things i like about peru.

i like its beautiful coastline.

i like its attempts at english translations.

i like its silly ice cream sundaes.

i like its natural beauty.

i like its history.

i like its food products with other meanings in english.

i like its beautiful children.

i like its colors.

i like its inca kola.

i like its yogurt.

i like its people.

i like its graffiti.

i like its bread section in the grocery store.

i like its obsession with limes.

i am so very thankful.

I missed Thanksgiving with my family yesterday.

But I did get to spend it with my best friends here in Peru.

On Monday I made a video of things that I'm thankful for:

Giving Thanks.

(And I just realized that I misspelled the title of the video. oops.)

[I'll be home in sixteen days]

making people a priority.

wednesday night here in lima. next week will be my last week of classes at la católica. my year abroad is quickly coming to an end and i’m looking forward to going home. to being around family and friends and snow and christmas. at the same time i know it will be difficult to leave and say goodbye. how does one say goodbye to a place? especially a place like peru that has become so much a part of me? i guess i’ll just have to figure it out as i go. but for now i’ll just enjoy my time and listen to christmas music and imagine that its snowing outside and i’m sitting by my fire place snuggled up in the big comfy leather chair watching “dancing with the stars” or “the amazing race” with my mom ... alright, enough imagining. let me tell you about last weekend.

last weekend was really great. amelia and i took a 13 hour bus ride up to a city called chiclayo on the northern coast of peru. our main purpose of the trip was to visit my compassion sponsorship child, but we did a lot more than that. we told our friends here at la católica that we were going to chiclayo and it just so happened that one of them is from there. so he put us in contact with people from cbu-chiclayo. we met up with them on friday night and they took care of us. we stayed in one of their rooms because he was going away for the weekend. they showed us around the city and took us to various historical sites. it was so much fun! i don't know why we didn't do the whole meet-up-with-cbu-people while traveling for our previous trips. but now we know.

i don't think that words can convey how nice these people are. they basically just dropped their plans and spent the weekend with two random american girls. it really impressed us and we were truly touched by their kindness. at one point amelia and I were sort of debriefing and talking and trying to figure out what was it that made them so nice. we realized that they made people and relationships a priority. i felt like i was important, they asked me questions, wanted to know about me, told me i spoke spanish well, and laughed with me (sometimes at me, but that's alright). after just two days i feel like we're friends. the kind of friends that you can count on to help you out when you need a tour guide, or a place to sleep or different blankets that don't make amelia's eyes blister (yes, there were some pretty interesting moments of the trip).

so i guess you can say that i’ve been inspired by the wonderful people that i met in Chiclayo – inspired to make people a priority. because i think that is what jesus was and is all about. that’s why he hung out with tax collectors, and talked to the samaritan woman at the well. people were important to him, like the most important thing ever. i mean why else would he leave heaven to live on this earth and then die on the cross? because people, humanity is his priority. he thinks we are important, he thinks i am important. so i want to start living in such a way that people are my priority. that i make others feel important, with the hope that they come to realize that they do matter, not only to me, but to the creator of the universe.

// rosa and i // with our new friends from cbu chiclayo // drinking chica de jora en poto - a fermented corn drink served in a carved out pumpkin // me and amelia in front of the museum of señor de sipán // on the longest balcony in south america // amelia and i with raquel and daniel - our two wonderful tourguides - at the pirámides de túcume // jumping picture =) // a peruvian hairless dog - which i think are gross // cebiche! the typical dish of peru - raw fish "cooked" in lime juice served with corn and sweet potato (can you believe i eat that?) //

live and learn.

i'm living in lima.

and i'm learning a few things.

>>if a movie is still in theatres and you buy a copy of it in the black market, you are pretty much guaranteed to get a crappy version of someone sitting in the theatre filming it.

>>shakira's songs are way too catchy.

>>there is a section of the center of lima where you can buy puppies for pretty cheap.

>>either i'm smarter than i thought i was, or i'm getting some major gringo points on these assignments. (by the way, gringo points = when the professor has sympathy that you're a gringo and are taking classes in a language that is not your native tongue and therefore goes easy when grading assignments. maybe it's discriminatory, but it sure is appreciated.)

