Contemplations

Funny how it’s all relative…I was very happy to get off work by 6:30pm. I actually went in later too… partly since my supervisor is out of town and I had more flexibility at the beginning of the day than at the end… I was also slightly later than I’d planned because as I started to walk out the door I realized today was the bi-weekly maids day to come. I had been really neglecting my room so I knew she wouldn’t be able to vacuum so I had to run back upstairs and throw everything around getting it clean enough for her to ocme. Yes, I know, I sound like my mother…cleaning for the maid’s arrival. Seriously though, she is Latina but acts like an American maid. Latina maids will do whatever’s not done and straighten etc… but American’s attitude is “I’m not your maid” even if they are so they do the bare minimum and won’t vacuum if there is anything on the floor etc… and since all I can see she does is vacuum and take the trash out every other week, heaven forbid I should have my stuff get in her way! That’s my philosophy on that anyway…

Since I had worked a total of about 32 hours in just the first two days of this week I’m totally at a loss to what day it is. Yesterday morning felt like Friday all morning and then in the afternoon it felt like Thursday…lending to the overall theme that it couldn’t just be Tuesday! Today I don’t know what felt like but it wasn’t quite so long anyway…

I was so happy to realize on Monday that my paper wasn’t due Tuesday, it is due Friday… but now that is also quickly approaching and I haven’t even read what I’m writing on. But hey-I still have 48 hours, I’ve never been known to do something THAT far ahead of time.

Today… I wrote a memo for the Secretary to sign, getting permission to negotiate a binding agreement with Vietnam for them to reach certain goals, release prisoners and open churches, in order to avoid further economic sanctions.

I also had a meeting with the head of an NGO—Open Doors, which is a ministry to the persecuted church in Latin America… he brought along a Peruvian former congressman. He briefed me on situations in Cuba, Peru, Mexico, and Colombia as well as regional issues for the IRF office to be working on with those foreign governments. The Peruvian congresista told me a little of his background…he was in congress under Fujimori… and he, like many second-generation Peruvian Christians, personally witnessed the murder of his father and cousin for their Christianity. I wasn’t expecting to do the entire meeting in Spanish but he didn’t speak English so that was good practice for me… Also made it easier to speak freely as a Christian to him about the inner workings of the State dept processes without feeling like non-Christians would overhear and misunderstand.

Ummm… oh, I spent much of the rest of the day doing research on Saudi Arabia… determining the extent and nature of the govnt’s propagation of hate materials. Interviewing experts on the phone etc… Very interesting. The role I’m playing of doing work on whatever urgent project comes up is making it necessary for me to know background on a lot of different nations that I haven’t really studied extensively since they’re outside of my official Latin America portfolio role. It’s good though cause it adds to how much I’m learning. I’m sorry if some of what I say is hard to understand…I forget what is really common knowledge and what I just learned myself… Honestly, I was realizing the other day that 1.5yrs ago I couldn’t have told anyone what the State Dept or Heritage actually did…I mean, I had some vague idea about State and had never heard of Heritage…

I just finished watching the State of the Union Address. I think I’ll go to bed before I have to listen to the commentary which will prolly make me mad. I thought the highlight was when the mother of the marine who died in the Fallujah assault gave her son’s dogtag to the Iraqi who was so grateful to the US for the opportunity to vote last Sunday. I do have a question though…as the Prez was leaving a bunch of congressmen were handing him papers to sign…were they getting autographs?! Isn’t that cheesy?

Anyways, write me please!

Martha/Marc/Marco/#2/Me

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