Foreign - but a resident

I'm officially a "foreign resident" of Peru!  My religious visa has been approved, and I have my new Peruvian ID.  This means I can stop carrying my passport everywhere, get cheaper internal flights, and, most importantly, stay in Peru for at least a year (and renewal is a simpler process than the initial application) to do the work I came for.

Everything's also feeling a little bit less foreign. I am learning the bus routes, learning the right things to say to the supermarket checkout people, the taxi drivers, the bus conductors, the waiters, people at the market... I'm also really enjoying my Spanish lessons, and starting to expand my vocabulary, knowing more than one word for the same thing and even sometimes getting my grammar right!

But it's also clear that I am foreign and always will be.  There will always be more Spanish to learn.  The longer I stay in this sunny country the blonder I'll get.  My legs will always be too long to fit in the close-together bus seats. But of course being different is who I am and why I came - and just as in England I don't want to 'fit in' to every little cultural norm, here it is just the same.

So I am enjoying seeing everything get a little bit more familiar and permanent, but also appreciating the fact that I am not here just to conform, but to be different and a (yes, culturally appropriate!) agent for change.