Yesterday I had lunch with a woman from church who spends nine months out of the year in Peru and the other three months back in the United States. She and her husband are missionaries in Lima and this is the third year they have been here. In my mind, that makes her somewhat of an expert on adjusting to life in Peru. Her best advice? Embark on small quests and celebrate your small victories. Whether its dedicating an afternoon to finding a famous chocolate shop or successfully finding dill in the supermarket, it’s these quests and subsequent triumphs that have helped her adjust to Peruvian life.
Today I had a small language triumph.
I commute to work with a private taxi company and since I have become a regular customer, I have started to recognize the drivers. This morning, when dropping me off my driver asked if I was taking Spanish lessons at the school, to which I replied, “No, soy una profesora de inglés.” (No, I’m an English teacher). That small admission and my noticeably lighter hair and skin color tipped him off to my American citizenship.
The same driver picked me up to take me to Alvaro’s grandfather’s house for lunch. About ten minutes into the ride he said a quick sentence composed of several words I understood and a few that I didn’t. I replied, “I’m sorry, could you speak a little slower...” and then he repeated the question. He wanted to ask me about the economic crisis in the United States. Oh boy. I don’t know that I am qualified to speak about that situation in English, let alone in Spanish. I tried my best. I talked about interest rates and bank loans and home foreclosures. He asked why a lot of people don’t like Obama and I said because things haven’t changed as much as they would have liked. “I, however, do like him. The country was in a really bad place when he became President and la cambia (change) takes time.” We continued to chat about American policy regarding war and economics all the way to my destination. Before I exited the car I said, “Thank you for helping me practice my Spanish. I really need to speak but I am really afraid to.” He laughed, said that I did fine and reassured me that speaking English like that would be difficult for him.
As I opened the door he said, “Earlier you said la cambia, it’s actually el cambio.”
I said, “Ah, sí. Cambiar is the verb and cambio is the noun. Muchas gracias.”
“De nada, señorita. Feliz año y hasta luego.” (You’re welcome, ma’am. Happy New Year and see you later.)
35 Honks
My taxi service is always on time or early- but never late.
This morning my driver was five minutes late, then ten, then fifteen and then thirty minutes past my scheduled pick up time. He had the unfortunate luck of getting a flat tire first thing in the morning. Even with the chaotic Lima traffic, I still had plenty of time to make it to my training, though I’m not sure that my driver knew that.
He had driven me once before and I remembered him as the driver who has a certain obsession with the horn in his car. As we sat at a red light, seven cars behind the front of the line, he incessantly honked the horn. I’m not sure why since typically honking is reserved for those in closest proximity and those cars were also blocked in by the five cars in front of them. Peruvian road rage at its finest, honking the horn just because it’s there.
This morning he honked the horn with minutes of driving away from my apartment, “Ah yes,” I thought, “this is the horn guy.” So I began to count. One, two then three in a row. Six, seven, eight, a short break to read the paper followed by a close nine, ten, eleven and twelve. I kept counting and kept counting. He honked while sitting at a red light, while merging onto the interstate, when telling a car to go faster and while warning pedestrians from getting in his way. Some areas of Lima have made honking car horns illegal. That law was established for drivers like him.
By the time I reached my final destination, he had honked 35 times. In a thirty minute drive.
Obviously a gringa
Today we went to our favorite sushi restaurant. It was an emergency mission to cheer up Alvaro after he scratched the side of his car on a pole in the parking garage. In his defense, the other car parked way too close and two light bulbs had burnt out, making the garage unusually dark.
This restaurant has a delicious selection of sushi. Part of what makes it so unique is that they have created a menu that blends Peruvian flavors into sushi rolls. The lomo saltado roll? Heavenly. And huancaína? Simply perfect. They have nearly two dozen rolls to choose from and besides the too sweet Tutti Frutti roll, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them.
We sat down and a female employee brought us our menus and silverware. After placing my menu in front of me I said, “gracias”. She looked at me and then looked at Alvaro and said, “Your girlfriend looks like a doll, take care of her.”
Our waiter, Jorge, came over to take our drink order. Alvaro ordered the drinks and the only Spanish I spoke was a simply, “yes,” when he commented on my excellent drink choice. Surely such a simple word wouldn’t give away my obvious American accent. Without skipping a beat he looked at me and asked, “Where are you from?”
