Chica y America

Ok so first a few random thoughts about Peru
-when someone wants to ask you if you will share something with them they say invitame which i like cuz it sounds like invite me which is a lot better than hey gimme soma that
-the United States of America is not the only America and I can say I'm American but so is everyone in South AMERICA  so I have to specify that I am from the USA or as they say it here, oosuh.
-those speed bumps that are everywhere, sometimes they just paint the ground to look like a speedbump to make people slow down which is pretty clever and cost effective of Peru so they get points for that (I laugh when a driver gets mad cuz they fool them!)
-I dont know if I have mentioned Chicha Morada yet but its like water here, like they drink it like water but it is made from corn and some other stuff and it tastes like koolaid so I like it but it's like the go to drink here besides Inca Cola.
-Speaking of corn, they have their own type of corn bread here which of course is different but it reminded me of home

ok so now I'm going to talk about the culture of Peru a little bit regarding housekeepers/maids/chicas. Now I know that my opinion is going to differ from peoples obviously and I am in no way criticizing how things are done here I am just expressing my point of view. So in Lima specifically apparently it is very very common to have a girl working in your house doing work like cooking and cleaning and house work type things, and when I arrived in Peru my family had one of these. Her name was Chio and she had been with my family for three years so she knew how things worked and she kind of helped me around. But one day I woke up and she was gone, which now thinking of it they had told me she would be leaving when I first arrived but not being that great with my Spanish yet I didn't fully understand. Anyway she apparently fell in love and went off to be with him and live her life which is all fine and dandy but that left us without a chica in the house for a while so my mom did the work she usually did. Today, however, we went to the airport to pick up a 18 year old girl from a far away city in Peru for her to be the new chica. Her name is Charo and she is literally about 4 and maybe a half feet tall and I just can't help but feel so horribly bad for her. Before we went to the airport to pick her up my mom was talking to me and I think she could tell I was a bit wary about the whole situation because she kept trying to explain to me that this is good for her and that now she would have a good life and she can provide for her family back in her city now but still I can't quite get used to it. The whole car ride back she just kept saying si senora and my mom kept listing off all the things she would have to do daily and I just couldn't believe it. I mean when you look at it I suppose this is an ok life for her, my mom bought her new clothes and shoes and her plane ticket was paid for to get her here and my mom told me that she is getting paid pretty well- twice what she would get working in her old city. But even if this is a good life for her it's just so incredibly sad to me that she had to leave her home so young and go to a far away city with a strange family she doesn't know and now has to work in order for her family back home to have a better life. Something my friend told me though that actually made me feel better was to think about what she would be doing if she didn't have this job. It makes me sad but I guess that's just how things work here and I'mm obviously going to have to get used to it because this is where I'm living and I came here to learn about Peruvian culture and this is what it is. No one is right, no one is wrong, but it's all very different.

Dos semanas de colegio

Ok so first you need to know that I wrote this on Friday in class so I hadn't had the weekend yet.... you'll understand.
I survived two weeks of school!!! It's still not too bad, I'm actually going to a classmate's birthday party this weekend so it should be fun. Usually communication with people isnt too difficult but sometimes I'll still not hear or understand something and usually I act like I do but if they ask a question and I don't understand it's fun to watch them all try to figure out how to explain it. I have a few actual friends here like of course MaFe my neighbor but also in school Mayra, Olenka, and Ishiro, but really everyone is nice to me. That's another weird thing, everyone is nice to each other here, I mean sure they still have their little groups but there's not really people that are more popular than others and no girls hate each other. (at least in my salon/classroom) It's nice, but kinda strange. Salons, by the way, are like in fifth grade when everyone got split into two separate rooms but here there's like 5 different rooms for one grade. Well in other news, lately my mom has been really overprotective, like she wont let me go spend the night at another exchange student's house (which everyone does) or meet people at a specific park because they sell drugs there and it's apparently close to a nightclub that lets in all teenagers regardless of age. She is letting me go to the birthday party though so I can't really complain and it could seriously be a lot worse.

So an update on this information, the party pretty much sucked because everyone was talking so fast and it was late so my brain was tired but it was something I suppose. I also went to a friends house to watch a movie with a few exchange students and it was awesome. uhmmmm I'm pretty sure that because of my mom there is now a new list of rules and I'm pretty upset about that because they're ridiculous, like the sleepover rule is real now, along with we are forbidden to surf without written information and stupid stuff like this! ugh  well also today is monday and i had a long weekend so i was *ahem* sick and my mom ended up calling a doctor to the house! which i guess is normal here but still!!! i told her it was just something i ate and i had a stomach ache but ever since her daughter had appendicitis she freaks out about abdomen pain apparently.  I found myth busters and the big bang theory on my tv so i guess today wasn't entirely horrid.  This week i think is just a normal week which is weird to think, like I'm kinda living a normal life here. Getting used to my life in Peru :)

