About

 

 

An American in Lima is written by me, Barbara Drake, an American writer who lived in Lima, Peru, from July 2007 to May 2014. I am now back in Gainesville, Florida, where I write for the University of Florida Foundation. Living in Peru changed me on fundamental levels; I originally blogged as An American in Lima. I now feel like a Limeña in Florida. (A Limeña/o is someone from Lima.)

I started this blog in 2008 to share my thoughts on adjusting to another culture. I was interested in the details of daily life in Lima, as well as the big picture (the economy, climate change) and how events in the southern hemisphere might relate to what’s happening up north. I ended up chronicling bullfighting protests, melting glaciers and the fight for social justice for domestic workers and impoverished people in the Andes.

Some of my blog posts were shaped into articles for the Miami Herald, Huffington Post and Global Voices. Then I was tapped as a field producer for NBC News and Dateline, which I happily did, along with teaching English to future translators and interpreters at the Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC). I helped produce a Nightly News special on melting glaciers and was part of the team that reported on the arrest of Joran Van der Sloot, who killed a young woman in a Miraflores casino five years to the day that he killed American Natalee Holloway. 

Along for the ride were my Peruvian husband, Jorge (referred to in early blog posts as El Fotógrafo) and my young son, Sam (El Hijo). Jorge and I started an NGO, Clima y Cultura, to document and spread awareness of the effects of climate change on indigenous cultures.

My writing- and reporting-centered life ground to a halt in early 2011 when my 86-year-old father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. We brought him to Lima, where we hired excellent, compassionate health aides to care for him, first at our home and then in a small group home.  It was a rocky but rewarding adventure in eldercare that lasted nearly two years — enough time for my late father to learn a little Spanish, even with dementia(!).

Jorge, Sam and I returned to Gainesville in 2014, and I took up the peculiar task of orienting myself as an ex-expat. I am still sorting it out. I am not the American I was 15 years ago when I left the States, and neither is the U.S. the same country as it was. I feel more Peruvian than American at times, especially when it comes to embracing a collectivist mindset versus an individualistic one. Collectivism is the way forward for ourselves and our planet.

But some things are still the same. I am still passionate about:

 —spreading word about the accelerating effects of climate change, which are devastating the high Andes and the rest of the world;

 —urging people in the developed world to cut down on carbon emissions so we will all have a place to live in 100 years;  

—speaking up for people’s rights to work, to a safe place live, to healthy food, to affordable healthcare, to freedom of expression;

—thinking outside the box to find solutions and dissolve false barriers between people and ideologies.

Check out my writing portfolio here.