A little known fact about me. I am a warden. No, I don't have a second job searching for shivs and stopping fights out in the yard. I am a U.S. Embassy warden here in Mexico.

The warden system goes back many years, to when wardens were appointed to warn people in Europe about approaching air raids. We don't have many air raids in Mexico City, but the warden system still exists. Basically it involves a lot of e-mailing — the Embassy e-mails the wardens (volunteers) messages, and the wardens forward the messages to the gringos we know. In my case, it's as simple as sending them to the hundreds of people here at school.

The messages are what you might expect — anything from travel warnings about certain areas in Mexico (too many of those!), to notices of protests that could get out of hand, to more administrative things.

Last week, I got the chance to go to the Embassy for its first-ever warden meeting. It was interesting — we got briefings about/by the different divisions of the Embassy. Everything from visa matters to security. AND we got to hear from the outgoing U.S. Ambassador/Wikileaks victim, Carlos Pascual. So it was pretty cool, despite the fact that I was forced to leave my precious Pump-in-Style at the entrance for 6 HOURS. (Breastfeeding moms will know this was a bad, bad thing.)

Most of the other wardens were people more or less like me — many schools and educational programs were represented, along with a few travel/hospitality types. You don't have to be a U.S. citizen to be a warden, and in this group was representative, it seems lot of wardens here are Mexicans (people in charge of exchange programs, for example).

Of course, being a warden could potentially be about more than forwarding the occasional e-mail. I am imagining wardens in Japan and Libya recently had their hands full. Which brings me to this public safety message. When you travel abroad, please please just register. If something like a tsunami or revolution ever happens in your vicinity, you'll be glad you did.