Campamento

this weekend was rotary camp!!! It was so much fun!!! except for the fact that it was on the most intense incline ever and i nearly died daily. We went about an hour outside of lima and up into some small mountains. We were all amazed instantly because it was like summer time there!!! We finally got to wear shorts and even swim in a pool!! The nights were especially awesome, on the first night we just sat on the patios of our bungalow things looking at the stars and the lit up houses on the side of the mountain, it was sooooo beautiful. The other night we had a little discoteca party thing and that was a bunch of fun too. We also learned how to dance salsa and a short little choreographed dance which was awesome. There was a talent show before the dance which was amazing and i was gonna sing but two other girls and i decided to do an acrobatic thing instead. Everyone's act was so good and we just had so much fun. The daytimes kind of sucked though because they were full of lectures that we all had to fight to stay awake during but i think we learned some important stuff. We went over some customs that are important so we dont offend anyone such as always greeting adults and telling EVERYONE happy______ whatever holiday it is, how to stay safe in lima and during our travels or in the event of earthquake/tsunami. I feel a lot better knowing these things and more confident in like what i should do so i don't feel quite so lost now. Just hanging out during the day with the other exchange students was so much fun though! we spent most of our time in the pool just hanging out and going down the waterslide. there was also a high ropes course with no safety mechanisms at all (sorry mom) and I did like half of that which was a good and scary time. After this weekend im so sore!!!! From climbing the hill 5 million times, swimming and playing in a pool, the ropes course, and a very violent game that left me with giant bruises on each arm I'm ready to go to bed!! yay school tomorrow :P

Colegio

First day of school!!!! Gosh so much to say..... I'll start at the beginning. So I had to wake up and all that fun stuff and to school I wore the gym uniform because I couldn't buy the real one yet cuz the lady was on vacation and blah blah whatever. But there's two uniforms, the normal (blouse, skirt, knee socks, sweater) and the gym (basically a track suit and a certain color T shirt depending on your class (I'm orange!)) because every class has a 2 hour gym class one day of the week. I got put into class E and lucky me gym was today. But I'll start back at the beginning again, I get to school by basically short bus. It's kinda like a carpool in the type of van they use like at surfing or canoeing places to get everyone to the drop point. Today Diana came with me but on a normal day there's me, Gonzalo (he's in my grade), Angel (he was born in America and is half peruvian half argentinian), Alfredo (don't know much about him yet but he's nice), Gustavo (adorable 12 year old), and I think that's everyone- if not I'll fix it later. When we got to school everyone was kind of hanging out in a common courtyard and Diana, the other exchange student from Belgium -Colin- ended up in the headmaster's office. We waited there while some kind of ceremony was being held outside and when it was over we were taken outside and introduced in front of the whole 5th year (senior class). It was kinda weird and  embarrassing especially when people started shouting begging for us to be in their class but when it was over we all split off into out classrooms. When I went to my class I got introduced another time in front of everyone and some lady kept taking my picture. After this our classes started and the first one was physics. Whoo. It wasn't too difficult of a concept so I understood pretty easily but not having the work packet was an interesting challenge. After this was a 10 minute break during which I ordered my uniform (I get it Saturday!) and then English class!! The teacher got a buncha stuff wrong but whatever! My brain got an hour break and we read about Johnny Depp and Pirates of the Caribbean so I was content. Then lovely history during which we got assigned a group project which I decided my group mates can do the majority of :) and we talked about WWII.  After this we got a 20 minute break so I ate my sandwich and found the bathrooms. Since this only took like five minutes I started to wander around for a bit and then people started calling me over to meet their friends. I do not remember a single name. The campus of the school is pretty cool though and you can see mountains in the distance. You can kinda see them in this picture but I'll get a better one another day.

Anyway, after this break was the oh so wonderful gym class which started in the classroom for attendance and then we went out to the track. Yes, track. As in running. We did some stretches and half hearted sit-up type things and then we were told to get in groups of four and run a certain distance while the teacher timed us. Now running is horrible enough but when there's also boys standing on the sides of the track whistling at the girls as they run you can imagine my excitement. While we were waiting to take our turn it was fun just sitting talking with a bunch of people about America and Peru and everything. I did inevitably get asked if I have a boyfriend and all anyone was talking about was the prom coming up in December and who was going with who. I got asked like twenty times who I was going with and if it was Colin (the Belgian) and I just kept reminding them that it's my first day, I didn't even know where the bathrooms were let alone who I'm going to the prom with! This was also my response to the three boys who asked me to go with them. When it finally came our turn to go run we were all lined up and ready to go when a girl who ran the last time came back from the end and told me the teacher said that I didn't have to run if I didn't want to, to which I replied adios! and sat right back on down. I'm not a runner, but I am a gringa and if that get's me out of running I will embrace that with every speck of my being! I did do some physical exercise though, I played volleyball for like an hour with some girls. We got to choose between basketball (all the guys did that), volleyball (most girls did that), or nothing (everyone else). Be proud mom, I didn't choose nothing! But seriously, I actually had a lot of fun playing volleyball with them, I just had to remember to say afuera instead of out. And that's the end of the day! After this we had to go line up like apparently they do in the mornings and wait to leave the campus in a group. I had no trouble finding the bus so I felt pretty accomplished and was like the third one there. While we were waiting on the rest of the people though Angel got pooped on by a bird which apparently is good luck but if you ask me that's just gross. I saved the day with my little kleenex pack and I'm pretty sure that earned me some points with them so yay! Now Diana wasn't with me at this point, she left after we ordered my uniform to finish getting ready to leave for Germany tomorrow, but she was with me on the ride to school. What this means is the whole ride to school I said maybe two words the whole time because 1 Diana knew them and was reminiscing, 2 it was freaking early in the morning, 3 I was too busy looking at the ocean to talk. So it's safe to say they were pretty surprised when they realized I have the ability to speak when I was fine with talking on the way home. It was actually pretty fun talking to them all and I think that could be one of my favorite parts of my day.  

