank you very much.). There are beautiful gardens that come complete with the saguaro cacti that are prevalent throughout the city! I haven't seen any tarantulas yet, but I did watch a hummingbird and a sparrow-like bird fight over a hibiscus (I think), even though there was plenty to go around!

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 saw 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 contant 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 roled 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!

posted by Jessica @ 6:53 AM