Blogs from Arequipa, Arequipa, Peru, South America - page 49

Jeff taught his 1st undergraduate level course today. In Spanish. So glad they told Jeff when they arranged the exchange that he would be teaching in English! Everything went well - the students enjoyed the course. He was then invited to sit at the head table during the opening ceremony for fall semester. Which was televised nationally. Luckily Jeff didn’t have to say anything in Spanish this time! The boys and I cleaned up some and did laundry while Jeff was off keeping his public happy. Being the spoiled US citizen that I am, I had never done wash without a clothes dryer before. (Of course given the humidity level in Atlanta, it might be a couple of days before your clothes dried.) It took me about 30 minutes to hang a load of wash out. ... read more

Jeff gave his talk to the faculty this morning. What he didn’t realize ahead of time is that research is a very politically charged subject matter at the University. Right now, almost all of the faculty members have their MS, but not their PhD. Additionally, there is some crazy precedent for faculty members with 20 years of service to be given a PhD by the school at which they teach. The Dean is closing that down and used Jeff’s talk on research as an example to the faculty about what goes on in US Universities. People were none too pleased. (And Jeff just so loves being embroiled in a controversy!) I can understand both sides here. Faculty are paid by the lecture hour (~s/17 per hour they teach), which is ludicrous. Most of the faculty members ... read more

Jeff worked most of the day today preparing for two lectures he’ll be giving on Thursday and Friday morning. Alberto, Elizabeth and I went to a remate (sale) of alpaca goods. They had spectacular sweaters, blankets, scarves, pashminas, coats, gloves and hats. The baby alpaca material feels just like cashmere. I would list prices, but I bought some of you gifts so …. let’s just say that a sweater I’d expect to spend about $200 on at Macy’s ran $30 or less. For lunch we had Aji de Gallina, a traditional Peruvian meal of hen with roasted pepper (yellow pepper, but not bell). We all liked it, but Jeff loved it and I’m sure I’ll be duplicating it when we get home if I can find a source for the peppers. Alberto and Elizabeth have household ... read more

After 11 hours of sleep, we all felt like new people. We awoke to a beautiful day, and a wonderful breakfast of fried eggs, bread, olives, cheese and freshly made juice. Elizabeth and Alberto took us sightseeing - the city is really amazing. We first went to Mirador de Yanahuara (a lookout point in the Yanahuara district) where we could see the entire city. Across the street was an old Catholic church made out of the white volcanic rock (sillar) that is very prevalent as a building material in Arequipa. The city is actually called Ciudad Blanco (The White City). There are three visible mountains from Arequipa- Volcan Misti, Volcan Picchu Pichu and Volcan Chachani. Even from a height of 8000 ft (the altitude here) the mountains are amazing. It was cloudy, so we didn't get ... read more

Well we spent a full day in Santiago, basically doing a blitz sightseeing tour of the city, laundry and even a movie. I spoke of Santiago briefly in my last blog entry, but we had not fully explored the whole area at that point so I will add a bit more information regarding what we saw. We visited the presidential palace, and managed to catch a glimpse of their troops putting on some kind of nationalistic display, marching around in front of the royal building, with stray dogs chasing away the renegade pigeons so they were not to bother any of the trumpeters. From there we delved further into the city center and enjoyed all the pedestrian walkways about town, these are quite something actually. Basically they are roads where they no longer allow vehicles. I ... read more