First, one of the bus lines here has seats with special covers so that you can put movie posters on the backs of all the seats. Last semester there was a poster of New Moon which was creepy. This semester the poster has been My Best Friend's Girl and it is a normal poster, but it makes me laugh because it has the actors' names on it and instead of Alex Baldin it says Alex Baldwing. Really, probably not that amusing, but I these days I am amused by very small things. :-)
Second, I made a joke with my host mom this week that I was kinda proud of. My host mom told me she was cooking lunch one day and I asked her, "tú o la chica?" which means, you or the girl (which is how they often refer to the maid) and she laughed because she knew I was teasing her. I know that Rosa knows how to cook, but she doesn't really like to I don't think and won't do it if there is someone else who can, which is why I asked. But she said she was actually the one cooking ;-) This interaction just made me happy because I think it shows a greater level of intimacy than I have previously felt with my host mother.
There is a girl from Belgium volunteering at Mundo Libre, which is where I also volunteer. On Friday she got on the bus that I was on to go to Miraflores so we sat next to each other and it was really interesting to talk to her because he first language is French and she came to Peru with practically no Spanish. She has been here since January I think and she sounds pretty good when she speaks Spanish, but the more I listened to her the more I realized that she had a lot of trouble with verb conjugation and often emphasized the wrong syllable of the word - still I was able to understand her. It is such an interesting experience to speak Spanish with another person who has a different first language. She told me a little bit about Belgium too and her perceptions of Lima as someone coming from Belgium. Fascinating.
In Parque Kennedy at 6:00 pm every day they lower the flag and to do it they had these guys march up to it and their march is like the funniest thing I have ever seen. It is a goal of mine to get a picture of it by the end of the semester. Because it seriously makes me laugh. They kick out their feet in front of them while they march and just look ridiculous!
On Thusday morning Juanka turned on the radio in the kitchen while I was eating breakfast and it was on the 80s station (80s music is pretty popular around here - and by 80s music I am referring to American music) and the song Come on Eileen was playing and I got really excited because I like that song a lot, especially after it was in the Dance Marathon medley last year for the line dance. Definitely was a great start to my day! And I needed it because I was up eaarly for 8:00 class and I had a reading quiz to look forward to in my 10:00 class.
On Wednesday we went to my grandma's house in the evening to celebrate my Tía Margot's birthday. One of my uncles is named Grimaldo and when Diego tried to say his name, it came out sounding like Tío Ano, ano being the word for anus, so everyone was laughing histerically. It was a beautiful moment for me because sometimes when Peruvians all laughing at a joke I don't actually understand what's going on, but this time I definitely did and joined in the laughter.
I love the fact that I can buy lunch here for less than a dollar. I have taken to buying just a chicken sandwich for lunch which costs me S/. 2.50 (S/. is the symbol for soles...I don't think I've ever shared that in my blog) so that's like $0.85. It has a tasty bun with shredded chicken, tomato, and lettuce and then I always ask for papitas (which remind me of pik-niks, aka crunchy french-fry sticks) and ají sauch, which is spicy. Tasty tasty!
In other news since the last time I updated...
Last weekend I had a sleepover with my friends from church. We stayed in the house of a church member who was traveling and graciously let us use it. Definitely a fun night! We played a ton of games, and let me tell you this is the first time I have played games with Peruvians - like card games and such - the more common form of entertainment here being dancing and loud music. The games were quite challenge for me due to difference in cultural knowledge and language. I just don't think quite as fast in Spanish as native speakers, image that! Still, the fact that I could follow the conversation and participate was good enough for me because I know that never would have happened last semester! So great to be included and to hang out with great Peruvians who are interested in getting to know me (and not just because I'm a gringa, which often seems to be a major motivator for people)! Last Saturday, April 3 I discovered the most beautiful and tranquil part of Lima and was in shock that I had never been there before. I was on my way to a Starbucks in San Isidro, which is one of the nicest districts in Lima, when I stumbled into a gorgeous park with tons of trees and people walking around with dogs and strollers and a pond that has goldfish and you couldn't hear all the obnoxious traffic that usually plagues Lima - so peaceful! I'm in love with it. And the area surrounding it has the prettiest buildings and the whole area just feel like you're not in Lima anymore! An escape to paradise! What a great discovery!
