Lima Life

The group that went to the Museo del Arte

Today was the start of my third week of classes.  I have settled down on the four courses that I am taking: Advanced Academic Spanish and Culture, Peruvian Social Reality, Amazonian Ethnography, and Ethnicities and Ethnic Minorities.  The next step is to start working with the NGO I have chosen, but more info on that will come later.  For right now, I am just focusing on getting connected with student life.  One opportunity that has come up is the chance to do some intramural sports.  A friend of mine from my Ethnicities class has been trying to convince me to join.  I sounds like a lot of fun, but I am trying to weigh my time between school, my NGO, and possible travel plans.  I want to join because it sounds like a great way to get plugged into the school, but I will just have to see how my schedule falls into place.

One of the buildings in the park outside of the museum.

In contrast with my weekend in Nazca, this last weekend was very relaxing and gave me the chance to catch up on some much needed rest.  It made it even better that it was a long weekend due to Santa Rosa de Lima. One night I fell asleep at 8pm and woke up at 9 the following morning.  Needless to say, I was tired!  Even though the theme of this last weekend was rest and recovery, I did get out and do a couple of things.  On Friday, I got chance to visit the Museum of Art with some friends.  It was fun to get out and see a little more of Lima.  Just outside the museum, there was a park was also dedicated to art.  It was interesting to say the least.  It had everything from architecture to a live Elvis impersonator!  On Sunday, I took up the church hunt again and visited Emmanuel Bible Church in San Isidro.  The church was actually pretty big and seemed to have a lot of resources to offer.  I met with one of the staff (Ricardo) to find out about small groups, and on the wall of his office I saw a map of Lima with a whole bunch of pins on it.  I was intrigued by it, so I asked Ricardo what it was and he told me that it was a map of the church's small groups.  It was so cool to see in a visual way, how God is at work in this city.  That is one thing that I have consistently noticed while I have been in Peru, that the Christians I have met are on fire for God and I can see Him working powerfully in their lives.  This next week, I am going to go with Ricardo to one of those small groups.  I excited to finally have community to get plugged in with here in Lima.

This week didn't have the glamour of travel, but I do like that I am finally seeing things how life in Lima is unfolding for me, and it is no less of an adventure.  This week I may have done less exploring of tourist sites, but I did delve deeper into life in Lima!