An American in Lima

slices of my life in Peru

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Entries Tagged as 'Crossing Cultures'

Howdy, Lima

February 23rd, 2010 · 8 Comments · Blogging & Social Media, Bullfighting, Crossing Cultures

I’ve been away from An American in Lima for a little while (understatement) but thanks to my friend Levi Novey, aka Mr Green HuffPost, I’m getting a bigtime nudge to return to blogging. Which I do love doing, by the way.
Levi let me hijack his column today to guest rant about bullfighting (The Twisted Temptations [...]

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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 [...]

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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 [...]

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Great News for El Hijo

March 24th, 2009 · 6 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Language

I’ve been neglecting this blog lately as a result of work overload — preparing to teach a writing class at UPC, which entails putting together loads of English-language course materials. Last night I got only three hours of sleep, then staggered into a meeting with El Hijo’s teachers at school, where I received a wonderful [...]

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Recommended: A How-to Guide to Living and Working in Peru

March 1st, 2009 · 7 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Daily Life in Lima

I get emails from time to time from people abroad who want to know about resettling in Peru.
Is the job market in Peru good, they want to know?  (Tough for a foreigner, unless you’re okay with teaching English at $5/hour.) Can an American buy property in Lima? (Yes.) Is it true that if you put $20,000 in [...]

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Bad News for Some Canadian Expats Who Want to Procreate Abroad

January 28th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Crossing Cultures

Skimming through Expat Women today, I learned that a new citizenship law about to go into effect in Canada will make some Canadian children born abroad ineligible for Canadian citizenship.
Expat Women writes:
Hi Everyone, If you are a Canadian, especially if you are an adult TCK or you have children who one day will be adult [...]

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The Haircut (El Fotografo gets sheared)

January 6th, 2009 · 3 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Daily Life in Lima

El Fotógrafo has an erratic relationship with his hair. He goes for weeks without doing much of anything to it, letting it sprout in extravagent clumps, and then one day, he will be struck by a severe urge to cut his hair Now.
This can be hazardous because EF has a cowlick. It’s not something a person can [...]

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Peru through the Eyes of Peace Corps Volunteers

December 2nd, 2008 · 1 Comment · Crossing Cultures

From time to time, I like to check in with the blogs of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers working in Peru. The volunteers are mainly young, single people who are both idealistic and pragmatic, and their blogs provide fascinating glimpses into volunteer life in the provinces.
The blogs also are useful roadmaps for armchair adventurers who daydream about “someday” making a [...]

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Overstressed Americans Binge on Junk Food, Drive up Sales, Cheers Snack Food Industry!

November 27th, 2008 · 3 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Food & Dining, Looking Back at the United States

The slow-motion collapse of the U.S. economy is harming consumers and businesses across the country – well, almost every business that is.
One industry is enjoying big sales gains thanks to the stress experienced by ordinary working people. North American sales of “savory snacks” (potato chips, Cheetos, etc.) by Frito-Lay are up 9% for the third qurater, reports Potato [...]

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Who’s Peruvian? Film “Soy Andina” documents two dancers’ search for identity

October 18th, 2008 · 6 Comments · Art, Film, Music & Dance, Crossing Cultures, Race Matters

Who is Peruvian? Who is Andean?
 
Can a Peruvian dancer who’s made a new life in New York City return after 15 years to her remote hometown in the Andes to reclaim her heritage?
Can a young American of mixed Peruvian and Puerto Rican heritage find her “inner Andina” (as I like to call it) by studying folkloric dance techniques in towns throughout [...]

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Peruvians Returning from Abroad to Live in Peru — the exodus begins

October 15th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Looking Back at the United States, Money, Economics, Politics

Crowds at LAX, photo by Philip

Figures from Peru’s National Statistics Institute (INEI) show that increasing numbers of former expatriate Peruvians are returning to live again in Peru.
The immigration numbers from August 2008 alone show a signficant rise in Peruvians choosing to repatriate. About 12.7% more Peruvians (180,000 people) left other countries to return to Peru in [...]

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Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru? Part II

October 14th, 2008 · 48 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Looking Back at the United States, Money, Economics, Politics

 
By Barbara R. Drake
On Sunday I posted Part I of “Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru?” (click here for link).
I floated the idea, proposed to me by a Scandinavian expat who’s lived in the United States as well, that because Peru and the United States are so dissimilar, it’s difficult to evaluate which country’s lifestyle [...]

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Should Americans Consider Moving to Peru? Part I

October 12th, 2008 · 17 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Looking Back at the United States, Money, Economics, Politics

Today my opinion piece “Escaping the U.S. Credit Nightmare” appears in the Sunday Miami Herald, Money section (10/12/08).
The teaser reads: “An American who now lives in Peru finds that she no longer must fend off unwanted offers for credit cards and loans,” which highlights one of the unanticipated benefits I gained from our move to [...]

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Escaping the American Credit Nightmare

September 30th, 2008 · 12 Comments · Crossing Cultures, Looking Back at the United States, Money, Economics, Politics

Note to readers: My opinion piece “Escaping the American Credit Nightmare” appears in the Sunday (Oct. 12, 2008)  edition of the Miami Herald, in the “My View” column of the business section. Here’s my original piece below — Barbara Drake: 
One of the pleasures of moving to Peru last July (2007) was escaping the flurry of credit [...]

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