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First thoughts about Peru

For the next six weeks I will be studying abroad in Lima, Peru, finishing up my Spanish minor. I am living with a host family and two other students from Michigan Tech, Maddie and Emily. While this is my second trip abroad, it’s my first time in a Spanish speaking country and my first opportunity to test my Spanish language skills. This blog will include my general experiences and a few posts with topics assigned by my professor.

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It’s the end of my first week studying abroad in Lima and I find myself reflecting on the humorous moments of the past few days. Nearly all of them involve language barriers. While I tend to understand what is happening in conversations- for the most part- I still manage to get confused in everyday conversation. Here are my top 3 favorite language barrier moments of the week:

1. Confusing the words “galleta” (cookie) and “gallina” (chicken) :

Our host family has a housekeeper. She’s really smiley and it’s her job to do general housework and make the meals. She’s always checking if we are hungry and the other day she wanted to know if I needed a snack. I thought she was asking me if I wanted her to make me some chicken- so in Spanish I replied “no thanks I don’t want any chicken” using the other word for chicken “pollo”. She gave me a funny look and held up a packet of cookies and I realized my mistake. Haha we both got a laugh out of that one.

2. Confusing the words “pero” (but) and “perro” (dog).

We arrived back at house and over dinner explained to our host dad that we had sampled cow heart on the street earlier that day. Our host dad is often worried for our safety and was trying to explain what foods on the street were safe to eat in the future and what foods we needed to avoid. He ended a sentence talking about eating and then started the new sentence with the word “but”. I was tired and he was speaking so quickly I thought he said “The street people eat dog” and immediately I was concerned. In reality he said “This is what you can eat from the street people, BUT careful with vegetables, etc.” I exclaimed in surprise “ THEY EAT DOG????” and was met with blank stares and confusion from not only my host dad, but my american housemates. I was very embarrassed, but looking back its kind of hilarious. Needless to say I pay more attention at dinner now.

3. Trying to ensure a small child was not drowned in a wave by the ocean.

Two days ago we visited Barranco for the first time. Barranco is a beautiful town by the ocean, so of course our group visited the beach. Half of the girls I was with hopped off of the concrete break wall and walked along the beach. I was watching from the wall as a random, huge wave rolled in and soaked them up past their knees. Their shoes and pants were sopping. Luckily they were good sports and we all just laughed as they climbed back on top of the wall. A few minutes later a little girl, about 6 years old, comes along and looked as if she would hop off the wall. Having just seen a wave bigger than her- I quickly gave the best warning I could muster saying “Careful! There’s a lot of water!” she looked up at me like “Yah no shit... it’s the ocean!” and ran back to her dad. My classmates laughed- it was kind of a “duh” moment. We relayed the story later to our host family laughing about the silly warning and our host dad was cracking up, pointed to my dinner plate and said “Careful, there’s a lot of rice!” haha and my first joke in a different language was made.