My light skin and hair color immediately tell a Peruvian that I am in fact a gringa, a slang term for a female of European descent. This term and its masculine form gringo, is used to describe anyone with blond hair, blue eyes and light skin, all markers of a non-Peruvian. I may be able to perfect my accent and hail a taxi like a Peruvian, but I will always, always be a gringa.
This restaurant has a delicious selection of sushi. Part of what makes it so unique is that they have created a menu that blends Peruvian flavors into sushi rolls. The lomo saltado roll? Heavenly. And huancaína? Simply perfect. They have nearly two dozen rolls to choose from and besides the too sweet Tutti Frutti roll, I don’t think you can go wrong with any of them.
We sat down and a female employee brought us our menus and silverware. After placing my menu in front of me I said, “gracias”. She looked at me and then looked at Alvaro and said, “Your girlfriend looks like a doll, take care of her.”
Our waiter, Jorge, came over to take our drink order. Alvaro ordered the drinks and the only Spanish I spoke was a simply, “yes,” when he commented on my excellent drink choice. Surely such a simple word wouldn’t give away my obvious American accent. Without skipping a beat he looked at me and asked, “Where are you from?”
My light skin and hair color immediately tell a Peruvian that I am in fact a gringa, a slang term for a female of European descent. This term and its masculine form gringo, is used to describe anyone with blond hair, blue eyes and light skin, all markers of a non-Peruvian. I may be able to perfect my accent and hail a taxi like a Peruvian, but I will always, always be a gringa.
Feliz Navidad from Peru
In Peru, Christmas occurs during summer. Unlike Florida which just happens to have a warmer winter, here Christmas is surrounded by summer vacation, beach houses, pool supplies lining the store aisles and much warmers days.
For most Peruvians “Christmas” occurs on the evening on Christmas Eve, beginning with Mass around 6pm then followed by an evening with family. Alvaro’s family eats Christmas dinner at 10:30pm. A big meal complete with turkey, apple sauce, rice, fruit salad and limeade. At midnight we toasted to Jesus’s birthday while listening to the fireworks outside. We opened presents and by 1am, while Santa was still circling the globe, Christmas in Peru was over.
The next morning, I had my mini- American Christmas. I Skyped with my parents while opening my presents and then left for a Christmas morning brunch with Alvaro. We then spent most of the morning walking around several parks that are located right next to the beach. We passed the time watching children with their new toys, paragliders and eating ice cream.
To finish the night we watched Alvaro’s favorite Christmas movie: Jingle all the Way, while eating traditional Peruvian Christmas bread, panetón.
Redemption
Today I woke up with that tired feeling that your eyes have after you have been crying too much. Even after a full night’s sleep, I felt so emotionally wrecked that all I wanted to do was stay at home with Emmaline. That, however, was not an option. Another day of training awaited me.
After the third day of training, we are evaluated to see how we are picking up the method. If we seem to be catching on, then we are invited back for the rest of the training. I was invited back and received high praise during my progress report. Even though I am not terribly impressed by my new employer, this was a good step forward. An important step in getting closer to my work visa.
As I was leaving the school, I met up with a girl named Sandra. She has been training with me and the past few days we have really hit it off. She immediately asked if she would be seeing me next week and then asked for my phone number. She told me that if I need anything with my transition here to not hesitate to call her. We chatted for a minute or two and then when we parted she hugged me and gave me the Peruvian “cheek-kiss”. In many ways, I saw this as a small graduation in our relationship. We’re now more than fellow trainees.
My taxi took me to the apartment of the woman I was supposed to meet yesterday before the iPod incident. I arrived at her apartment and the maid let me inside the courtyard. She actually rents a small apartment that is the second floor of a beautiful, old Peruvian home. The maid works for the landlord who lives in the home.
After she let me, in the maid said that Señora Anne wasn’t home. Hm, interesting. I called her and she told me that she had something come up and had to leave for the afternoon. Now I was stuck. My taxi just left and I was stranded. I asked if I could wait in the courtyard while I came up with a new plan. She agreed and in that moment the garage door opened and an older gentleman drove in. We exchanged greetings and he went into his home. A minute later and came back out to the courtyard and invited me to wait inside. He directed me to the living room while he ate lunch in the kitchen.
