Oh, the games we play...

I hope you'll pardon my chronological jumping around.  Hopefully in a few more days we'll be all caught up.  Before my trip to Arequipa, and before I developed my aforementioned appreciation for Olinda, I came to work in the mornings and left promptly at the lunch hour to avoid the uncomfortable fact that I was a self-appointed outsider at work and was, therefore, hesitant to join the lunchtime activities.  As you might imagine, the emotional landscape changed soon after I stopped thinking of my work at the Ministry as a job I had to do (and couldn't possibly do well), and started thinking of it as a unique oportunity to work on redesigning the public English education of an entire country! 


Two weeks ago I made my way to the southern part of the country to a beautiful city called Arequipa to observe a number of English classes, and to hold workshops for the English teachers to work on methodology and teamwork.  I was so nervous!  Much to my delight, the kind of help they needed was exactly the kind of help I could provide.  The next three days consisted of morning classroom observation and afternoon workshops.  In the evenings, I dined with the three women with whom I was traveling.  As if I weren't already bursting at the seams with delight for leading a successful first workshop, I was delighted again to discover that my colleagues were smart, witty, funny, interesting, and caring.  We went out for dinner and experimented with the "food" setting on one of our cameras.  On the final day of the workshop, we reviewed the pictures, and much to our horror, we realized that we had many pictures of delicious food and smiling faces at the best restaurants in Arequipa, and practically no pictures of the workshops...  And so, on the last day of the workshop, we ran around somewhat frantically taking pictures of each other in "work mode" so that our devotion to our work wasn't without proof.


I returned to Lima that Saturday evening happy, exhausted, and proud.  The following Monday, I ventured, for the first time, into the museum cafeteria to lunch with my colleagues.  What fun!  And to think I might have missed it all together on account of my irrational and somewhat misguided nerves!  I must admit, though, that the conversation moves so quickly that I have yet to become an active and involved participant, but I nevertheless hang on every word of those around me.


The majority of the workers in my department at the Ministry are women, and with the exception of the one male colleague at every lunch, we are working women.  As Mother's Day approaches, many of them are thinking about how they should get the exact gift they want, without anyone knowing that they were, in fact, playing their cards just right.  One technique: take one's children to the deparment store and point out what you like and what you don't like.  Then, make sure that the husband goes to the same department store with the children so that the children can indicate your likes and dislikes.  Another technique: Put on an outfit, and say something like, "You know what this would look great with?!"  Yet another technique: Leave a magazine open on the counter with some sort of signal that this is what you want.  A final technique: Call up the potential gift giver and say, "Have you thought about what to give me for Mother's Day? Were you thinking of getting me _________ (fill in the blank with the desired gift)?"


I remember hearing that women must always get men to do what they want them to do, without the men catching on to the fact that they are being led to just the right place.  I only kind of believed it, though, until last Monday when I really met some of my colleagues.  They are pulling strings like crazy to have exactly the kind of life they want without appearing to encroach upon the "man's space."  Oh, and what games they play!  I found myself thinking it might be easier to just be blunt about it, but also admired their tact, resourcefullness, and (for lack of a better turn of phrase) love of intrigue.


I wonder what games I play to get what I want without letting on.  Surely when I was a child, I employed the puppy dog eyes, the tears, and the pitiful pleading to get something or other, but the greater the displacement from the toddler, middle school and high school years, the more I appreciate communication free of manipulation (though it be of a most benign kind), passive aggressive persuasion, and strategically placed glints of the eye.  Have I ceased, I wonder, to play these games, or do I go on playing just as my collegues do, unaware that I'm playing the game and oblivious to any other option? Or, perhaps, do I play the game--batting my eyelashes and planning my outings--fully aware of my "game-like" behavior because, to this day, it is the most entertaining and most effective way of getting things done?