So there's a few other random things that may be worth mentioning, 

-The English teacher thinks you can say twenty oh three for 2003 and the seventeen of June.

-Nobody expects me to know ANY Spanish

-Actually no one expects anything from me (gym for an example)

-People think I'm white now cuz of my face but I keep saying wait till summer......

-Nobody believes that my eyes are real because they're blue and NOBODY has blue eyes here (it's super fun explaining that yes I do in fact wear contacts cuz I'm blind but no really I swear they're not colored, these are my real eyeballs)

-People really enjoy touching my hair but try to do it in secret, they fail

  And I think that's it! But besides my school stuff today I also have to mention that this is Diana's last night in Peru :(  I'm gonna miss her so much! She really has been like a real sister to me and there's no way I would be doing so great here without her. I don't know how I'm gonna do this without her!!!! I'll forever remember all the fun we had with our movie nights and spanish/english lessons <3 Love you so much Diana, good luck with your adventure!

Días difíciles

So I'm having my first bout of less-than-happiness. Not quite sad but maybe a little homesick and definitely overwhelmed. It kinda started with doing karaoke with my sister and our neighbor and i was kinda the odd one out cuz i couldn't sing in spanish so i felt kinda lonely and then the next day was just like all very spanish-intense situations and i felt really lost language wise. Like all of my confidence in my spanish skills is gone which is really frustrating cuz I've studied for five years and i could have total conversations in spanish in the states but here it's so much harder. I think it has to do with the speed and the accents but still i get so overwhelmed and my brain is exhausted from doing backflips trying to understand all day.  Also i feel really bad for my mom here too because she is always saying i look sad which I'm so not sad I'm just concentrating so hard to take everything around me in that i forget that she's  watching me trying to make sure that I'm happy. Even when i am happy tho I'm not a very expressive person, like i don't jump up and down when I'm excited, I'm really kinda calm and that's sooo not Peruvian culture. They're super expressive and you can always tell exactly how they're feeling which is different than how i act and what I'm used to. That's another thing that's kinda hard, not knowing how to act in all situations, like if I should be more or less formal or what is expected of me, and if I'm doing something wrong or not. I'm so unsure of everything and I feel kinda lonely too but thankfully we met up with some other exchange students last night and i talked to one girl who feels exactly the same as me. So i guess maybe it's normal to feel like this at this point and I'm sure it'll pass but that's kinda what's going on right now.

Me llamo.....

One of the first things that the rotary told us was be prepared for people here to say your names differently than you're used to which I figured would happen anyway because of accents but I've got a nickname that's a little special. When I first arrived my dad called me henna and when he finally figured it out my sister told me that there's actually a word that sounds like that which is ajena. They said it meant to belong to someone which I thought was sweet, so when I looked it up and saw that it meant foreign/alien/strange/of another place, i was a pretty surprised! When I told Diana she was surprised too and now it's a joke between us all. Now my family calls me hannita which i think is super cute and my one friend so far calls me hannah montana griffyndor :)  We'll see what school friends call me soon, hope it's not alien!

Peruvian culture

So this will just be some things I've done and things I've noticed. First off, my family listens to "golden disco" in the car and I have to keep myself from laughing at some of the songs! Also when you go someplace and you have to park the car a person will help guide you in and out and you pay them for this. I've noticed that many people here speak English because it is taught in most schools apparently. This is good and a little frustrating because when I want to speak in Spanish people see I struggle and just switch to English :( It's helpful sometimes though when I just don't understand what's going on. Something else too! When we leave the house my mom locks my closet! It's in the hall and not in my room but theres nothing good in there, just my clothes. And on our main door we have a normal lock, a deadbolt, a chain, and a bar that crosses the whole door frame! High security here. Also there's a flashlight in every room in case of earthquake. Tomorrow I have to go talk to the headmaster at my school and get assigned a class. Every class has a different color and homeroom that they stay in while teachers rotate and a different day for like gym class I think. Also, I had a rotary meeting yesterday which was boring but bearable. You have to pay if you want to eat dinner though which was new for all of us exchange students. That's all for now :)