Hey everyone,

I am back, and I am well, confused. I keep telling people stuff in Spanish, including the people who cannot say anything except si… Anyway, I thought that maybe I should analyse my trip with a top 5’ format.

Things I will miss about Peru
1. The people… my families, the girls, my workmates, my friends, the randoms in the street who wanted to talk to me because of a reason other than the colour of my skin.
2. The fact that people do not have to get toasted to have a good night out dancing, and the fact that dancing is such a big and wonderful part of the culture.
3. The pride Peruvians have in their country and (against all odds) their soccer team.
4. Being tall
5. Eating rice with chicken, rice with potatoes, rice with beef, rice with turkey, rice with locro, rice with …..

Questions that need to be asked
1. Why can’t the Peruvians and Chileans start getting on and sending each other nice cards or something?
The war of the Pacific is a sorry history, but the English benefited more from this war than the Peruvians and the Chileans put together (through the deals that they made with the nitrate producing areas). Pisco ORIGINATED in Peru in a place called Pisco, but the Chileans also grow it because Chile was part of the viceroy of Peru which means that Chile also has a claim to it- it is a shared history thing, like Oz and NZ share rugby. The Chileans also have good grape growing land. It is the national drink of both countries and that is ok. Maybe a Chilean business owns the electricity in Peru but I bet that only a small percentage of them benefit from it. Lan said that Lima was dirty and dangerous, but I bet that there are parts of Santiago are as well. The shantytowns and poor areas are the subtext of all Latin-American towns regardless of their sizes.
2. How does wearing bare feet make you catch a cold? Does bacteria enter through the feet?
3. What does Coca Cola not cure? Why do doctors write prescriptions for it? I cannot wait to tell my dentist this!
4. What is sexy about a 30 year old who a) cannot wash his clothes b) has his mum clean his room c) thinks he is sexy? Why is being a female and single regarded as a terminal disease?
5. What’s with the rice addiction?
6. On the Rigi, they are trying to make it harder to pass by spending money on it. Why? Why don’t they do it the Peruvian way….? spend no money on it for years so that it gradually forms potholes, and cracks then it is harder to pass and costs no one a cent.

Main activities in Chincha
1. Walk around the Plaza de Armas and say hi to everyone.
2. Invent phrases that mock the Spanish accent… these do not need to make sense in any way shape of form. They only have to have lots of these letters: c, s, z.
3. Go out dancing at night… in one of the 2 discos only on Saturdays.
4. Learn to dance like a chicken…. the dances of the black people in Peru- the majority of whom live in Chincha!
5. Eat chicken with potato chips or Chinese food, or Willies Pizza or ice pudding.

Countries I am supposedly from
1. The United States… don’t all white people come from there? Is New Zealand a state close to Texas?
2. Germany… maybe it is for the colouring.
3. Chile… I do not have a Chilean accent. In fact my Peruvian slang makes the Chileans laugh lots because I speak like a Peruvian and Peruvians are supposed to have to have darker skin than Chileans… I don’t!
4. Argentina… Because I can speak Spanish so I must come from a Spanish speaking country and Argentines are ‘white’
5. England… well that is genetically true. And my surname is English.

Misconceptions
1. I voted for Bush (I have been abused for this. I always say my country has no president and they assume it is a dictatorship)
2. I am always carrying a lot of money. I had a plastic bag with toilet paper in it and some idiot grabbed it off me.
3. I always need to take a taxi… I cannot walk or catch buses.
4. There are heaps of them but I am not
5. Sharing them

Things that I did in Chincha
1. Learned heaps in my work
2. Made heaps of lifelong friendships
3. Learned some Spanish that only Chichanos say…asul madre….
4. Made a Pavlova
5. Got my shoe stuck in a hole in the street

What one can admire about my girls
1. Their shear resilience after they have had and are having such difficult times in their lives.
2. Their ability to trust and love someone who cannot understand much of the language that they talk.
3. Their beautiful smiles.
4. The fact that most of them are focused on educating themselves despite all that they have been through.
5. The way they dance.

Why I loved my work so much
1. I have enjoyed teaching the girls and getting to know and love them
2. Seeing the huge improvements in them after so little time
3. The free dancing lessons on Saturday mornings
4. My friendly workmates
5. Just the environment

Words that do not exist in Spanish
1. Now.
2. Cheesy.
3. I can’t think of any more.

Top Five Cities In Peru (not counting Chincha) in my highly biased opinion
1. Arequipa- beautiful, full of volcanoes, with good bookshops, and I have host family from Lima living there. I love it.
2. Ayacucho- Authentic, interesting and full of sites of the Huari culture and the first traces of human existance in South America were found here as well. The people are friendly.
3. Cuzco- Some people will disagree with the fact that this is not number one. It is not because it is too sold out to the tourists, and it is almost hardly Peruvian. People speak to you in English more than Spanish. It does have some amazing ruins, a great night life and some good Pisco sours.
4. Lima- Scared me at first. It is huge and when I got here I thought that I would never be able to take a bus around there by myself as there are bewildering amounts of buses of all sizes to catch. However, I can now. The city has grown on me. Each part has its own personality. Miraflores is like the spoilt teenage girl, the centre like the grandfather, La Molina like the snobby aunt, Santiago de Surco like the bookish uni student. I would now even say that I like it.
5. Huancayo- Stunning with heaps of beautiful sites and ruins. The people are very nice too.

New Crazes I have gained
1. For the music of South America… salsa, merengue, tradicional, and everything else.
2. Coffee.
3. Pisco (distilled clear alcohol made from grapes) that has its ORIGINS in PERU. Neh!!!
4. Manjar (caramel like stuff).
5. Herbal Tea.