>>having chocolate in my room is a bad idea. (a delicious idea, but a very bad one.)

>>the field of linguistics still has not come to an agreement of what language is. a topic which seems pretty essential to define.

>>when crossing a large street, make sure you have enough time to make it all the way across before the light changes.

>>things aren't usually black or white. there is a whole lot of mixed gray area.

>>it's hard for me to get into the christmas spirit when it's warm enough to start wearing flip-flops.

>>there are no tropical storms (like hurricanes or things like that) that damage the city of lima because of the andes mountains.

>>when you log into the pucp website and click on a professor's name to send them an email, you're actually sending an email to the entire class.

>>i like pumpkin pie.

buenos aires.

in case you didn't know, i went to buenos aires last weekend!! our study abroad program includes two weekend trips during the semester and since amelia and i already went on those trips last semester we were able to take that money and go on another trip. and we chose the "paris of the south": beautiful buenos aires. here are some photo highlights from the trip.

first of all, buenos aires has really delicious food. there is a huge italian/european influence in the city which means amazing pasta and pizzas. i must say that the pizza we ate our first night was right up there with my mom's. (and if you have had my mom's pizza, you know that that statement is not easily given out.) and as my friend laura commented "i don't even like pizza and that looks delicious!"

there are some really cool (and wicked old) big trees scattered throughout the city.

buenos aires has the coolest graffiti that i've ever seen.

"el caminito" a small little neighborhood in the poorest district of the city. known for its colorful houses and tango dancing.

beautiful bookstores. this one is in an old theatre, gorgeous!

i had the chance to meet up with my friend amy from gordon who is studying down in buenos aires for the semester. she picked us up at our hotel and showed us around her neighborhood. there are beautiful parks and the roses are just starting to bloom. yay for spring in october!

in the main square where the casa rosada (the "pink palace" where the president lives) is located. jumping pic in front of la casa rosada.

the day before we arrived the ex-president Nestor Kirchner had passed away. he was also the husband of the current president. there were demonstrations thursday and friday during the period of morning and a procession on friday afternoon. also these posters were all over the city.

cementerio de la recoleta. a famous cemetery containing the graves of some of the most famous argentines - presidents, authors, and the granddaughter of napoleon bonaparte who died at the age of 6 days. the graves are marble mausoleums decorated with elaborate stone statues. it's all very beautiful, but also slightly creepy. i personally liked all the different shapes and styles of crosses, and the stone figures against the blue sky made for lovely pictures. we also tried (unsuccessfully) to get a jumping picture.

comfort.

being away from home is sometimes difficult. and you crave familiarity and just all around comfort. so much so that you sometimes do strange things. you eat too many tootsie rolls because even though there is chocolate here, it just doesn't compare to a tootsie roll. you look through old pictures. you constantly check your email to see if you have messages from people back at home. you snuggle up and take a nap with your ratty stuffed animals even though you are an independent 21-year-old. you write messages to your friends about inside jokes in an attempt to feel closer to them. you decide to make pancakes at ten o'clock at night because you just want to eat something familiar, something that tastes like home. you read student news even though none of it really applies to you. you have your computer set up to check the weather back at home even though it is 3,800 miles away from where you are. you download podcasts from gordon because the sound of familiar voices is comforting. you love getting emails from your mother about nothing in particular, just the regular daily ins and outs of life back at home because it makes you feel not so far away.

week in words.

so i just posted my week in photos and i'd thought i should go a bit deeper and describe my week with words.

last sunday i met up with a guy from my linguistics class at starbucks to work on our project together. it was fun. i got a hot chocolate. funny thing is that starbucks are the same all over the world. it really didn't feel like i was in peru. they look and feel just like back in the states. kind of a weird thing. it's like you almost forget where you are. after that i went home and skyped with my good friend susanne for a bit. unfortunately the internet connection was a little choppy but it was good to chat with her for a little bit.

