A Traveler in the Foreign Service: Escape from a rock-star elevator in Skopje

Trapped in a private, "rock-star" elevator in a seemingly half-finished apartment building on my first day in Macedonia, I turned, in desperation, to a phrase book. I had spent the previous six months in language training at the Foreign Service Institute, studying full time in a class of two, to prepare for an assignment at the American embassy in Skopje. But I didn't know how to say, "HELP!"

I was the lone member of the embassy trained in the country's minority language- Albanian- which is somewhat akin to posting a diplomat in Washington, D.C. with only Spanish training and no English. I lived in a part of town where Albanian was useless and, at this moment, was happy to have found the word for "help" in Macedonian in a phrasebook I had fortuitously stuffed in my backpack before leaving my apartment.

"U-Poh-MOSH!" I yelled. "U-POH-MOSH!"

I'd later learn that I shared my "rock-star" elevator with 3 apartments beneath me, but these other residences were all under construction. I had heard someone hammering just outside the elevator and the noise ceased for a minute after I let out my cry.

There was silence for a moment and then I heard a most unwelcome sound: laughter. I considered the fact that I was pronouncing the word wrong, so I tried various other iterations of the word. Eventually the laughter ceased and the workman started talking to me, in Macedonian. I had no clue what he was saying.

"Please, just get me the hell out of here!" I yelled.

But the man seemed either powerless or disinterested. After about a half hour trapped in the elevator I started to feel claustrophobic and short of breath. It finally dawned on me that I had the cell phone number of my new boss, whom I'd met at the airport just an hour before. We had only exchanged pleasantries and now I had to call her, at the start of a three-day weekend, to bail me out of an elevator? Only in the fishbowl world of the Foreign Service could such an uncomfortable supervisor-subordinate introduction take place.

"Hi Karen, it's Dave Seminara, we just met at the airport," I said, making my very first call on a new mobile phone I'd been given.

"I seem to be stuck in an elevator at my apartment building."

"Stuck in an elevator?" she asked, incredulous. "Well are you sure you hit the right buttons?"

Continue reading A Traveler in the Foreign Service: Escape from a rock-star elevator in Skopje

A Traveler in the Foreign Service: Escape from a rock-star elevator in Skopje originally appeared on Gadling on Mon, 09 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments