Peru

Arequipa, Peru

I feel like I´m living in a dream world right now. Somehow, all along I´ve been planning this trip to Peru but it hasn´t sunk in that I would really be leaving China and teaching in South America, teaching in Peru, teaching in Arequipa- someplace I´d never heard of before. I applied to this school, and had an interview and accepted the job and bought my plane ticket and all the other things necessary to get here, and I even did it months ago, but still managed to not believe it. So here I am, already, walking around the city feeling like I´m looking at pictures online, meeting my students dreaming of what my students will be like, teaching my classes wondering how my classes will go and eating the food hoping I´ll like it.

I couldn´t wait for this change from China (not that I don´t love China, but I needed a break from it). I wanted a place with blue skies, small cities, friendly people and REAL hiking. Arequipa is the second largest city in Peru and feels tiny, compared to China, there aren´t any sky scrapers, the center of the city is filled with old stone churches, cobbled streets and thousands of miniature taxis inching along.

My flight got into Lima Tuesday night at 10 and my flight to Arequipa was at 5:30 Wednesday morning. I was supposed to sleep in the airport but couldn´t, so on my flight to Arequipa there wasn´t anyone sitting next to me, I passed out before the plane was even in the air and woke up with the seat belt buckle imprinted on my forehead when the plane landed an hour later. When I finally stumbled off the plane this is what I woke up to.

Amanda, a new assistant director at Extreme English, picked me up from the airport, took me to the TEFL house until I find my own place, showed me to the school, treated me to lunch and helped me get some essentials. I feel so fortunate to have her because I know what it´s like to show up in a new place and have to figure out everything for myself, and she´s new so I´m the first one who got this ´treatment´ because they´re trying to make things easier on the new teachers.
I´m living next to the Yanahuara plaza and so my walk to school everyday is through this promenade with a view of El Misti. Also in the plaza is this beautiful, although not unique here, stone church.

I didn´t have classes the first day, thank g-d, so I had some time to wander around the city. I was in search of some notebooks for class and casually looking for dinner around 5pm. I didn´t find the notebooks because I refused to pay $5 for a small 100 page spiral book, I just figured I´d go to the central market the next day. So by 7 I realized a lot of places were closing and wanted to get some food, but I felt too scared to go into these small restaurant/bars on the street because they were packed with sweaty men watching TV and I couldn´t see if there was a menu. So I passed those and then only found cake or bread shops. By 9 I was so hungry and willing to eat anywhere but now absolutely everything was closed and so I did find some man´s small corner shop open and I bought just this bread, avocado, tomato and bananas for less than a dollar. And this dinner was perfect for me, I should have started with that option. Tomorrow I know better :)