(Mistura food festival, Lima 2011.) As a foreigner in Peru, a singular predictable question from locals tends to dominate the casual tête-à-têtes of my everyday encounters: how do you like our food? Never having been much of a foodie, this was a lot for me to take in at first. Every time I entered [...]
As winter kicks into high gear here on the other side of the equator, my kitty has found a new best friend: the heater. Though Lima is the second most populated desert city to Cairo, the coastline humidity can lace the air with a bitter chill, tickle the throat into a cold or even speckle [...]
Keeping up two languages isn’t easy. Coexisting with Spanish in particular has a way of making me say things like “elaborate” instead of simply “write” or recite amusing though non-existent clichés. So in attempts to avoid those google translation moments, I’ve taken to podcasts to keep the juices flowing in my mother tongue while staying [...]
With some exceptions, Americans generally have the same beef with soccer: “nothing happens.” Despite having played the sport for some six years, I too was one of the naysayers. Like my father, I joined the ranks of college football fans. But only college. College football was where all the excitement happened. As non-professionals, players are [...]
(Internet game and facebook app based on “crazy” Lima combis.) With over eight million inhabitants and no subway system, Lima transit has become an unequivocal symbol of the city’s organized chaos. The jarring medley of horns and police whistles, topped with incessant weaving and nail-biting close calls, sometimes makes city streets feel a little [...]
The other day, a well-known Peruvian news commentator, Rosa María Palacios, said, “If I would have gone to sleep in January and woken up today, I would’ve said, ‘no, this is a nightmare, I’m in the wrong country.’” In the United States, presidential elections follow an almost cookie cutter predictability – the Democratic and Republican [...]