on monday i got up as usual to start another week. arrived at la catolica for class and picked up my purple linguistics shirt (see picture in previous post). apparently the department of human sciences is having a sports competition in between differently majors of study. so all the linguistics students got these shirts and i was offered one because i too am a linguistics student. it was sweet of them to include me. i had lunch and saw amelia for the first time in like 10 days because she had been away on a field trip to the jungle with her anthropology class (rough life down here in peru). i learned how to renew library books! exciting. turns out that the first renewal must be done online. as in you aren't allowed to do it in person. strange? i think so. but luckily there is a nice man who works in the library and took the time to help me out. then my code and password weren't working so i couldn't renew online. but we finally got it all figured out. then i went to my anthropology class. and then came home. nothing out of the ordinary.

on tuesday i did my exposición in my linguistics class. each week we have a section of text to read for the discussion. and each week a student is in charge of leading the discussion. last week it was my friend luis miguel and i. and tuesday was my day to speak. so i sat there and shared about movement and deep structure and surface structure and traces and government and binding theory and have cliticization. all in spanish. i was terrified. but it went well. i mean i know it wasn't perfect, but i'm pretty sure that i made myself understood and i even made a joke and they all laughed. so it went better than expected. and after it was over i felt very relieved, but not completely. i still had an essay to write for wednesday. on tuesdays i eat lunch with some friends from cbu and we practice english. well they practice and i help. it's a lot of fun and i'm always impressed by how well they speak.

it always catches me by surprise when i realize how much of an influence english has. i mean most students have a basic understanding and can read (and are required to read) academic texts in english. it's crazy. i guess i never realized the importance of english in the rest of the world and how fortunate i am that it is my first language. most people want to learn english. they want to come to the u.s. they watch our movies. they listen to our music. on one hand it's kind of cool, but at the same time i think it's unfortunate and a bit sad. sometimes it seems like they are placing english and the u.s. above their own language and culture. language is such a part of your culture and who you are and that has value. i think that is important. which is why i'm learning spanish. as a way to connect with other people, in order to say "i value you and your culture. i want to be able to communicate with you just as you are, you don't have to change to be of value to me." so i think it sad that people feel that in order to be of worth or to be successful that they need to learn english. and it may be true. there are so many more opportunities when one knows english. and that's just a fact. it may not be fair, but that is how our world is. i am beyond blessed by the all the opportunities that i have being a u.s. citizen and knowing english. and sometimes i don't like it and i feel guilty. because it is unfair. but i've decided that instead of feeling guilty i should take advantage. i have the ability to do so much and i should feel guilty if i don't take full advantage of everything that is offered to me.

ok, back to tuesday. while i was chatting with my friends my phone rings and it's my host mom. she says that a package has arrived for me but she needs my passport number. so i give it to her and hope that it all works out and that my package will be there when i get home. then i headed over to the library to write my essay for my anthropology class. i asked amelia and sam to come and see me in the library so i could give them my story to hand in during our creative writing class because i couldn't go. i needed to get that paper done. and i did! afterwards i was so proud of myself and was in a really good mood. i finished around 5:30 and waited for them to get out of class at 6. then we walked down to plaza san miguel for gelato. i love gelato tuesdays. afterwards i came home to find the package from my mommy in my room! yay! my mom is the greatest ever. you can see the picture with the contents of the package below.

wednesday i had planned to get up early and call my nephew drayton because it was his 10th birthday. unfortunately i slept through my alarm. but i got up, showered and went to my linguistics class. afterwards i ate lunch with amelia and our friend miki. and we played bananagrams. i'm spreading it to peru. then i went to my anthropology class and turned in the essay. and came home after class.

thursday i got up and went to la catolica. on my micro were two ladies that i decided to call the sunshine sisters. two elderly ladies with white pants, a pale yellow shirt with bright mustard colored cardigans. and they had matching yellow and white purses. it was pretty cute. then i got to school and had some time to kill so i went to the computer lab. i opened up my email and got the news that a good family friend mrs. steffens had passed away early that morning. that was hard. but i composed myself and was able to get through my class. although it was a bit hard to focus throughout the day. went to cbu and played some pretty crazy games! then had lunch with everyone and had quite a few laughs. then it was off to the library to do a bit of research. after sam and amelia got out of class we got on a micro together and amelia and i got off in parque kennedy and went to mcdonald's and chatted. then we entered the park and shared some super delicious arroz con leche (a popular dessert). then we went to the grocery store metro and amelia bought a pumpkin. then we headed to a café and had some tea and chatted some more. we got caught up on each other's lives. it was nice. and our waiter noticed our pumpkin and asked us about it. apparently it's a new thing here in peru. so he was curious. it was funny.

