Typical Day in Peru

There is no such thing as a typical day on this Dialogue, which is one of the best but most tiring things about it. Normally, I wake up at 8. Get dressed and I’ll get upstairs by 8:15 where my host mom has breakfast waiting for me. On the best days, breakfast is eggs or toast but we have “eaten” (or thrown in the trash) cheeseburgers or hotdog sandwiches. Another very common breakfast food is a grilled ham and cheese sandwich. Ever since we arrived we have been taking Spanish class at a place called El Sol. Classes begin at 9 and 9:10 on Mondays. We have grammar class until 10:50. During our classes, we converse, learn grammar, and play games incorporating the grammar we are learning. The average class size is about 7 to 8 people. Most Northeastern kids are with other Northeastern kids based on their level of Spanish unless you changed your level after arriving. From 10:50 to 11:10 we have a break to stretch our legs and grab food or coffee. From 11:10 to 12pm is conversation class with a different professor, where we incorporate that days grammar in different games and conversations. The professors at El Sol switch every two weeks in order for the students to learn with different teaching styles as well as hearing different accents and ways of speaking. Then from 12-12:30 is culture class where we have been talking about Pre-Hispanic History of Peru: from Caral (the oldest civilization in the Americas) to the Incas (one of the world’s great indigenous empires). At 12:30 we get lunch, which is provided by the school. I would love to say it was great Peruvian food but it was like eating food at the dining hall: edible and some things are good but not great.
After school, the activities vary. The first week we went to countless museums, tours, and historical sites. The second week we went to the Peruvian Air Force School to talk to middle school and high school students who are learning English and got to talk with them. It was a really cool experience to see what they think of America and how we view it. We also got history lectures on Peru after the Spanish conquistadors arrived which was a nice change of pace. For the past two weeks, we have been visiting UNIFE (Universidad Femenina del Sagrado Corazón) an all girls university. The girls we have been talking to are studying to become translators so we have been talking in Spanish half the time and in English the other half as well as participating in translations where we present in English and in Spanish and they translate to the opposite language. It has been an awesome experience thus far. This has been our last week of classes and on Sunday we will be taking a flight to Cusco, the capital of the Inca Empire, to spend a week before heading back to Boston. I can’t wait to visit Cusco and Machu Pichu!