Thanks Peru

 

I know this is a day late, but this post is mostly in the spirit of Thanksgiving and focusing on the positive.  

One of my students asked me the other day how long I have been in Lima, why I came to Lima, and if I like Lima.  The first two questions were pretty simple-I arrived in March and I´m here because of a Peruvian and becuase the opportunity presented itself and I took advantage.  The third question was a little harder.  I definitley stumbled on it because I have been thinking this myself lately.  Do I like Lima?  What do I like about it?  Would I stay here?  No, I would not stay here for years and years.  But I suprised myself by saying that, yes, I like Lima.  So, in the spirit of positives and giving thanks to what we have and what surrounds us, I made a list of things I like about Lima.

In no particular order-

• The crazy wild bus system. And in particular my bus. It goes everywhere I want to go in a normal day. The bus is a cheap way to get around, even if it is a lot slower compared to driving, but when are buses ever faster?  Even though they are rather aged buses, they are kept pretty clean.  I rarely see someone´s greasy head print on the window or graffiti anywhere.  You just have to be prepared to be a sardine and hold one for dear life.  I also like watching how the ´cobrador´ who opens the door and charges fares and the driver work together by shouting at eachother when to stop, when to merge, when to go, when to close the door.
• The food.  It´s pretty varied and quite tasty.  Peruvians use spice and a variety of herbs to cook.  The food always has great colors from purple chicha to bright yellow aji de gallina.  I love the abundance of fresh, tropical fruit pretty much year around.
• Living near the ocean.  Its nice to walk along to coast and feel the sea breeze and watch the waves.
• Shopping at the markets where you can buy anything under the sun.  There are food markets and clothes markets and knock off markets and produce markets.  I love seeing the fruits and veggies piles up and the meat all laid out for you and the bags of beans and hanging herbs.You could probably never set food into a supermarket if you didn´t want to.
• When the sun comes out and the skies all turn blue and the flowers are suddenly more colorful.
• The tropical flowers that bloom year around.  They add color to the dusty apartment buildings and streets.  There is a sunflower that is growing in the crack of the sidewalk around the corner from my house.  The flowers provide little bursts of sunshine even if the sky is grey.
• The old colonial architecture that is still conserved in some places and it makes me sad that more and more often these houses are being torn down for apartment complexes.
• Ppeople are more active, especially where I live.  You don´t get strange stares for running up an down the streets.  The nieghborhoods are trying to get people active with free communal fitness classes and there are always 5ks or races.
• Going to random food festivals where I get to see all types of people in one place enjoying themselves. And I get to see and taste amazing food.
• Living where Carlos grew up and learning about his family and his hometown and hearing stories of what Lima was and how it has changed.
• The 5 min walk to the market or to get the bus and getting to people watch and marvel at the fact that I live in freaking Lima, Peru.

I´m very thankful that I have this opportunity to live in Lima and be with Carlos and learn more about him and this crazy city of his and get to know his family.  I´m thankful that I found the job that I was looking for and that I make enough money to not worry tooooo much, even if I do live pay check to pay check.  Of course there are things I don´t like about Lima, but thats not for this post.  Lima has grown on me over the past 9 months and my student´s question really made me step back and examine the positives of living here.  There will be no lying and saying that after making my list, I have a whole new outlook on life here, but it has served as a good lesson in choosing my attitude and appreciating the smaller, everyday things in life.  Now if asked, I can say with less hesitation that, yes, I like Lima.

Running in Peru

From Has spring sprung?

Otherwise known as my first running race....ever.

Because gyms and pools are expensive and out of the way, my exercise of  "choice" while in Peru has been running.  My only problem is that I don´t like running.  Its ok, but I don´t think I could ever do lots of it.  This causes another problem : lack of motivation.  To solve this secondary problem, I signed up for a 10k race, the Nike 10k in Lima.  Its a pretty flat track that goes through the pretty touristy part of Lima, in Miraflores and along the coast.  I probably should have started with a 5k, or something seeing as how I have never run a race (or more than 20min) in my life.  My friends assured me I could do it just fine and I can never find the info on the tons of 5k´s that happen around Lima.

