One thing I have noticed is the differences that there are in speaking here. I guess I just assumed everyone speaks the same here, but being the untraveled foreigner I am I was totally wrong. There are three distinct regions in Peru, the Coast, the Sierra, and the Selva, and you better bet they speak very distinctively! They all have their own words that aren’t used in the other regions and to top it all off a lot of the people from the Sierra have thick accents that my host family even has trouble understanding, this is a lot for a gringo to handle! There is an interesting, well at least to me, reason for the thick accents these learned an indigenous language, called Quechua, first and Spanish second. There are a lot of people from the Sierra with these accents, and when I say a lot of people I’m not kidding, which leads me to me second point…
Since the late 70’s early 80’s Lima has experienced a HUGE influx of migrants from the rest of Peru due to the intense violence in the Sierra, mainly in Ayucucho. The violence has since greatly diminished. In the 60’s the population of Lima was around 2 million but has grown to 9 million as of today due to all of the people that sought refuge from the fighting and better job opportunities. One of my teachers even said that only about 10% of the people living in Lima were born here. A lot of these people are indigenous or practice some of the traditions or simply come from indigenous descent. It is hard to tell who is indigenous and who’s not though because some of them no longer where the clothing which is a big indicator. It reminds me of the book I’m reading for class, I, Rigoberta Menchu, when she mentions that she is sad she can’t identify every indigenous person because they don’t wear the traditional clothing like her. Makes me wonder the same thing and how many of them speak no Spanish at all like Rigoberta, which is crazy to me because I had no idea about these indigenous languages before coming here. I’m glad I’m learning about the history and Peru itself along with Spanish.
I think I’ll mention one more not as important, but equally as interesting, observation I’ve encountered before this post becomes a novel, they eat Halls cough drops as if they were candies here! The other week a girl in the English class I help out in offered me one and I was so caught off guard when she gave it to me so I didn’t say anything and quickly threw it away before she could notice. My throat felt fine! But the next day at Pizza Hut, very Peruvian I know, they gave us Halls too after our meal and it all made sense. I don’t remember seeing those in Willy Wonka.
P.S. Sorry for the lack of photos, just imagine an indigenous person holding a pack of Halls, that should sum up the post
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