An American in Lima

The body of the teenage boy who drowned in a Lima sewer has finally been found, Lima police announced July 24.
After a 12-day search, the body of Ray Pomiano Villanueva was found in the Huaral district of Chancay, approximately 186 miles from where he fallen into an open manhole. Pomiano, who was trying to catch a bus when [...]

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After our encounter with Peru’s famous child matador yesterday morning, El Híjo and I hunted down a YouTube video of 10-year-old “El Andi” at the 2008 Las Palmas fiesta.

Figure 1: Peru’s boy matador Andrés Roca Rey, at in the “Senor de los Milagros” bullfighting festival, in the historic Ancho bullring, in Lima, Nov. 4, 2007, [...]

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The boy in the grey t-shirt swept out his arm and arched his torso in an elegant bow-shape as the “bull” charged within an inch of his hip. Then he pivoted on one foot and flicked the cape at his opponent’s head. The red fabric spun and twirled, daring the sharp, curved horns to come closer.
They were two Limeno kids, [...]

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Maple syrup.
You can’t buy it in Peru. If you want syrup for your pancakes, you have to go with the corn syrup blends they sell in the supermercado. It’s not the same.
Just looking at the picture on the right makes me salivate.
A cousin from Massachusetts sent me a jar of maple syrup two months ago. It [...]

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This is one of the most awful events I’ve heard about recently. Lima has a huge problem with people stealing manhole covers, and the streets are becoming hazardous to pedestrians – now fatally, for one Lima teenager.
El Fotógrafo told me about the incident over breakfast. “What a way to go,” he said, shaking his head.
The [...]

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Looking through El Fotógrafo’s photos of the car crash in our neighborhood in April, I was struck by the irony of this image:

The driver of the combi had just crashed his busload of passengers into a small car driven by a mother with her preschool daughter. Medics had already arrived on the scene to cart the [...]

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This morning, I woke up to find the park outside our house occupied by about 150 armed troops. It was not a coup. The guys in camo and cadet uniforms and 19th-century calvalry getups were members of the Peruvian military taking part in a tribute to Colonel Leoncio Prado, a hero/martyr in the War of the Pacific (1879–1883).
Today [...]

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Today I took Lola for a walk and bumped into this Wong supermarket employee pushing a shopping cart along the street. He was on his way back from bringing a customer’s groceries to her house, a free service that the store offers. Check out the chic Fiestas Patrias outfit: white poncho, red scarf and broad-brimmed [...]

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Peru’s biggest supermarket chain – Wong – plays up Fiestas Patrias in a big way, sponsoring patriotic events throughout Lima and featuring the “flavors of Peru” during the month-long season. The store’s colors are red and white, the colors of the Peruvian flag, but to celebrate the independence-day spirit during July, some employees wear outfits distinctive to Peru. [...]

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This is an unusual July for me. Until this year, the most significant date on the calendar typically was July 4th – firecrackers, red white and blue, muy Americano.
This year in Lima, July 4th was just another Friday. I didn’t even remember it was a holiday until a friend from Florida sent an email wishing [...]

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