Peru is a “middle-income” country: the average Peruvian earns the equivalent of $10,160 per year, taking into account the local exchange rate and cost of living. But incomes are distributed much less equally than in the U.S. and most other countries on earth. How did the large gap between…
Lima is a desert — the area receives less than an inch of rainfall each year. How does this city produce enough food for 8 million people? It doesn’t — food is trucked in from the Andes mountains and the Amazonian rainforest. Without access to distant markets, the population would…
We often take for granted the pipes that bring drinking water into our homes and take waste water away to the treatment center. But what would it be like to live in a house without running water or a sewage system? We didn’t need to drive very far from…
Peru has a proud past. The Inca civilization is most notable, but many other cultures thrived in this part of the world thousands of years before the rise of the Incas and their conquest by the Spanish. In many ways, these cultures were in the center of their known…
After two days of orientation the students moved out of the Miraflores House and prepared themselves to meet their new host families. Members of the families appeared in rapid succession to pick up the students. We shared a cup of tea and a cookie or two, took a photo of…
Lima is a different world, a growing metropolis that straddles the narrow desert plain between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The area receives only a centimeter (less than half an inch) of rain each year. Rivers like the Rimac, which originate high in the glacier-laden Andes, provide…
They are here, at last! After a four-hour delay in Miami, eighteen weary but patient Goshen College students passed through the immigration and customs area at Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport and got their first glimpse of Peru’s bustling capital city. We made the short trip to our hostel,…
This semester makes history: For the first time, students coming to Peru to study Spanish will be joined by those studying Sign Language. We will all be together for lectures, workshops and field trips — learning about life in this diverse and dynamic South American nation. Then each afternoon…
As directors of the Peru Study Service Term, we are halfway through our two-year assignment. The month of August provided an opportunity to renew our spirits as well as our visas. In early August we joined members of RETO International Mennonite Brethren Community Church on a mission trip to…