I frantically called Alvaro several times and then finally called his sister who agreed to come pick me up. I set down my phone and started to look around. It was a beautiful home with a very traditional open floor plan. On a table next to the television were stacks of DVDs. He liked Lie to Me, House and Bones. “He would get along with my mom,” I thought.
On the far end of the room were seven large picture frames. The collage type frames that hold 6-10 pictures each. In total, he must have had nearly 100 photographs in those frames. I could clearly see him in several of the photos, taken in all sorts of locations. In parks and homes, at parties and at church. Some of the photos were of ten or more people, crowded around a birthday cake or little baby. I kept looking at these photographs, looking at all the love they had captured and I started to cry. I knew absolutely nothing about this man except that he was kind enough to allow me a place to wait, he likes American television and he has raised a beautiful loving family.
Yesterday, I lost all hope in Peru. I was convinced that every stranger saw me as nothing more than a vulnerable American. I found very little redemption in this country and the people that occupy it. Yesterday, I was ready to give up. Today, however, two complete strangers offered me grace and kindness. Sandra recognized the difficulties of moving to a foreign land and offered her help. This man simply offered me a place to sit out of the sun, such a simple gesture and he will never know the profound impact it had on me. In that single gesture, he invited me into his home that had been filled with so much love over the years. For those thirty minutes, I was a part of that family and in a way, he redeemed all of Peru.
After the third day of training, we are evaluated to see how we are picking up the method. If we seem to be catching on, then we are invited back for the rest of the training. I was invited back and received high praise during my progress report. Even though I am not terribly impressed by my new employer, this was a good step forward. An important step in getting closer to my work visa.
As I was leaving the school, I met up with a girl named Sandra. She has been training with me and the past few days we have really hit it off. She immediately asked if she would be seeing me next week and then asked for my phone number. She told me that if I need anything with my transition here to not hesitate to call her. We chatted for a minute or two and then when we parted she hugged me and gave me the Peruvian “cheek-kiss”. In many ways, I saw this as a small graduation in our relationship. We’re now more than fellow trainees.
My taxi took me to the apartment of the woman I was supposed to meet yesterday before the iPod incident. I arrived at her apartment and the maid let me inside the courtyard. She actually rents a small apartment that is the second floor of a beautiful, old Peruvian home. The maid works for the landlord who lives in the home.
After she let me, in the maid said that Señora Anne wasn’t home. Hm, interesting. I called her and she told me that she had something come up and had to leave for the afternoon. Now I was stuck. My taxi just left and I was stranded. I asked if I could wait in the courtyard while I came up with a new plan. She agreed and in that moment the garage door opened and an older gentleman drove in. We exchanged greetings and he went into his home. A minute later and came back out to the courtyard and invited me to wait inside. He directed me to the living room while he ate lunch in the kitchen.
I frantically called Alvaro several times and then finally called his sister who agreed to come pick me up. I set down my phone and started to look around. It was a beautiful home with a very traditional open floor plan. On a table next to the television were stacks of DVDs. He liked Lie to Me, House and Bones. “He would get along with my mom,” I thought.
On the far end of the room were seven large picture frames. The collage type frames that hold 6-10 pictures each. In total, he must have had nearly 100 photographs in those frames. I could clearly see him in several of the photos, taken in all sorts of locations. In parks and homes, at parties and at church. Some of the photos were of ten or more people, crowded around a birthday cake or little baby. I kept looking at these photographs, looking at all the love they had captured and I started to cry. I knew absolutely nothing about this man except that he was kind enough to allow me a place to wait, he likes American television and he has raised a beautiful loving family.
Yesterday, I lost all hope in Peru. I was convinced that every stranger saw me as nothing more than a vulnerable American. I found very little redemption in this country and the people that occupy it. Yesterday, I was ready to give up. Today, however, two complete strangers offered me grace and kindness. Sandra recognized the difficulties of moving to a foreign land and offered her help. This man simply offered me a place to sit out of the sun, such a simple gesture and he will never know the profound impact it had on me. In that single gesture, he invited me into his home that had been filled with so much love over the years. For those thirty minutes, I was a part of that family and in a way, he redeemed all of Peru.
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