friday sam and i met at 9 in miraflores to take our taxi to deporte y vida. as usual it was a long day, but very rewarding. the kids are so adorable and the teachers are wonderful. we arrived and when we got there norma, the head teacher, told us that neyler (the cutest, sweetest, smartes 10 year old peruvian i know) was just about to leave because he thought we weren't coming. he didn't have any homework but had come just to see us and hang out with us. so he was happy to see us. we played monopoly with him for 2 and a half hours. and not just any monopoly - it was the peruvian version: with street names of lima and what looked like handmade property cards with typos. and the money was all the same color - white - except for the blue fives. and there were no houses to buy. it was pretty entertaining. but i am learning a lot of random rules for games in peru, and they seem to apply to any board game. such as you need to roll a six to start. and then if you roll a six throughout the game you get to roll again. which can get a bit confusing with two dice because if you roll two sixes, you roll two more times, but if you get another six you roll again for that six. it just gets hard to keep track of and it's hard for me to do so much mental math in my head. but neyler made sure to keep track. no one actually won, we just stopped when it was time for the kids to leave for lunch. then sam and i had lunch and attempted to get some homework done. we usually just end up talking. which is nice too. in the afternoon we were a bit more productive in helping with homework. i did some drawing and some english and some sentence writing. funniest part was when i was helping this little girl and she was looking at my arm and said "miss, you're white aren't you?" and i was like, yes, i am. they are so funny. and curious. and sweet. at 6 our taxi came to get us and thus began the most uncomfortable taxi ride ever. only because i really had to go to the bathroom. you see the facilities at deporte y vida are rather primitive so i prefer to just hold it. but i had drank too much during the day and i was about to explode! we made it to sam's apartment after practically running the 4 blocks from where the taxi dropped us off. then up the elevator to the 6th floor and i was dancing around. finally i was able to go. then we went out to eat at an arab restaurant. so delicious. then we headed over to amelia's house. she had made a pumpkin pie with her purchase from thursday. very impressive. and it was yummy! i thought that i didn't like pumpkin pie but then i realized that i had never actually tried it. so i tried it and i like it!

on saturday i met up with sam and amelia at a biofería in miraflores. basically like a farmer's market. it was pretty cool. then we went over to our friend sean's house for lunch. we got off at the bus stop but weren't exactly sure where he lived. so sam called it. but turns out we don't have sean's number we have carlos' number. oops. good thing that i remembered when chris showed me his apartment when we passed it on the micro one day because i led us to the right building. but then we had to figure out which apartment he was in to ring the bell to get in. so we stood there for a little bit trying to figure out what to do. then a janitor came out and asked if he could help us. so we asked if he knew where our friend sean lived. here is the conversation:

"hi. we are looking for our american friend sean. he is tall and has a beard and is gringo, like us. he is living with a peruvian family in this building."

"do you know the name of the family?"

"um no. but his father is italian. and his name begins with an s"

"is the father tall?"

"yes..."

"try number 302"

"ok."

so we rang apartment number 302 and it was correct! yay! so we got in and went on up. so sandro (sean's italian peruvian father) made us lunch. yummy italian food: lasagna and spaghetti. so delicious. then in the evening we (sam, amelia and i) met up with some guys from cbu to eat pollo a la brasa and do karaoke. it was so much fun! so i made my karaoke debut last night singing shakira's hips don't lie.

i woke up on sunday aroun 11:30 and stayed in bed until 12. that was nice. i finally got up, had some breakfast, took a shower and did some homework. then i walked and met my family at a chinese restaurant for lunch around 3:30. then back home again. where i've been updating my blog and chatting. i skyped with my parents tonight. which is always nice. but makes me miss them even more.

alright, this turned out to be way longer than expected. so i'm going to wrap it up and go to bed.

but before i do here is a link to my channel on youtube. i've put some videos up from last semester and will continue to upload more. enjoy!

azsawyer's youtube channel