I set myself the goal of running the entire thing and to finish in a respectable (although unkown) time.  I made myself get up early to run 3 days a week and man, was it difficult.  Running is not my forte and it is soo easy to stay in bed for 15 extra minutes.  About a month away from my race I had to start guilting myself to go run three times a week.  I wonder how guilt and motivation differ in this instance....:-/ Part of the reason it was hard to stay "motivated" was the air quality.  All cars spit out grossness from their tail pipes, and because there is little rain or wind in Lima usually, it all just hangs in the air.  I swear running outside with cars gives me a sore throat.  Another problem was the cars themselves.  I have small parks around my house, but they are seperated by streets and since we live by a major artery, it can get pretty backed up.  So I have to deal with cars, and in Peru, cars don´t stop for you.  I have to stop running to wait for them and usually end up with a face full of exahust.  Oh joys of running outside in Lima.  ICK.

But paying a large sum of money to run a race is pretty "motivating", so I pushed through the smog and fought the cars to do my three day a week training.  Sometimes I ran around and around parks.   Sometimes I ran up to the closest shopping center which has stairs and sometimes I ran up past some schools and around to my parks.  The most I ever managed was 30min of continous (car interrupted) running. Its funny how fast you cover ground when you run instead of walk.  (I know that running is faster than walking and so this makes sense, but it never ceases to amaze me).

Finally race day came!  Being in the starting area was a really interesting people watching experience.  There were all types and sizes and nationalities of people.  We even saw the winners go by-a small group of willowy Africans blew by dressed in head to toe Nike. (reading the news the following day we read that these were indeed the winners of the race, and pro-runners).  The race was cut off at 10,000 people, and I think it got about that many.  You couldn´t really get the feel for the amount of people until everyone was lined up and waiting.  Carlos´ brother said it was like being in a religious procession and I felt like I was back in Spain watching the world cup. Everyone was pressed together like sardines.  Yay for bodywarmth before the race!  Carlos was watching the start of the race and he said it took about 20 minutes for everyone to go by.

Running the race went smoothly and we cut a nice pace until the end when I ditched Carlos´ brother and his stomach ache to finish under an hour.  For all the 10,000 people spread out on the course, the entire race felt strangely solo.  If there is no music stand near by or people cheering, then all you heard were people panting and feet hitting the ground.  Everyone was in their own zone.  I never even felt that solitary during a race for swimming.  It was really odd.

I´m not sure if I an a running convert.  I know for a fact that I like running outside in a changing landscape a lot more than running inside.  I also know that I can run a 10k and no die and I know that I should push myself more if I ever run another one.  It is good to know that I can do something when I put my mind to it/or my hard earned money into it.  I guess that running, unlike swimming does not make me excited.  Sorry running, the pool rules. But I do value running for being a good exercise that doesn´t take up excess time and gets you outside and moving.

Final time : 59.23  Hurrah under an hour!

Its not a mixed bag

During my lunch break I went to the supermarket to pick up some stuff.  Not many items, I could have gone through the fast check-out which is for people with 10 items or less.

I ended up with 4 bags.  Now, you may ask me if the items I bought were extra heavy or bulky.  The answer is no.  Peruvian supermarkets just really like putting stuff into bags.

To be fair, I suppose I bought 4 types of groceries : produce, non-perishables, bread, and deli stuff.  4 bananas and three potatoes, 2 non-perishables, 2 deli stuffs, and one bag of bread.  Obviously this warrants 4 normal sized bags.  Heaven forbid that the bread be forced to share a bag with some bananas, or that my lunchmeat should have to hang with my oil.  For me, this is ridiculous.  You do NOT need to seperate everything.  Once, I bought some floss and it came in its own bag.  Just toss it in another bag!!!  Honest, it´ll be fine!

 Too much plastic is being used here and I feel like it is such a waste of plastic bags.   Half of the time I ask the baggers to just put it all in one bag (or at least in fewer bags), I get blank stares as their hands are automatically parcelling out goods into seperate bags.  If I manage to catch them before they start bagging groceries, the baggers look particularly pained when they are mixing produce with cleaning products and dry goods.  I´m sure they are inwardly rolling their eyes and chalking it up to me not being Peruvian.  Too bad,
 I´m not going to apologize for wanting to use less bags.

The only problem with getting them to consolidate bags is that I don´t have enough trash bags....how to be ecological AND practical?  Thanks, Peru for making me problem solve.