HISTORY HISTORY HISTORY

My day started at 11am. I went to meet my compañero PUCP, Raquel, and the other student assigned to her, Stephen (another American!) at the main entrance of the university. After we all arrived, we set off on a mini bus towards Raquel’s house so she could pick up some money. When we arrived, she invited us in, which turned out to be a great decision….her mother was home and made us all huge glasses of papaya and banana juice. IT. WAS. DELICIOUS. THEN her mother came out with this bag and said that she had presents for us. She gave me a beautiful handmade wallet from Cuzco and gave Stephen a wall hanging of Machu Picchu. She said that she was just so happy we were visiting Peru and hoped that we were enjoying ourselves and felt welcome. It was so sweet!

After this great stop, we hopped on another bus and headed for Pueblo Libre, a historic neighborhood where the Museo Nacional de Arqueologia e Hisoria is located. This was high on my list of places I wanted to visit so I was very excited! Me and Stephen don’t have our PUCP id’s yet, but we were able to use our US student id’s to get a discount! THANKS UNC! There was some really cool stuff in the museum. Lots of pottery but also really beautiful textiles, artifacts from Incan religious and sacrificial ceremonies, skulls, artifacts from the conquest, and even shrunken heads from the Amazon which were delightfully creepy. Oh and we also saw a beautifully preserved quipu, the knotted, colored cords that the Inca used to keep records. (If you haven’t heard of them go look them up it is really cool!). No mummies unfortunately BUT Raquel told me that there are mummies at a museum in the center of Lima behind the Plaza de Armas so I will have to go check that out!

Something that I found really interesting was that there was an entire section of history missing from the late 1970’s to the end of the 1990’s. In other words, the period during which the Shining Path movement terrorized Peru. The Shining Path was a leftist Maoist armed guerrilla group that rose up against the Peruvian government, but also was responsible for the deaths of Andean peasants who they supposedly wanted to support. They also carried out several bombings, including some in Lima. I knew that this period was sure to be a controversial subject in Peru, but I was surprised that there was NOTHING in the museum about it. I understand that this history must be painful, but to ignore if completely? I don’t know….

After we were done at the museum we went to find some food. We ended up at a cute little historic restaurant with traditional Peruvian food just across the square from the museum. Yet again, I had to get creative to find vegetarian options….the Peruvians sure like their meat. But we wrangled with the waitress and managed to find 2 things I could eat. and they were DELICIOUS. I had potatoes in a delicious, creamy sauce and a rice/bean patty thing.

At lunch we had a nice conversation. An interesting thing that I learned about Stephen is that he is planning on going to seminary school to become a priest after he graduates. I was amazed to think that he is ready to make such a life-changing decision so young. I don’t even know what I am going to do with my life tomorrow!

All in all, a lovely day!

Now I am back in my room, resting my brain which is tired from speaking Spanish all day!

I am thinking I need to get a notebook to write new words down in. I learned so many today but I forgot most of them.