Lima - Day 1

November 18, 2010

It’s 6:00 am and I’ve been in Peru for about 32 hours. I made a big mistake talking to you about the ‘hand carry’ practice; I cursed myself – I got caught on my entry into Peru. I was carrying about 6,000 USD of equipment and either by pure chance, my suspicious mug (I cut my hair down to about a quarter of an inch – I now match some profile), or x-ray screening they pulled me over upon arrival to do a hand inspection of my bags – one bag actually. They found the big item I was carrying; they retrieved the paperwork I signed declaring that I had nothing to declare and marched me off to the security area – I guess the whole area is a security area.

After immigration, you claim your bags and then you go to the declaration station; they collect your declaration forms and then you go through a portal and press a green button – if it lights green you move forward, if red you get inspected.

Before I left I asked my contact about the customs situation – his response, ‘press the green button with confidence.’ It did not work. I do not think they actually have the detection technology built into these portals; rather, I think they follow the thinking of the traffic police that set-up blow up cops in patrol cars on the side of the road to make you think they are checking for speeding – bottom line I think it is random. Without getting into too much detail, after opening the bag and discovering the big item they did not look any further and moved on to the interrogation phase – no hot lights or rubber hoses. They were actually pretty polite. All the time I trying to decide the best mixture and truth and lies to use that would be most effect in getting me out of this mess as cheaply as possible.

After two hours of selective lying and the luck that they couldn’t find a value of the instrument online they accepted the value I gave them added a few hundred dollars and told me I would have to pay taxes on that amount, I should not forget the stern lecture on respecting the laws of Peru. I did not get fined or ‘frog walked’ out of the terminal – it cost me a little over a hundred dollars – in cash, no credit cards accepted, I was freed and nothing was confiscated.

It’s been six years that I’ve been doing the ‘hand carry’ thing and the first time I’ve been caught with the exception of the incident at US customs in Miami.

So far, the trip has been productive, the highlight has been we had a meeting with the COO of the Clinton Initiative in a Ramada at the airport – money let’s them do things that we couldn’t even consider – they rented a conference room for the meeting – we’d have just pushed a couple of chairs together in the lobby. The meeting went well enough that John and I were invited for a visit to their headquarters in Harlem for follow-up discussions. I doubt if we will get any direct funding but they have developed IT and patient outreach tools that could be very useful. Their goal in Peru is to sponsor 50,000 cataract surgeries in 4 years.

The hotel we are staying at is a modest one, more than adequate, clean and with free wireless internet – the only other luxury I could wish for would be a coffee pot in the room. When I first arrived and they took me to my room we got off the elevator and everything was dark – they have motion sensors on the lights and the hall lights come on as you walk down the hall and turn off as you pass. A few years ago I would have thought of this was typical developing world energy conservation, now I think of it in terms of things to come in the US.

Today is fairly light, I have to attend a few meetings this morning, and a dinner this evening but otherwise I am free – I have general maintenance work to do on my Program but nothing critical – catch up work. Marilyn, for the first time, asked me to bring her something back from Peru – she wanted me to find her some opals. This is significant since she never asks for anything, so maybe today I will go on an opal search. I would feel extremely bad if unsuccessful, not because she would be upset if I failed but because in all the years we have been married she has asked for so little – nothing really; the things I have gotten her have generally been too lame to mention.

Tomorrow I am off to Arequipa, the Hospital I am visiting has set up a welcoming reception for Friday night or Saturday It is it a Social Clinic – not sure what the next few days hold for me; I do not have a formal schedule.

To be continued....