Los Informes: N° 4 - Diciembre

Daily Life: The daily life with my host family is, as of yet, unchanged*. I will soon be changing families to the Barreda family, whom have three children (their daughter is an exchange student in France right now, I believe) and two younger boys.


*That is a good thing :)


Day at School: School ended for me on the 1st of December (officially on the 15th, but the exchange students ended earlier for reasons previously explained). I will soon by attending the culinary school, Esdit, from 8:00am-1:00pm each Monday, and in the coming weeks as more courses are made available, I will attend those. I am also looking to attend classes at a language school. 

Problems: I'm kind of in a "half-way" point right now - school, Christmas, and New-Years Eve ended so recently, and I'll soon be starting up again at cooking school. So, not really any problems. 


How's your Rotary Club? Good as ever! However, I have been unable to attend it quite so frequently due to the holidays and past trips.


What were the Holidays like?


There is an unfortunate lack of genuine disparity between the holidays in Northern America and Southern America (and, most likely, most of the world) due to Americanization. So, everyone's got their fake pine tree with presents underneath, we see Santa costumes everywhere (when I was in the Peruvian jungle, in the city of Tarapoto, there were a bunch of Santas on motorcycles with produce-carts attached to the front [to make a "sleigh"] circling the main square for the entire month of December. Quite comical!) and "snowflakes" on frosted glass windows. What's really funny is that most Peruvians haven't even seen snow with their own eyes!


However, there is still some differences: there is Christmas bread here (called Panetón), which is really interesting, in both shape and flavour, which is popular all year round, but especially so at Christmas - they have special Christmas panetones. Also, while we are accustomed to having a nice meal on Christmas Eve and going to bed early in order to get up early, and the big day and the big meal is on Christmas day - it's almost as if the two days are switched here. Dinner is eaten at around 11pm - 12am, with a gradual crescendo of exploding firecrackers (people purchase loads and loads of firecrackers [some even fireworks] and are supposed to light them off at 12:00am, but do it before and after for hours). At midnight, it sounds like a war with exploding bombs. Sometimes people say "Happy New Years!" soon after midnight (which confused me seeing as how it was December 25th). It's almost like they want to have Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's eve and New Years Day all at the same time!

Los Informes: N° 2 - Octubre

[Opening note: I'm going to change how I've been managing my blog - I'll be posting ~1-2 times a month with good, meaty content and a few pictures, instead of a bunch of pictures and little written content. This is done on the excellent suggestion of my parents.]

Daily Life: My daily life is the same as when I sent the last report - I'm having a great time with my family, and I've become so used to living here. It's really comfortable, interesting, and fun! I love adapting to other cultures - I can't believe I've already spent 2 months with my family! I have less than another 2 months before I will end up leaving to go live with another family. I've picked up a lot more Spanish - I can now communicate ideas with a very, very high quality (I've mastered all of the essential, and some of the more complicated verb tenses), my reading comprehension is pretty good, but my actual ability to pick words out of a quickly spoken sentence and perfectly understand it needs a lot of work. No worries - I still have quite a while to go.

School: The English teachers (and 2 Spanish teachers) at our school have agreed to teach all the exchange students at our school - all 4 of us at their own expense of time. We are taking 45 minutes to an 1h45min every day to learn Spanish - new words, verb tenses and modes, and we're also learning verbal communication and written comprehension. It's been a real privilege.

My last big trip: About a month ago, all of the exchange students in our district (and in the Lima district) went on a big trip to Arequipa, the Colca canyon, Cambaya, Ilabaya, and Arica (the northernmost city in Chile).  We had a bunch of fun - toured all through the city of Arequipa (we went through Monasteries, old Cathedrals, toured around the outskirts of the city and past the city limits), up to 5000m at the Colca Canyon (up there we went to hot springs, toured around the Colca canyon and saw beautiful Condors), travelled around the province of Tacna (we visited Ilabaya and Cambaya - two relatively minute villages wedged in the foot of the Andes mountains - we hiked past Cambaya and bathed directly underneath the large "Cataratas de Panina" - the Panina waterfall), as well as touring around Arica and seeing important historic places.

