Although the diplomatic life has its allure, by the most part, we are underpaid civil servants who sacrifice our livers in the name of patriotism.
That having been said, occasionally there is an upside to the lives we lead. Due to budget constraints, the country I represent closed down all the diplomatic missions in a certain region of Latin America, leaving only one embassy to work out of. My job was to sell off the different properties we had in each country. As you can imagine, the bureaucracy involved in selling government property is never-ending, especially when dealing with a myriad of local laws which need to be adhered to. Here’s my story of how such an unpleasant task transformed itself into pure unadulterated pleasure.
Against my better judgment, I landed at one of the smaller countries I was sent to on December 29th. For the readers that aren’t well acquainted with Latin American culture, the month of December shouldn’t even show up on a calendar. Nothing gets done in December. Even government offices are completely shut down for weeks.
That having been said, after I settled into my hotel room, as the Americans say, I “let my fingers do the walking” and perused the yellow pages for a real estate agent. I had an appointment for 3:00 pm at one of the properties with the previous tenants (who had rented it out when we closed the mission). He would be handing me over the keys and what not, and I decided I should kill two birds with one stone, and right there hand it over to the real estate agent. It took several attempts but finally got an answer at one of the companies. The lady who answered sounded courteous and well educated. After I introduced myself and told her of the purpose of my call, she regretfully informed me that almost all her agents where on holiday, and that she was sick beyond belief, but that she would send someone to meet me at three sharp at the address I gave her.
I took a short nap, then showered, dressed and made my way to the house. The other party was already there, and as we did the walk through, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was indeed a pretty nice property. As a residence fit for our ambassador, it had four nice size rooms, den, living & dining room, a library/office, servant’s quarters, pool and pool house. Apparently, our government had left a few pieces of furniture which we inventoried and signed off on. While we were filling out forms, the person I believed to be the real estate agent walked in. Simply put, she was a “girl”. Over twenty-one but not a day over twenty-five. None of that fancy apparel either. She wore jeans and a form fitting black top. Little make up, brunette, shoulder length hair, maybe 5’5”, small breasts, slim waist, great behind, fairly long legs. Pretty face, but by no means a traffic stopper.
She introduced herself as Maria del Sol, and I asked her to give me a few minutes while I finished up with the other people. We placed the million or so keys in each door, bid each other farewell, and were now ready to go through it all over again with this little lady.
As she and I spoke, I found out she was the receptionist at the agency and that as soon as the holidays were over, a “real” agent would handle the sale of the house. Her frankness and easygoing approach immediately appealed to me. We walked through the house, signed off on the paperwork, and I handed her the keys. As we were locking the gate behind us and I was getting into my car, I noticed she started to walk down the street. I told the driver to pull up next to her, and I rolled down the window and asked where she was off to.
“I’m off to get a cab.” She replied.
I offered her a ride, and as she climbed in, I asked where she needed to go. She was heading back to the office to drop off the keys and paperwork, and then heading home. I told her to tell the driver where to go.