¡Qué paja!

I started this morning with a video chat with mi novio querido, Chris. Even though he had little sleep, he woke up early to talk to me. It was so comforting to see his face. :) I am so glad to have Wifi in my house, even though it wavers in and out. By the way, the house I'm living in is a narrow, two story condo (foto to the right). It's very beautiful, though different from what I expected. There is a tiny courtyard in the back used to dry clothes, along with a spiral staircase that attaches this condo with the one above, which belongs to Charo's sister. It's very cute, though more modern than other casas.

After breakfast (un cereal peruano) my host mama took me for a walk around our district of Lima, called Miraflores. She explained how the city has changed over the past few years, and how traditional houses are being replaced by tall, unfriendly buildings- undoubtedly a side effect of globalization and industrialization. Last night, Patricia (who works at Ruiz) told us the same story. Lima does indeed have the look of a torn city. On hand hand, there are beautiful, colorful houses with a garden courtyard in the middle. Por otro lado, there are tall buildings (but not skyscrapers) with a modern-industrial feel right next to them. Yet also, there are some protected pre-Columbian mud buildings (?) preserved throughout the city. However, these new complexes have no personality, and could belong to any city in the world.  I can only wonder what Peru looked like before these changes.

The best part of today was getting to meet our companeras, Peruvian students that will be our partners at Ruiz. But first we had to get to Ruiz, which is a story in itself. Bridgette and I met to take the orange bus an hour before the meeting. However, there are no timetables for the busses here.. they come when they come. And you know when they come because each bus has a person who's job is to hang outside the bus as its driving and yell the names of its stops. Somehow we managed to take the wrong orange bus (turns out there are four different orange lines.. not one like we thought) and ended up in the center of Lima. We eventually took a taxi to the university, and still managed to arrive on time. To the right is a picture from yesterday of the UVa group at Ruiz.

We ate lunch at Ruiz with our companeras, which consisted of a traditional potato dish (papas huancainas) and, interestingly, spaghetti. We talked for a few hours with our companeras, who are so friendly and kind! I'm still getting used to speaking in Spanish all of the time, so sometimes it's difficult to understand them, but they are very helpful. Mi companera is named Jennifer and she studies political science. We talked about classes, politics, los chicos, and other things. She's also studying English, so we are going to practice English too. She taught me some Peruvian slang, namely ¡Qué paja! (the title of this entry) which means, essentially how good/ cool/ pretty. I can't wait to get to know them better, and look forward to starting classes!

Well, that's all for now. We are meeting at six tomorrow to embark on a five day trip to Tarma and Pichunaki. We are going to visit an old hacienda, trek in the Andes for a day, and visit the jungle! I won't have computer access til then, but I should be able to text on my cell phone. Entonces.. hasta luego!

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As I write these blog entries, I understand more and more why the imperfect tense in Spanish is so useful jaja.