Peru - Quick Lessons learned
Traveling and failing provide some of life’s greatest lessons and sometimes you can do both! Thirty days in Peru have given me plenty of lessons and two small lessons to share. I learned not to put soccer on the TV during dinner and that failing in understanding the difference between a normal R and a rolled R while speaking Spanish can affect communication.
Lesson 1: While cooking dinner at home during the quarantine with my Peruvian partner, I made the mistake of putting on soccer highlights. By the time we sat down to eat, the YouTube algorithm (following our past 24 hour viewings of Peruvian surf videos) had turned to playing solely Peruvian soccer videos. Having these videos on in this moment was a mistake for two reasons:
1. Every time I took one second to look down at my food, to coordinate food on fork movement, it was demanded by my companion that I, “Mira! Mira!” (Look! Look!) because Peru was about to score a goal. “I am mira-ing,” I responded after the fifth request. These videos were highlight reels where the entire video was goal scoring clips from a specific tournament. It wasn’t like if I looked down for a moment I would miss one potential goal of a 90 minute game. This video reel meant if I looked down and missed a goal, I would be ok because another one was coming in about three seconds. I eventually stopped trying to eat and watched the endless goals, enjoying the passion of the other viewer.
2. The highlight video was never going to allow this dinner to end well, it was from a tournament in which Peru lost, so the last goal before the video ended was Brazil scoring and winning the copa. This meant, despite our prior knowledge that Peru had lost this 2019 tournament, that dinner ended in utter depression for my partner. It had begun pleasantly, with excited, “Goalaso! Goaallllaso!” as Peru advanced in the tournament, but ended with a few sad “mierda,” “maldito” and other mutterings about Brazil stealing the win. We eased into some happiness watching clips from the US woman’s national team so that there was some enjoyment with which we could close our dinner.
Lesson 2: Rolling an R when speaking Spanish is the difference between a piece of fruit and an insult. I was enjoying listening to friends reminisce about their university days in Spanish, but was upset that they kept referring to an old friend as “the bitch”. “Recuerdas la perra?!” (Remember the bitch?!), “Si, pero la perra...” (“Yes, but that bitch...”). I couldn’t help but think, how bad could she have been? I was surprised that these seemingly respectable guys gave a woman that nickname. Maybe they weren’t as upstanding as I thought or maybe she was a real bitch. It turns out, of course, that she wasn’t a bitch or even “the bitch” (la perra). She was “the pear” (la pera) because of the distinct shape of her body during college. To me, this was an improvement to thinking they were referring to this woman to as a bitch, but I still don’t know if they would have called her “the pear” to her face. As a gringa who can’t roll my Rs, I’m lucky I’ll never accidentally call anyone the insult instead of the fruit, but I realize I should probably pay better attention to these differences.
Lesson 1: While cooking dinner at home during the quarantine with my Peruvian partner, I made the mistake of putting on soccer highlights. By the time we sat down to eat, the YouTube algorithm (following our past 24 hour viewings of Peruvian surf videos) had turned to playing solely Peruvian soccer videos. Having these videos on in this moment was a mistake for two reasons:
1. Every time I took one second to look down at my food, to coordinate food on fork movement, it was demanded by my companion that I, “Mira! Mira!” (Look! Look!) because Peru was about to score a goal. “I am mira-ing,” I responded after the fifth request. These videos were highlight reels where the entire video was goal scoring clips from a specific tournament. It wasn’t like if I looked down for a moment I would miss one potential goal of a 90 minute game. This video reel meant if I looked down and missed a goal, I would be ok because another one was coming in about three seconds. I eventually stopped trying to eat and watched the endless goals, enjoying the passion of the other viewer.
2. The highlight video was never going to allow this dinner to end well, it was from a tournament in which Peru lost, so the last goal before the video ended was Brazil scoring and winning the copa. This meant, despite our prior knowledge that Peru had lost this 2019 tournament, that dinner ended in utter depression for my partner. It had begun pleasantly, with excited, “Goalaso! Goaallllaso!” as Peru advanced in the tournament, but ended with a few sad “mierda,” “maldito” and other mutterings about Brazil stealing the win. We eased into some happiness watching clips from the US woman’s national team so that there was some enjoyment with which we could close our dinner.
Lesson 2: Rolling an R when speaking Spanish is the difference between a piece of fruit and an insult. I was enjoying listening to friends reminisce about their university days in Spanish, but was upset that they kept referring to an old friend as “the bitch”. “Recuerdas la perra?!” (Remember the bitch?!), “Si, pero la perra...” (“Yes, but that bitch...”). I couldn’t help but think, how bad could she have been? I was surprised that these seemingly respectable guys gave a woman that nickname. Maybe they weren’t as upstanding as I thought or maybe she was a real bitch. It turns out, of course, that she wasn’t a bitch or even “the bitch” (la perra). She was “the pear” (la pera) because of the distinct shape of her body during college. To me, this was an improvement to thinking they were referring to this woman to as a bitch, but I still don’t know if they would have called her “the pear” to her face. As a gringa who can’t roll my Rs, I’m lucky I’ll never accidentally call anyone the insult instead of the fruit, but I realize I should probably pay better attention to these differences.
