{"id":403,"date":"2011-02-22T09:28:22","date_gmt":"2011-02-22T14:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/studying-abroad\/?p=403"},"modified":"2011-02-22T09:28:22","modified_gmt":"2011-02-22T14:28:22","slug":"the-daily-challenges-of-pervuian-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/2011\/02\/22\/the-daily-challenges-of-pervuian-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Challenges of Pervuian Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jake Brandewie \u201812<\/em> – In my travels this semester, I have discovered when telling people in South America that you are from Indiana there are two common reactions.\u00a0 Most people shoot you a blank stare and ask if that is close LA or New York.\u00a0 A select few, however, spark up like a kid on Christmas morning and say broken English \u201cAH, I know Indiana\u2026INDIANA JONES!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Jake at the edge of Iguazu Falls in Argentina<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This comical association between Harrison Ford movies and my home state is a constant reminder that I am outside my comfort zone in all phases of my life here in Cuzco, Peru.\u00a0 While abroad I have experienced differences such as the language barrier, greetings of kisses on the cheek instead of handshakes, different meal times etc. etc.\u00a0 Daily, I wake up knowing that there will be moments when my Spanish speaking ability will dip below a preschool level trying to convey a response to a simple question.\u00a0 Yet, learning how to adapt to these uncomfortable, frustrating moments has been an important lesson in my abroad experience so far. \u00a0<\/p>\n

When encountering these unfamiliar situations, the word that I prefer to implement that has the appropriate positive spirit is adventure.\u00a0 For two weeks before the start of my program in Peru, I was able to slot some adventure while backpacking across Argentina and Uruguay.\u00a0 The first highlight from the trek was traveling to the Iguaz\u00fa Falls, which rest between the borders of Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil.\u00a0 The falls were enormous, over 200 hundred individual falls across nearly 2 miles of terrain.\u00a0 The next was seeing the march of the \u201cAbuelas de Plaza de Mayo,\u201d which was a political protest of elderly women who had a grandkids disappear during the reign of the oppressive military government in Argentina. Witnessing this political protest at the presidential building in Buenos Aires was an awesome experience.\u00a0 However, the main reason I have mentioned it in my blog is to prove to Dr. Gomez that I was at least coherent some of the time in class last semester despite my subpar display of language proficiency.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now that my program has started in Cuzco, Peru, I have started to really immerse myself into my city.\u00a0 Cusco is a place that is incredibly diverse and rich in culture, considering that its population is less than half the size of Indianapolis.\u00a0 The city of Cuzco possesses an interesting mix of indigenous tradition (it is the former capital of the Incan Empire), Spanish colonial culture (the former center of the Spanish colonial empire), and international influence (major tourist hotspot due to its closeness to the ruins of Machu Picchu).\u00a0 This three way melting pot offers me a blend of Incan and Spanish history to absorb and a vibrant nightlife, where you can meet peers that have traveled to Cuzco from literally all over the world. All in all, I am ecstatic for the future adventures that are ahead of me in Peru and cannot wait to experience everything my abroad experience has to offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jake Brandewie \u201812 – In my travels this semester, I have discovered when telling people in South America that you are from Indiana there are two common reactions.\u00a0 Most people shoot you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-study-abroad"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2011\/02\/Iguazu-Falls350.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/studyingabroad\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}