I arrived safely in Monsefu. It's quite difficult to capture what happened so far - in short, I'm having a great time.
The bus ride was similar to Europe - only that we got served dinner. Also, before leaving Lima, one guy made a video of every person on the bus, I guess for security reasons and another checked if we fastened our seatbelts... The movies they showed were american. By the way, since there was TV also in the rural areas, there was a massive movement of the young people from the villages to Lima and other towns hoping for a better living standard. This way Lima is now around 7 million people - and growing. Lima feels in some parts as any other European city, especially in the centre. However, the suburbs look quite different. The air pollution must be really high from what I could smell on the way from airport to the centre. There are also many cars and of course traffic jams around here. There seem to be just few rules on how to drive. Some cars signal going left or right just hooting accordingly. Someone told me one side is a long sound, the other short, but I couldn't figure out the difference yet :-) The hostels are a world on its own, stuffed with people from all around the world. I'm really looking forward to that now. Only, I wish there would be more spanish, so far I could only hear english (or sometimes german).
Anyhow. I met a nice girl from Lima on the bus. She asked me if I had children. I though that was just a question to start a conversation but from what I heard after that, it is rather rare I don't already have some. She was the same age as me and had a 4 years old girl and 2 years old boy. I read that the average age of people here is 24, that makes me almost old :-) Another funny thing is, that I am one of the tallest people around here!!! Imagine - while other people walk on the pavement, I can look straight in their eyes. Something I am not used to being 1.64m... Tannia told me the girls here are on average around 1.53m Also, I am the only one with blond hair so the girls from the school want to touch it a lot :-)
Friday was a special day here - day of the condor. The teachers and me spent the day sewing clothes for the traditional dances and I got to know many people. They are all really nice to me. The kids who did the dances were also in the school and I've been asked about thousand questions. The favourite one was, if their name also exists in Europe - most of them don't. Fortunately, I can understand about a half of what they're saying although when they all ask me a question at the same time I fell rather lost :-) There was a dance competition in the evening and this school (Carlos Weiss) had two groups competing - younger and older ones. All groups are half boys and half girls and they all dance extremely well. No wonder the older group won the first place and the younger ones second in their category... I hope to be able to upload the pics soon, somehow it doesn't seem to be working. Also, I am having troubles with the charger, I hope the camera is OK.
I spent saturday reading a lot about Peru and talking with Tannia and her husband Ricardo. They are such wonderful people. I get asked many questions about what fruits we eat in Europe. Germany seems to be really famous here for chocolate. They are also very interested in the european types of cheese - Antonio spread the word it tastes better :-) We went to Chiclayo in a taxi (6 people in the car, 3 in the front) and back took a "collectivo" which is a minibus and then a motorcycle taxi (3 wheels, allows 3 passengers+driver). The shopping mall looks about the same as in Europe - pizza hut, cinema etc. Only there are many shows with traditional dances performed by the different schools. I heard every kid does either dances or music here. The prices for clothes are about a third of the european prices, however, the food costs about the same - except for fruits and vegetables. I'm not really sure what I've all seen in the market, couldn't identify about a third of it.
Tomorrow, the school starts again and it will be my first day of teaching English, I wonder how that will be :-) There are about 420 students here. Well, more stories as new things happen...
Lucia
The bus ride was similar to Europe - only that we got served dinner. Also, before leaving Lima, one guy made a video of every person on the bus, I guess for security reasons and another checked if we fastened our seatbelts... The movies they showed were american. By the way, since there was TV also in the rural areas, there was a massive movement of the young people from the villages to Lima and other towns hoping for a better living standard. This way Lima is now around 7 million people - and growing. Lima feels in some parts as any other European city, especially in the centre. However, the suburbs look quite different. The air pollution must be really high from what I could smell on the way from airport to the centre. There are also many cars and of course traffic jams around here. There seem to be just few rules on how to drive. Some cars signal going left or right just hooting accordingly. Someone told me one side is a long sound, the other short, but I couldn't figure out the difference yet :-) The hostels are a world on its own, stuffed with people from all around the world. I'm really looking forward to that now. Only, I wish there would be more spanish, so far I could only hear english (or sometimes german).
Anyhow. I met a nice girl from Lima on the bus. She asked me if I had children. I though that was just a question to start a conversation but from what I heard after that, it is rather rare I don't already have some. She was the same age as me and had a 4 years old girl and 2 years old boy. I read that the average age of people here is 24, that makes me almost old :-) Another funny thing is, that I am one of the tallest people around here!!! Imagine - while other people walk on the pavement, I can look straight in their eyes. Something I am not used to being 1.64m... Tannia told me the girls here are on average around 1.53m Also, I am the only one with blond hair so the girls from the school want to touch it a lot :-)
Friday was a special day here - day of the condor. The teachers and me spent the day sewing clothes for the traditional dances and I got to know many people. They are all really nice to me. The kids who did the dances were also in the school and I've been asked about thousand questions. The favourite one was, if their name also exists in Europe - most of them don't. Fortunately, I can understand about a half of what they're saying although when they all ask me a question at the same time I fell rather lost :-) There was a dance competition in the evening and this school (Carlos Weiss) had two groups competing - younger and older ones. All groups are half boys and half girls and they all dance extremely well. No wonder the older group won the first place and the younger ones second in their category... I hope to be able to upload the pics soon, somehow it doesn't seem to be working. Also, I am having troubles with the charger, I hope the camera is OK.I spent saturday reading a lot about Peru and talking with Tannia and her husband Ricardo. They are such wonderful people. I get asked many questions about what fruits we eat in Europe. Germany seems to be really famous here for chocolate. They are also very interested in the european types of cheese - Antonio spread the word it tastes better :-) We went to Chiclayo in a taxi (6 people in the car, 3 in the front) and back took a "collectivo" which is a minibus and then a motorcycle taxi (3 wheels, allows 3 passengers+driver). The shopping mall looks about the same as in Europe - pizza hut, cinema etc. Only there are many shows with traditional dances performed by the different schools. I heard every kid does either dances or music here. The prices for clothes are about a third of the european prices, however, the food costs about the same - except for fruits and vegetables. I'm not really sure what I've all seen in the market, couldn't identify about a third of it.
Tomorrow, the school starts again and it will be my first day of teaching English, I wonder how that will be :-) There are about 420 students here. Well, more stories as new things happen...
Lucia
