muy Muy alta!

In Peru, I'm not simply tall, what I hear instead is that I am very, VERY tall, complete with hand gestures and facial expressions.

I have arrived in Peru! My host family is a grandma and her 4 daughters (all somewhat older than me), and all have children of their own, and all live in the same household. What worries me a little is that in 3 days I have not seen a single man in the house... so I am surrounded by doting, sweet ladies and screamingly joyful and dramatic children. My host mom-grandma makes me very good things to eat, although I don't always know what kind of meat I am eating, which is a big leap for me! But she makes very good strawberry smoothies and hot chocolate! That's important. I didn't realize that the gifts I brought with me would require so much explanation in Spanish - I brought some smoked salmon and tea, which took about 30 minutes to explain adequately. My host mom-grandma (Alicia) is pleased that I understand so much Spanish and says that usually her students only know hello/goodbye! I think she is the Peruvian equivalent to the head honcho Avon Lady.

My room is small and is pink, blue, yellow, and white. I am on the 2nd floor and overlook a mountainous park and the neighbor's laundry room. I think I live in a very nice, more upper class area as we have a garden plaza in the middle of the house, we have a large shower, and my roof does not consist of just wood beams and tile shingles as many houses have. Also my neighbors seem to have a guard shack in the front yard, and we have police who are there and regularly patrol our neighborhood on bicycles and blow whistles in codes. Who needs walkie-talkies or cell phones when you can essentially whistle the morse code!? At first though I thought maybe my neighbors were druglords and had private security! No such excitement. I think my family actually arranged to have a guard shack 15 feet from my house.

I have made friends with 'Camila' - Alicia's 4 year-old granddaughter - she sits in my lap and we watch Clifford the Big Red Dog on TV together, and she makes me change the channel if I have The Discovery Channel on. I think giving her candy was a good bribe toward friendship. And despite rabies warnings from my Dr, I also have petted the family St Bernard, Achilles, and now he seems to like me too.

Today was my first day of classes - and I have made my first friend (cheer)! She is, of course, from Denver. We walked around downtown and this is what was successful and not so much - buying a calling card = successful, using the calling card = at least 30 times unsuccessful. Finding an authentic place to eat = unsuccessful, finding a really good Chinese place after 2 hours that we could afford = successful. Using the ATM = successful, receiving bank notes under $100 = unsuccessful. Finding a computer with internet that actually works = three time's a charm. My next test will be trying to tell a taxi driver tonight where I live when I don't even fully understand where I live.