An American in Lima

slices of my life in Peru

An American in Lima header image 4

Entries from September 2009

Day at the Spa

September 29th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Animals in Peru, Crossing Cultures

Lola, coiffed and perfumed (actually, smelling like someone’s abuela)

A perk to living in Lima is that you can have your hair cut and styled for ridiculously low prices. A salon down the street from us charges S/.20 to do a full blowout, for any length hair. That’s less than US$7 for something that stylists in the [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Food Businesses Boom in Peru

September 26th, 2009 · 8 Comments · Food & Dining, Money, Economics, Politics

 

A yummy seafood causa featured on a poster for the second annual gastronomic fair, held Sept. 24-27, in Lima

BBC Online published an insightful overview yesterday of Peru’s booming food industries (”Food business taking off in Peru,” 9/25/09), to coincide with this weekend’s second annual gastronomic fair in Lima.  Dan Collyns reports on the growth of gourmet restaurants, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ····

Finnish Designer Trees Bear Fruit in Andes

September 22nd, 2009 · 3 Comments · Art, Film, Music & Dance, Peru's Andes Mountains

Last week I dropped in on a very cool Finnish design exhibit being hosted at Lima’s ICPNA center. “Northern Stars” showcases more than 100 years of innovative design from Finnish designers and design firms such as Marimekko, Arabia, Nokia and Metso.
El Híjo and I were hoping to catch sight of some Moomintrolls, the eccentric woodland characters invented [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ·····

Soy Andina Film Premieres on New York PBS Tonight

September 20th, 2009 · 4 Comments · Art, Film, Music & Dance, Peru's Andes Mountains

Cynthia Paniagua (R) in Chincha (photo: Florencia Castello)

Peruvian culture will get a major public-awareness boost tonight when New York PBS stations broadcast the awarding-winning documentary Soy Andina. (Sept. 10, 10 p.m.; check local listings. The film airs throughout the country starting Oct. 11.)
Soy Andina is one of eight documentary films selected for the new season of Latin [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

French Fries vs. Choclo and Boiled Potatoes: Why Peruvians Aren’t Fat

September 15th, 2009 · 24 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Food & Dining, Looking Back at the United States

An ear of fresh Peruvian choclo

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this week about obesity in the United States vs. weight and nutrition in Peru.  We’re currently exploring these topics in the conversation class I teach at UPC (see class blog, here), but really, they’ve been on my mind since I moved to Peru from Florida in July [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··

Deadly Negligence: Peru’s Red Cross & Cold Deaths in Andes

September 6th, 2009 · 12 Comments · Money, Economics, Politics, Peru's Andes Mountains, What's up with the Weather Down There?

At last count (mid August), 514 Peruvians had died of pneumonia brought on by extreme cold this year, most of them children under five. Most reasonable people would call that an emergency.
Not Peru’s Red Cross, however. 
In a bulletin issued August 4, 2009, the Peruvian Red Cross (PRC) issued a general statement about the cold deaths in Puno, [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: ··