Testimonials & Photos: Latin America
Peru
Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Peru
Amy Uebel '07, Martinsville, IN
History and Political Science Major
I admit it. I was scared to leave Washington College and travel south of the equator to live in a city that I knew two things about. One, the city was larger than any other city I had ever known; and two, crime was high, and I mean REALLY high. However, the plane ticket was bought and my mind was set. I grew up with a poster of Macchu Picchu on my wall and a strange fascination with Lake Titicaca and the Amazon, and I HAD to see them. If not now, when?? So, it might come as a surprise when looking back at my time abroad my favorite memories are not of my first sight of Macchu Picchu, or swimming in the Amazon River with pink (yes, bright pink) dolphins. My top two all-time favorite memories of the semester happened in the most uninteresting of places, the bus stop in front of my house.
The first happened not long after arrival. I was still trying to learn the bus system. (I had not quite gotten the whole “stick your arm out and the bus will stop” move.) A small indigenous woman, who seemed to be lost in her own thoughts, was walking past me on the street. All of the sudden she looked up at me (tall, blond, and EXTREMELY American), stopped dead in her tracks and gawked at me. Not knowing what to do with such attention, I politely said “Buenos Días, Señora”. Her mouth fell open. It then dawned on me, that, while I had come to Peru to see a strange new people, I WAS the strange new person. Not them. The realization that while you travel to see new people, the natives will probably find you just as strange, will never leave me.
The second happened near the end of my time in Lima, I was in fact returning from my last day at the university when I met another Peruvian at my stop. This time it was a more cosmopolitan man. When he began to speak to me in English (Peruvians are ALWAYS polite, but his English was quite bad), I quickly informed him that I spoke, “Castellaño quite well. Thank you very much.” After a few minutes of polite chatter, I told him that I indeed was not a native and was soon returning to the United States. The poor man could not believe that a foreigner was able to speak Spanish as well as I could and flat out refused to believe that I had only lived in Lima for five months. No foreigner, he declared, would have such a clean accent, and Limeños are quite proud of their clean accent.
Those two mundane conversations taught me that traveling abroad is not about the adventures you will have while gone, although that part is fun. Living abroad is about the experience of stepping outside your comfort zone. The thought of waking up in a strange house, without the friends you depend on, only to hear the honking of cars and the chatter of dozens of extremely energetic (and loud) bus drivers who all want your business may frighten many students away from leaving their well-established life. However, it is the fear that teaches you who you are better than any class you can ever take. A few months later, you will wake up one morning to realize that the house no longer scares you and you actually UNDERSTAND the bus drivers. You can successfully navigate your way around the city, even if you do not fully understand your professors. Then it will dawn on you that this new world, one of strange people and customs, has become your NEW comfort zone. You will remember those days of homesickness, the classes you didn’t understand, the times you got lost, the weekends filled with little sleep and more travel, and you will realize that the hardest thing about your time abroad was stepping on the airplane to come home.
Ecuador
