Halfway There

Well this last Monday marked my halfway point in my program. As of tomorrow, I will have been here for 11 weeks and I have 9 weeks left. I am not really sure how I feel about time flying by so fast. Also, midterms are this week, and I’m not ready for those either. So, needless to say, there is a lot of uncertainty in my life.

We went to a cultural event last week called La Dama Juana. It is a restaurant where you eat a dinner buffet and then there is a showcase of the traditional dances of Peru. It was fun and interesting to see all the dances instead of watching them on youtube vidoes, and some of the people from my program even got pulled up to dance on stage. Last weekend were the elections for governors of districts and the provinces. Explanation: Peru is divided into departments, which are then divided into provinces and those then are divided into districts. So the house I live in is in the district of Miraflores, in the province of Lima, in the department of Lima, in the country Peru. Took me awhile to figure that all out but I think I finally got it. So anyway, elections were last Sunday and because of the elections there is a dry law. No one is allowed to sell or buy alcohol for 3 days. It was pretty crazy to witness, a lot of places shut down for the weekend because it cost more to stay open. Anyway, I was just happy the sports bar stayed open so that I could watch the Iowa Homecoming game. I met some fellow Hawkeyes at the bar and it was nice to have other people there to support the Hawks. I really wasn’t expecting anyone else, outside of my program anyway, from Iowa to be in Peru, it really is a small world.

On Friday, a bunch of us went to an international friendly soccer game between Peru and Costa Rica. It was a lot more fun than the last game and definitely not as scary. I got to see my first goal ever and Peru won 2-0. I think I might actually be starting to enjoy soccer. Oh and I signed up for We Run Lima 10k. It should be interesting and a bunch of people from my program are doing it so I thought I would too. Not sure if I can run the whole thing but I think it'll still be fun. The rest of my weekend has been full of resting and studying. Speaking of studying, I should get back to it. I have midterms on Tuesday and Thursday, and then we are headed to Lunahuaná on Saturday morning for a weekend excursion.

Hasta pronto,
<3 aj