My plans for my future stay here, in Tacna: I have talked to my host district president, Roy Cárdenas, and I will be able to attend a Peruvian culinary school here, after school (which ends on December 15th). So after school ends, I'll start attending the culinary school. I don't know whether to attend the 2-month (Summer only) program - (if I do, I will definitely get some kind of a diploma), or a longer program without the certainty of getting a diploma - but with a longer program, I would learn much more. It's pretty interesting, and I'm looking forward to what's going to happen!

 Two of Arequipa's three volcanoes: Chachani, Misti, and Pichu Pichu

 Alpacas grazing in the region of Colca canyon.

 High altitude ponds on a plateau above the tree level, near the Colca Canyon.

 "Mmm, that was a good meal." Really? Have you tried Peruvian cuisine?

 An alpaca and a condor, native to the mountains of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

Colca Canyon: one of the most, if not the deepest canyons in South America. Frozen waterfalls are visible in the far background, with a white speck of cloud overhead.

Los Informes: N° 1 - Septiembre

[Opening note: I'm going to change how I've been managing my blog - I'll be posting ~1-2 times a month with good, meaty content and a few pictures, instead of a bunch of pictures and little written content. This is done on the excellent suggestion of my parents.]


- Monthly Report, September


Daily life: Daily life with my host family is absolutely great - they are kind and we rarely have communication problems. I live with my host mom all the time, and I see my host dad on weekends. My host sister just left a few days ago for Kingston, and my host sister's mom visits the house regularly, usually daily. It's a really eye-opening experience living in this house, and I have to face cultural problems I never even considered before. But my host family has helped me with all of those problems, and I'm getting along great with them.

The view from my window

School: School is brilliant - the pupils are incredibly warm and welcoming to newcomers. Unlike in Canada, an exchange student here is friends with the entire school within the first hour - instant friends, just add school. Some of the classes are incredibly boring because I am unable to understand them, like Math, and some are funny because they are very easy, like English, and some are very useful, like Spanish class.


The school day here is an hour longer than what I'm used to - it starts at 7:15 instead of 9:05!


Problems: I have had only one major problem, which is now resolved - setting up a bank account with the aid of my counselor. After receiving no help from my counselor, my host parents told me that the bank account needs to be set up IN CANADA, and then I use a debit card HERE. I had to actually go into several banks with my host family to determine why I couldn't create a bank here - I am underage and a foreigner. Fortunately I found an ATM in which my debit card works, by simple trial and error.


So now everything is fine!


Rotary Club: The Rotary Club of Tacna actually owns several large buildings - the principal one in Tacna, which they use for meetings. The meetings are awesome - because there is food. Delicious, delicious food. Our Rotary Club then talks, and everything unravels like a normal Rotary meeting. I am supposed to go only once a month, but I have gone more than that, before knowing the limit.

 Small, three wheeled "Mr. Bean cars" (he didn't drive a 3-wheeler, but he was always knocking one over) - these are taxis; they're really light, really cheap, and (as proven by Mr. Bean) really easy to knock over.

 The Locumba valley, close to the city of Moquegua. The coastal-mountainous regions in the south-west are desert (as you can see from the sand dunes) - in fact, the largest sand dunes in the world can be found in south-western Peru. However, the few rivers which run through the area are used for irrigating fields.  

Alta de la Alianza (Height of the Alliance) is a memorial commemorating the united efforts of Peru and Bolivia in a war against Chile - both Peru and Bolivia, although united, lost in the war, yet the memorial was erected nonetheless.

Los Informes: N° 3 - Noviembre

[Opening note: I'm going to change how I've been managing my blog - I'll be posting ~1-2 times a month with good, meaty content and a few pictures, instead of a bunch of pictures and little written content. This is done on the excellent suggestion of my parents.]


Daily Life: My daily life with my host family is great. I am currently living with the Calizaya family, and I will be switching to the Barreda family in the first week of January. My current family works like this: my host dad will be home about 0.75 times a week (75% chance he'll be at home for one day each week). This is unfortunate, and I wish he was home more often. My host mom, Eusebia, and her host sister, Norma, are home much more often, but they are also absent for around 1-3 hours every day. Some days only for a few periods of 20 minutes throughout the day, some days for 3 consecutive hours. I can only recall one mild argument ever occurring within the family, during the stressful week my host sister, Gabriela, was departing for her exchange in Kingston.