I expected Easter to be an important day here, probably because it is an important day in the U.S. and I figure that since my family is Catholic they would go to mass even though they are not very devout. I know they go to mass on Christmas, but they definitely did not go on Easter and we really didn't do anything special. I went shopping with my parents and we ate lunch at my grandma's house which is pretty typical for a Sunday afternoon. I did go to church in the morning with my friend Mary, which was good but I missed being at my church back home. I also got to skype with my grandparents for a short bit as they were over at my house for dinner with my mama (now I'm talking about my real family in case you can't tell). It was awesome to see them thought the duality of skype is that it is so awesome to be able to see someone who is so far away, but at the same time you sometimes wish you could reach into the computer and touch them too, ya know? But you only get the image, not the person themselves. I get I need a teleporter. Maybe in the future? :-D
Monday my only class was canceled since my teacher was traveling which really just made an already long weekend waaaay too long and I got a bit bored. I registered for my fall classes that morning, which went smoothly. 100 times better than the registration process here. It took like 2 seconds! In the afternoon I went to Plaza San Miguel to study for a short bit and bought an ice cream cone with tiramisu and creme caramel as my two flavors! Soooo good. It had been a very very long time since I had an ice cream cone and I was not having the best of days so I figured I deserved a little treat. :-) Sad to say the cone was about twice as expensive as my actual lunch, haha.
Wednesday Laura came over for lunch so that we could have a reading party all afternoon because we had a "control de lecture," which is like a reading quiz, on Thursday. It was very motivating to have a study buddy. We ate lunch with my host mom and my aunt Margot which was fun. Margot ended up mentioning our friend Kevin who was here last semester and she thinks he is extremely handsome - she made some very amusing comments! We also discussed the upcoming trip to Argentina that Laura and I will be going on! What a great day!
Speaking of my trip to Argentina, I am going to Buenos Aires this Thursday through Sunday with the three other girls who were in the program last semester and our coordinator: Laura, Sitra, Caroline, and Marion. I don't think we have any idea what we are going to do while we are there, but I know it is going to be a grand adventure and I cannot wait!
This weekend was really good - I kept busy for once, which I enjoyed! Friday I went to bubbe tea with Laura, Amelia and Abby and then we sat in the grass overlooking the ocean and chatted about life. These girls are awesome and I am so glad to have them here with me. We all shared what's going on in our lives and what the semester has really been like for us so far - good to support one another and talk through the challenges. Saturday I was filming a movie all day at the Católica for my friend Dan's class project. He is a communications major for publicity but all comm majors have this required audiovisual class. After editing, the video is only going to be 5 minutes long, which is crazy since we spent 4 hours filming. How exhausting! Because they only had the equipment for an allotted period of time, we couldn't stop to get lunch, so I was seriously lacking energy by the time we finally shot the last scene right at 5:00. My role was a mannequin come to life. The story was a semi-crazy guy who falls in love with a mannequin and in his mind the mannequin comes to life. There were no lines in the movie, just actions and facial expressions. Next weekend the Dan and his group will do the editing and then I will get a copy of the final product! I am super excited to see it! The university has real video equipment that we got to use, so it should be pretty good quality! This is seriously like a dream come true because I've always wanted to be in a movie! Clearly, this is no Hollywood and I would prefer to be in a musical or something more exciting, but still, since I don't think I'll ever actually be in a real movie, this seemed like an awesome opportunity! I definitely enjoyed it! And it is more legitimate than the movie my friends and I made a couple summers ago, Carty Party: The Musical (if you haven't seen it and you want to just let me know and I'll pass you the dvd...hehe).
Anyhow, I should probably get to bed here but first, pics:
Playing liga, idk what it's called in English
Marialuisa, Ernesto, Juan
Ernesto is my small group leader - I usually call him Neto
If you want to see the rest of the pics, click on the following link: Sleepover!
That was a fun post to read :) I miss you!
ReplyDelete