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.

Yuyanapaq - to remember

The 8th of October is a public holiday in Peru, commemorating the War of the Pacific of the 1880s.  It was a mixed day. I went to the National Museum, where there is a photo exhibition about the terrorism in Peru between 1980-2000, but there was also a dance exhibition today to celebrate the holiday.

Peru lost the War to Chile, but still hold a public holiday to honour their fighters.
There is also much to mourn in the more recent terrorism years - but they are determined to remember, so that this history is not repeated.

As well as acts of atrocity committed by the terrorists, there was reciprocal violence on the part of the government and local communities, and a lot of confusion.  This is a group of journalists who were killed by members of a village - presumably on suspicion of being terrorists.

Many people were taken by the government and sentenced by 'faceless judges' and never heard of again by their families.  There is still work being done to find missing people and to free others. These women are campaigning for their family members to be returned - and this lady rejoices in her freedom after improsonment.

 

It was very helpful to learn more about the history - when I was here in 2003 it was all very recent, but now it still affects how people think and behave - and for many it has a lasting practical impact on their lives.

Learning Lima

It's been such a joy to see my friends from Moyobamba: Raquel and Percy. I met them 11 years ago in Moyobamba when Raquel worked in Community Development there, and Percy (Juancito) was a baby - who Raquel later adopted. They now live in Lima and I visited them last year, but have already seen them twice in the last couple of weeks and they've been busy showing me the sights.

The Plaza de Armas (Percy is not taller than me, but might be soon)

 and the governmental palace

 

 with a photo of what Lima used to look like in... umm... well. a long time ago

 We went up the Cerro San Cristobal to see the view

 

 And then this weekend went to a park with llamas, budgies, peacocks...

  

...and - yay! - a lake.  Lima is the second-driest capital city in the world, but at least it does get some water from its river.

 Then we ate ceviche - fresh raw fish cured with lemon/lime and chilli.  It's very very Peruvian, and so is the yellow Inca Kola that goes with it

 

 We also took the train right up to the end of the line.  It was really interesting going out of the more affluent inner-city areas and out into the suburbs - watching the streets change and realising there is so much more to Lima than I'll see.

 

 

Spanish Classes (and food)

This is really just an effort to not blog exclusively about food.  There is sooo much variety, and it features in nearly every conversation.  But it will sneak it's way into this post too, so don't you worry.

It's been great having Spanish classes - the first week was a scrambling catch-up with the subjunctive sentences the others had been doing (I joined part way through a group course).  It was good because I had actually studied it before so probably didn't need to learn it all over again, but it was a useful challenge to dredge it all up and start using it again. So a mix of revision, new words, new rules I never knew, and some words to forget because I learned them in Ecuador and they don't make sense here (or, with some, people might get offended).

Here I am with 2 of my teachers and the obligatory certificate when I finished on Friday.  Oh, and the bell they ring to signal the end of class:

The bonus of studying at 'El Sol' has been that they also run extra activities for the students - like visiting museums and forts ...

(where the main event seemed to be a Spanish pirate)

  

...and having cooking  classes!  I learned to make 'humitas' which were a favourite on my first trip here. They're made from maize, with the assistance of garlic and a liquidiser (both indispensable in Peruvian cooking)

 

And, as promised, here are some more food photos from the cooking classes, including: chicharron de trucha (deep-fried breaded trout), mazamorra (a purple gloopy dessert which I ate multiple times on my visit last year), and locro (a stew made with squash).  All delicious.  All involving many different flavours and herbs and spices! So far I have discovered at least 4 different types of pepper.  I just managed to avoid eating a slice of the strongest one yesterday when I realised that, no, it wasn't a slice of tomato...

    

Baking my way around the world...

I spent Saturday helping to prepare for a pastors' conference which is happening this week.  The theme is 'llamados' or 'called' and it's about mobilising churches to send and support missionaries.  So the preparation involved making 300 cookies and icing them to look like maps of the world!

It was fun to be back in the world of mass-producing biscuits.  Skills from Fellowship Afloat stood me in good stead.

And it was great to have a day of making some new friends in Lima, and chatting and joking in Spanish.

I also had to concentrate hard to draw the continents from a southern-hemisphere perspective, and sadly realised that the UK wasn't big enough to show up.

   

But ultimately it was lovely to know that we are part of a whole global network of Christians wanting to follow God and support each other as we learn to serve him.

In Lima

I arrived on Friday morning after a long (but easy) journey - the decision not to go via the USA meant not only that I didn't need to sort out a visa waiver, but also I didn't have to collect my (significant amount of) luggage again until I got to Lima.  Also that I could sleep for a whole seven hours on the plane - unheard of! So I was surprisingly lucid when I arrived.

Only a few photos so far (click on each for a larger image), but here is the area around the SIM guesthouse:

  

The city itself is pretty flat, but to get to some of the suburbs you have to go round the dusty hills which are the very beginnings of the Andes.

  

And the guesthouse itself - the SIM office is on the top floor and there is a nice green park opposite:

So far I've visited:
 - a prison ministry - we went shopping in Lima's chinatown with a lady on parole
 - spanish-speaking church - with familiar songs!
 - Anna, my neighbour of 2 years ago at Bible college
 - various SIM missionaries in Lima

I'm looking forward to seeing more of the SIM ministries, as well as meeting up with recent friends (from my Reading church), and long-term friends (it looks like the engineers I worked with in Moyobamba 11 years ago may be in Lima in the next few weeks).

Next week I start Spanish classes - and hopefully also a couple of peruvian cooking lessons!

2 weeks and counting

This has been a great summer of planning, preparation, visits and relaxation.  I leave for Peru in 2 weeks.

Highlights:
 - saying goodbye to the British mountains before I go to live among their taller cousins

 - being at my sister Hannah's wedding

 - 2 days at New Wine in Somerset with old friends - listening to God and to stories of how he is at work

 - relaxing with my parents on the Isle of Sheppey

 - running a holiday for single parent families at my favourite lightship

 

 - visiting lots of old housemates and friends

I've also managed to get the UK side of my degree paperwork completed in time with the right things signed by the right people - great news!