School: School in Peru runs from late February - early March until mid-December. My school ends on December 15th, with exams from the 7th to the 15th. The exchange students are unable to write this exam*, and because we were on a recent trip to the Peruvian jungle in the north, we missed the first two days of exams. This means we have started our summer vacation 1 week earlier than our peers. I will seek the will of God and figure out if He wants me to go to a post-secondary school. There are language schools here I could attend, or I could go to a culinary school.


In terms of credits and/or certificates, I will be able to get a certificate from my secondary school due to the generosity of the English teachers (and 2 Spanish/Communication teachers) in my school, whom offered to teach us Spanish on our breaks. Having given us tests, quizzes, and other assignments they are able to evaluate us, give us a grade, and some sort of "certificate".


*Because we arrived in the third quarter of the school year, and missed a month of school, we had only 2 months to learn 10 months of school curriculum in order to prepare for exams. Due to additional weeks lost due to trips, this proved completely impossible. Thus, exams are out of the question.


Problems: I have had no conflicts with my host family, nor with any friends nor school nor teachers. However, there have been some minor issues with my host club which I will in short discuss.


Rotary Club: My Rotary Club (Rotary Club de Tacna, Distrito 4300) is really interesting. The actual meetings are, as most are, well organized. It needs no saying that the food is delicious. I also recently (Nov 28th) presented my "from Canada to Peru" presentation, which was widely appreciated.

In terms of problems within the club, there are two issues I would like to address:


1) My official host councillor, Jorge L, is my councillor in name only, not doing any of the required or expected duties. I see him once a month, during the club meetings. I say "Hi", basic greetings, but no more. This would be a problem if it wasn't for Roy Cardenás, who is our youth exchange district (4300) chairman. He is the functional councillor, doing all the necessary duties and stuff. I meet and talk with him much more often then with Jorge.


2) The actual planned trips, while plentiful and, by the grace of God, affordable ... tend to not be that well organized. The trip agenda (sent out beforehand) tends to become useless by the 2nd or even 1st day of the trip because activities are added, left out, postponed or preponed. Sometimes days are even added/subtracted. This means that the travel coordinators will often either be overpaid, or underpaid. Sometimes when they are underpaid, they will ask we pay that which lacks, or they will kindly pay for it out of their own pockets (as they did the previous time).


Trips: The last trip we went on was a trip through Arequipa to Lima (touring the historical sites there), then we flew to Tarapoto, a city in the jungle. Let me tell you, if I could live anywhere in Peru, it would be in Tarapoto - small, poor, but a crime rate of almost zero; a very slow-moving town, with a relaxed atmosphere. We travelled around to various lagoons, visited a chocolate factory; later in Lima we went to the zoo and to a water-light-show-park.

 The Plaza de Armas in Lima.

 The Peruvian inquisition museum in Lima. The majority of the exhibits showed the tortures the Catholic Inquisition would apply to Christians, Jews, Pagans, etc. (Fox's Book of Martyrs, ch. 5) 

 At the sea-port in Lima (Callao) there still stands towers and walls of the Spanish, and later Peruvian, Navy. This tower was used to hold prisoners - there is a dark labyrinth within.

 Tarapoto, San Martín - the jungle of Peru.

 Taken on a large car-transporter-barge which crosses this (muddy) river.

 The beautiful clear-water cascades, around 45-60 minutes from Tarapoto. 

 Glassy waters, further upstream of the cascades.

 Hormigas (Ants) - there are many scattered along the floor of the Peruvian rain-forest. I would assume the largest in the picture is either a soldier-ant or the queen-ant (less likely).

 Salamanders!

 Taken at the zoo in Lima - a lazy bear, to be sure!

 The light beams were projected through water fountains at this water-light-show-park in Lima.

Another of the many displays at the water-park (the location is called either 'Magica de las Aguas' [Magic of the Waters] or 'Las Aguas Magicas' [The Magic Waters]).