A World Of Difference

After living her in Lima for two months (I remember when one month was long) now I’ve learned to do a couple of things correctly that I was doing wrong in the beginning, and have noticed a few differences here also. 1.The first thing I’ve learned is that everything that is polite in English is basically rude in Spanish. When asked a question in Spanish it’s rude to say ‘Que’ (what). They take as if you were yelling at them, instead it’s better to say ‘Díme’ which is like saying ‘tell me!’ in English, those are fighting words. No one corrected me on that for the longest time. I must have fit the typical rude American every time I said ‘Que’ to a stranger!
2. Another thing I’ve learned to do her is bargain. I’ve learned to bargain, with the taxis, small stands, and at the Indian markets. With all of these you have to try to get them to lower their prices or else they take you for a fool. At first they tell you a price and then they tell you yes or no. If no you have to keep going at it. I’m still working at my bargaining skills though; I’m still too easy of a sell.
3. One thing I have noticed is the lack if clocks in this country. In every class room, every building, and a lot of houses there are almost no clocks. It didn’t take me very long to realize this because I always want to know what the time is, and this lack of clocks really bugs me, sometimes this drives me up the wall! It seemed strange to me at first but I soon started to realize it makes sense. To Peruvians the concept of time is not that important. If they have to be somewhere at one that means they leave at 1:10, and that’s being early. Once, me and my friends told even our Peruvians friends to meet at 10 but we planned on being there at 10:30 knowing they’d be late, but what do you know, that was the one time they showed up on time!
4. The last thing I’ve noticed is that our perceptions of things are way different than those of a Peruvian. During the day my host family says it’s hot, which I have to agree with them but still doesn’t compare to a Nebraska summer, but at night oh boy are we thinking different things. At night it probably dips below 65  or 60, I’m not really sure, but that might as well be a winter storm to my family. They always mention how cold it as a night, I just sit there and laugh to myself. I’ve even told them they need to experience a Nebraska winter, they declined and said the summer would be better, I don’t know which one is worst! Another thing we think differently on is time and distance. My friend from Peru once told me ‘Oh it’s really close, maybe like 50 minutes top’. 50 minutes! When he said close I thought 5 ten minutes. 50 minutes could get me to Lincoln and some. I guess your concept of time and distance is different when living in a city of 9 million.