I had a lot of "firsts" this week.
We had our first cucaracha in our apartment a couple of days ago. I was home alone, looking for something to eat, when I opened the freezer and saw a cockroack hanging out on the edge of the freezer. Luckily I was brave enough to wait until Jeff got home so he could spray it with anti-roach spray.
I also got to see the embassy for the first time. It's an odd looking building from the outside, but the grounds are beautiful! I finally got to meet all of the people that Jeff has told me about. I'm pretty sure the ambassador wanted desperately to meet me as well, but I was on a very tight schedule.
I took my first taxi ride sola in order to get to the embassy. That was a little scary because we are always hearing stories about awful things that happen to gringos who take taxis by themselves. But I lived through it and had another first along the way ...
My first real, long (about 20 minutes) spanish conversation with someone who is not one of my teachers. The taxi driver told me all about his brother who lives in the U.S. He is married to a woman who doesn't speak spanish, and he doesn't speak english. Apparently they understand each other, but when they speak to each other they only speak in their own language. Then he told me all about how everyone in Peru wants to come to the United States because in the U.S. almost everyone has a Ford Explorer.
And my last first came in class today. Today I had my first chance to use the word "amamantar," which means "to breastfeed." I never thought I would use my wealth of breastfeeding knowledge that I accumulated during my time working at WIC. However today in my conversation class we each had to tell about a strange story that we had read in the news recently. My fellow classmate told of an article about a mom in Chicago who was still breastfeeding her 12 year old boy. That launched a whole discussion on breastfeeding, and I was asked what I tell my clients at work when I teach them about it. There is hardly a topic that I have talked about more in spanish. Finally a conversation I was prepared for!
And on top of it all, I found the cure for obesity. Move to Lima and don't buy a car. I think I've lost about 5 pounds already from walking everywhere (although most of it is probably sweat).
Well, we have our big trip to Paracas this weekend with OUR AWESOME FRIENDS GABE AND APRIL from the embassy (that was for you, April!). We get to surf down sand dunes, then take a boat tour to check out some cool aquatic friends. I was informed that to see pinguinos I probably need binoculars, which I don't have, so you have to settle for pictures of sea lions.
Hasta luego!
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2 comments:
How big was the cockroach? We get pretty big ones here - one usually pops up in the apartment every three months or so. I think it took me about 2 hours to kill the first one (complete with lots of screaming and jumping up and down), but it's no big deal now.
Well, sort of. Still utterly disgusting.
And good job on the spanish conversations. Maybe when you're really good, we can go back to Granada and you can tell Margarita just what you REALLY think about eating fish heads.
I have to say... today, I am rather enjoying the cut of your wit.
I'm also glad you've found a fresh audience for your amamantar discussions. Congratulations.
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