The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2020

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | JULY-AUGUST 2020 63 Getting the Job Done in Peru Charles Sewall ■ Lima When we started the workday on March 16, few of us in Embassy Lima fully grasped what was coming our way and the new roles we would be taking on. The night before, the president of Peru had implemented a state of emergency, instituting a strict nationwide lockdown, closing the borders, and halting air and land transportation—effective immedi- ately. The vast majority of our Locally Employed (LE) staff had no way to get to work in the morning. With some U.S. staff returning home on authorized departure in the following days, the greatly reduced U.S. Embassy Lima workforce quickly discovered a new chal- lenge: repatriating thousands of our fellow citizens trapped across Peru. It was in this context that I raised my hand for the role of mis- sion volunteer coordinator, which gave me a unique window into the different responsibilities our people took on, and the impres- sive and enthusiastic way our community came together. We had to invent a system that would transport thousands of Americans stranded across the country to Lima, conduct regis- Chargé d’Affaires Denny Offutt stands by to greet as U.S. military personnel assist a passenger at the Grupo Ocho Peruvian Air Force Base in Callao (Lima). U.S.EMBASSYLIMA tration and administrative processing in the embassy parking lot, bus them to a restricted-access military air base, facilitate further screening by Peruvian officials and, finally, help them onto U.S. government–chartered aircraft. It quickly became apparent that this would require more hands on deck. The answer was volunteers. We reached out across the whole mission, sorting volunteers by language skills, ability to physically get to the embassy and willingness to do public-facing jobs that would potentially expose them to thousands of people. Over 180 people signed up, and we matched their skills, situations and risk tolerance against the work required. The more labor-intensive roles were crowd control, passenger screening and moving luggage, both at the embassy rally point and at the air base. We needed people who had a car with diplo- matic plates for access through security checkpoints, and were willing to work with the public. Though this narrowed the field of candidates, more than 70 people stepped up for these jobs. We set up three embassy-based teams (Condor, Jaguar and Llama), with each team working two out of three days. Drug Enforcement Administration agents, military personnel, Foreign Service officers, personal service contractors and eligible family members worked in the hot sun, wearing face masks and gloves, and doing heavy physical labor. At the air base, our military and consular colleagues and a few civilian staff ran a similar opera- tion without rotational breaks. USAID Officer Michelle Jennings assists a U.S. citizen preparing for his repatriation flight at U.S. Embassy Lima. U.S.EMBASSYLIMA