Follow the Journey

On Sunday, October 19, the group said goodbye to Ecuador as we walked through the doors of the Mariscal Sucre Airport. We flew through Lima to Arequipa and were welcomed at the airport by Maria Huaman, who runs Llama Education (the organization that is organizing our Spanish classes and homestays for our two week stay in Arequipa). We were then driven to our various homestays. Connor and I are with the Macero-Mesa family, which consists of the parents, Roxana and Orlando, and the daughter, Isabel. I can´t quite speak for everyone in the group, but after Connor and I met our family and were led to our room, we dropped our bags and proceeded to nap for three hours. It had been a long day of travel, which had started at 3 am in a hostel in Otavalo, Ecuador, and finished at 10 pm in a residency in Arequipa, Peru.
On Monday, members of the group walked/took a bus to Maria´s house. At the house, the group met Father Rick, who runs a girls home here in Arequipa. The group was then split in half; one half would stay at Maria´s and take Spanish classes, and the other half would go with Father Rick to help build a bedroom at girls home. The groups will then switch roles for the second week in Arequipa. Those that stayed for classes were then assigned professors. The format of the classes is first, a two hour session with one professor, a thirty minute tea and coffee break, and then another two hour session with a different professor.
I was lucky to be paired with Maria for my morning classes. We spent our first class going over the Preterito Imperfecto de Subjunctivo tense (It´s a little tricky to explain in English) and discussing the American political system (a favorite subject of mine). After the break, I was paired with another wonderful professor, Jonatan (I´m just going to call him Jon). Jon and I went over the differences between three future tenses: Presente/Indicative, Futuro Simple, and Futuro Perfecto. Afterwards, Connor and I returned to our host family, ate lunch, and then walked back to the school at 4 pm for a quick tour of the center of Arequipa. We took a combi bus to the Plaza de Armas in the center of town and visited the Cathedral. We then walked along the main streets, visited some shops, and purchased some much needed ice cream.
The next day, we assembled at Maria´s house and parted ways once again into our two groups. In my morning class with Maria, we reviewed the Preterito Perfecto de Subjunctivo tense, and in the afternoon class with Jon, we went over the differences between the three Subjunctive tenses (Presente de Subjunctivo, Preterito Imperfecto de Subjunctivo, and Preterito Perfecto de Subjunctivo). After classes, many members of the group went to a local mall. There, we bought ice cream (a common group activity in the afternoon) and perused the stores for clothes, shoes, and other various things. We then returned to our homes. My homework for the night was to find ten common Peruvian expressions. My family was gracious enough to help me out with this work. After all, who better to teach you Peruvian expressions than a family of Peruvians? My homework assignment turned into a family dialogue, perhaps even an argument, about the meanings and origins of each expression. I excused myself from the table around 11 pm while the family continued their debate.
On Wednesday, Maria and I reviewed the Preterito Pluscamperfecto tense. We then practiced constructing sentences where the first clause contained a verb in the Preterito Pluscamperfecto tense, and the second clause contained a verb in Condicional Simple tense. In the afternoon class with Jon, we went over the differences between two-clause sentences with different tenses being placed in the different clauses. After class, we went back for lunch, and then assembled again at 3:30 at a local field to play a game of soccer. The day ended with tired legs and an appreciation for showers with hot water (granted, we´ve had a serious appreciation for hot water throughout the trip).
On Thursday, like a couple of other times during the trip, I was not feeling too great. Maria and Jon were very understanding, and instead of drilling with tenses, we just had conversations. Maria and I talked about the differences between the Native Americans and the Peruvians with indigenous Incan lineage. Towards the end of our conversation, we came to the conclusion that while both the English and Spanish were incredibly cruel to the ingenious peoples of their respective colonized lands, the Spanish made an effort to reproduce with the locals and create a new population with a mixed Incan-Spanish culture, while the English/Americans only pushed away and secluded the Native Americans. After, Jon and I compared the two systems of governments in our different countries, he explained the history and events which led to the current system. I´m sure there is much more to learn, but I noticed that the Peruvian government resembles the US government in some ways. Only, they have just one house of Congress in comparison to our two, and the system for appointing a Supreme Court justice is the duty of a body of judicial branch judges, and not the country´s president. These conversations reminded me that simply talking to someone can be such a different, and in some ways, better way of learning about a new place. Drilling with tenses can only teach you so much.
That being said, the final day of classes on Friday was spent drilling with tenses. Maria and I reviewed the tenses that we had gone over during the week. The afternoon with Jon was a defining moment in my many years of Spanish education. Now I´ve been learning Spanish since seventh grade; I´ve have had three different professors, four national Spanish examinations, and more classes than I care to count. But Friday was a different experience altogether. The whole class was similar to Wednesday´s class; Jon and I once again reviewed different two-clause sentences, changed the verbs in the clauses to different tenses, and determined how these changes affected the overall meanings of the sentences. But we only skimmed this process on Wednesday. On Friday, we dove into it headfirst.
There were sentences with first clause Preterito Pluscamperfecto verbs, second clause Condicial Perfecto verbs. There were sentences with first clause Preterito Imperfecto de Subjunctivo verbs, second clause Condicional Simple verbs. We were going over sentences that referred to the past, present, and future in the first clause verb, and the past, present, and future in the second clause verb. We must have gone over every combination of tenses that existed in the Spanish language. It was out of this world. And when that magical lesson ended, so too did my week of learning with Llama Education.
That night, the group gathered at Ryan and Cheridyn´s place for an activity on world hunger. For the activity, we all drew slips from a hat with the names of different countries. There were seven kids who represented third world countries (I was Nepal), four kids who represented second world countries, and one kid who represented a first world country. These numbers were meant be proportionate to the amount of people who actually live in these countries, compared to actual world population. We were then brought into another room and were served dinner. The first world country was served first. She was given a appetizer of salad and bread, a main course of steak, rice, and pasta, and a desert of apple pie. While she ate her main course, the four second world countries were served. They were collectively given Tupperware containers with chicken, rice, and some vegetable. Finally, the seven third world countries were served our meal. We were given a large container with rice and two bottles of water. Needless to say, after having seen our five friends enjoying their meals, we attacked the container of rice. We were given the meals that average populations of first, second and third world countries normally receive. At the end of the lesson, we listened to a Ted Talk about world hunger and how it can solved. Afterwards, the mood of the night changed as we went to Papa John`s (the seven kids representing third world countries were still hungry) and then to a concert in a local discoteca. Unfortunately, we were not aware that the band would not come on until 2 am, so some of us (like myself) went home for a good night´s sleep. Although apparently, the band was very good.
Saturday was a day of rest for all of us. We were tired from the week´s classes and construction projects. But with that tiredness came a sense of joy and fulfillment. We had all achieved something great during the week and were looking forward to our remaining time in this great city. So here´s to Arequipa! May our next week here be as wonderful as the last!