watch your p's and q's

So one of my friends had an interesting weekend, one that I'm sure he would rather forget as it brings to light some of the pitfalls that go along with living in a foreign country. In some places, the police and/or government are not to be trifled with and Peru is one of those places, especially for a gringo. This story all starts for me on Sunday night about 8pm when a phone call from my friend Michelle comes through.

"Hey Expat, I need your help. I need you to call Embassy Chick and see what we can do for Tim. He's been arrested by the Peruvian police and they've been holding him for a couple of hours."
"OK, I'll be happy to do so. What happened so I can tell her what's going on?"
"Tim got into a car accident this afternoon and doesn't have a valid international driver's license."
"That's not good. I'll give her a call and see what we can come up with."

I am the contact for Embassy Chick as she and I are currently dating and when the shit hits the fan, you normally call in the Calvary to bail your ass out. Embassy Chick is the Calvary and I'm the lucky man who gets to call her with this little gufaw that Tim has managed to get himself into.

So I call her and after a short conversation, I find out that the US Embassy can do nothing for my dear friend Tim. Just as the US government wouldn't want people asking favors of our police when a foreign national does something wrong, they don't get involved when it comes to something like this - you have to respect the authority of a nation's sovereignty. Regrettably, I called Michelle back and informed her of the lack of response the Calvary would be able to provide and that Tim was basically on his own. Embassy Chick suggested that we actually try contacting our school administration and see if that might grease the right wheels as they are probably better known here than the staff of the US Embassy.

To make a long story short, one in which they are multiple phone calls to me asking for the Calvary, I get to the heart and solution to the problem that Tim is in. Our Peruvian director went down to the station, bribed the cop with $100 (and the promise of a toaster oven on Mother's Day - I shit you not!) to bail Tim out of the custody of the police. He went home just before midnight, dignity shredded but ass still in tact.

I talked with Tim today, got the low-down on everything and told him why Embassy Chick wasn't able to come to his rescue. He nodded and appreciated the effort, recognizing that he got off lightly with what have been turned into a serious event. In a country where bribing the police is an every-day occurrence, you gotta be careful. My words of advice to Tim (and others who travel abroad) was this - keep your shit straight and don't ever try to pull a fast one on the local authorities (Tim had doctored his int'l driver's license and they figured it out). You never want to give them (police, military, government, etc.) any excuse to hold a gringo for whatever reason.

While you may be familiar with your native culture and customs, understand that other countries work differently and what may be a slight offense to you may not be to them. Keep all your documents in order and up to date, the more normal you appear to them, the less likely you are to be detained. Minimize your exposure to extraneous events and you're more likely to be able to walk away with everything still intact.

And don't ever forget to follow through with any bribes you may promise...