As the doors opened up on Jorge Chavez International Airport in Lima, I breathed in the thick polluted air thinking 'this is the beginning of a new chapter of my life. I've never felt so ...tall! '.
When the doors opened up on the airplane on a rather cold Friday evening, I thought to myself this is it, from this moment on, I am a citizen of the world and I will put all of my North American tendencies and expectations on the back burner and be open to anything that happens. After all, its all about the journey, right? As it turns out this was a lot harder than originally anticipated for the first hour and a half of my internship.
When I first got to customs, I was pleasantly surprised that there was no line so I was excited that for once in my life I would be able to get my bags and be out of the airport within a reasonable amount of time. So, as I practically skipped toward the customs officer, and showed him my passport with a grin that spanned my entire face, he looked at me in all seriousness and asked why I was going to be staying so long in Lima. When I began to talk, it was like someone had turned on the faucet and I couldn't stop talking. I told him about the internship, and how it was such a good opportunity for me since it was a difficult field to get into especially right out of school. Then I began to tell him about how I was happy about being able to miss Canadian winter, but that I was going to miss my family and friends- even though I had family in Lima as well. At this point the customs officer looked at me with a half-smile, pushed my passport towards me a bit more and told me I could go now. Clearly, 7-hour flights in silence do not settle well with me.
After this abrupt end to my life's story, I was a little embarrassed and decided that it was time to make my way toward the baggage claim. When I got there I realized that the belt hadn't even begun to move yet, so I knew I was there for the long haul. 20 minutes later, I threw my bags onto my cart with a wonky wheel and diagonally made my way towards the exit. So close, I could almost taste the freedom from my travels.
When I reached the final check point to exit the airport security zone, I handed the security guard my white customs paper, and pressed the final button for clearance. There is only two options, red or green. Red means you belong to the airport for the next 2 hours of your life, and green means you are off to- well, greener pastures per say.
"Hallelujah"
It came out green. Green means go, green meant for me what America meant to the Irish in the 1880s- maybe a little less dramatic but still- green meant I was a free woman in an exotic new land. And just as I pushed my cart forward to skip on down the passage, a tiny woman stepped out in front of the cart, looked at me and said "para alla" which means "go over there", and in this case, "there" was a giant x-ray machine. I didn't really have anything out of the ordinary in there, so I thought I have nothing to hide and proudly placed my extremely heavy bags on the belt and watched them go through. After about 2 minutes the gentleman conducting the scans said, you have 2 laptops, please re-enter the baggage area, and see claims.
Crap, so close.
As I waited I witnessed a hand-full of people who looked as though they had tried to fit the entire contents of best buy or the Gap in their luggage, and as a result were being forced to document every item and pay duties on them.
I went up to the window and said, "listen I was told to come here and just pay a fine for the netbook I have since I have two laptops, is there a reason I have to wait here?" The girl looked up at me and looked back down, "someone will be with you shortly."
As I looked at her, and the woman beside her, they were both watching tele-novelas (soap operas) on TV. I asked again, "can you please just print out the receipts, its really not that big of a deal, no bags need to be checked, you can ask the security at the x-ray machines."
Silence.
-"Is there someone who isn't watching TV that can help me out please"
- "No."
What do you mean, no?! Clearly you are being paid to do something, so DO SOMETHING... Relax, Alicia, relax. One, one-thousand. Two- one thousand. Three, one-thousand.
- "Where is the manager's office located? And what is her name."
- "Over there. It's Sofia"
As I walked over to Sophia, out of the corner of my eye I saw the girl scramble to sit up and start typing. So, as I knocked and explained to Sofia that no one was willing to help me out, she said she would go talk to them and it would get figured out.
Needless to say, the girl who had refused to help me out before, was more than willing to help me out now. And as I walked away I heard Sofia talk quietly but sternly to the girl indicating that she was not paid to watch TV. And it only took 40 minutes of back and forth corrections to my information, authorizations, stamps, signatures and typing on a what had to have been a printer borrowed from a museum.
Finally, I saw the outside world. And two things hit me right away- number one, wow was the air thick and polluted. Almost felt like I was short of breath and got a head ache instantly. Number two, for the first time in my life, I was semi-tall! I was able to see over people. I was able to see the tops of other people's heads!
In this new life I would no longer be the tiny one out of the crowd- being only 5'2" on a good day, for most Canadians I was Polly Pocket sized- I was sort of tall in Lima. I figured most women were around 5' tall at best...with high heels on.
...This was going to be interesting.
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