Cultural differences

Otra vez – Saludos de Peru!

Time is flying by – too quickly for my liking. Although I realize that I sounded a bit overwhelmed with uni in my last blog (which is still the truth), I love it here. If I actually believed the cliché of “having the time of my life”, this would probably a fitting moment to say it. But I don’t- I believe that I have had great moments in every phase of my life until now with much laughter and fun which makes it impossible to point out the best time of my life. Well, you probably get the picture.

So, what’s happening here in Lima, Perú?

First of all, elections are coming up on Sunday. I am not even sure what the elections is for, but I think one of them is to appoint the mayor of Lima. Not such a big deal you might think, but considering that Lima has above 8 million inhabitants and is the economic and cultural centre of Peru, I think it is safe to say that it is kind of significant. Although I am not allowed to give my voice, I am surrounded and affected by it every day. For once, every day on my way to uni I can admire the beautiful advertising posters. Every time I see them (which is a LOT) I am astonished by their beautiful and creative layout. NOT. This is where I notice the difference between Peruvian (or South-American) and European taste. Everything is way more aggressive for the eyes here: strong colors and many pictures. At times my eyes are so assaulted by what they see, I don’t even know where to look anymore. More than once I have thought: “Wow, this is so ugly”. I also can see this trend on the PPT-Slides here at uni. Much text, many pictures and bright colors. Sometimes I can only concentrate on the ugliness of the slides and the content completely goes unnoticed by me. Don’t get me wrong – I love these moments. It may be surprising, but I believe that it is a beautiful thing when I actually notice real differences between countries or cultures, because it has become quite rare. At times it is easy to forget that I am in Peru, because the lifestyle I witness here at uni and in my district are very Western and not that different from my lifestyle in Europe. So when I look at the ugly posters and slides (that’s only how I perceive them) and realize that Peruvians actually like them, I am always amazed and feel a rush of excitement, just because it is a real difference.

And there is another way I am affected by the elections. Next week is the official midterms-week. I had three exams scheduled for Monday, one exam for Thursday and my last one for Friday. However, yesterday the university realized that there are elections this Sunday (so one day before the midterms start) and that Friday is actually an official holiday. These events were known a long time in advance. Nevertheless uni only seemed to have realized yesterday that some students might not make it back to Lima in time for the exams if there are elections and that having exams on an official holiday is also not really convenient, so 5 days before the exams they changed the schedule to one week later. For most students it is not a big deal – for me it is. I have to change all of my travelling plans, but keeping in mind that I am still here for 4 months, I don’t really feel so bad about it. Quite the contrary, this is another moment in which I am just amazed. In Holland it would never happen that the university would change exam dates 5 days before the exams were supposed to start. Here it doesn’t seem to be a big deal – my Peruvian classmates are actually rather happy about this.

This weekend and the following week I will be busy with studying to master my midterms, but after that I will be off to new adventures.

Besos de Peru to wherever you are,

Katrin

"no entiendo...."

Buenas dias, chicos!

Sorry for running a little bit late, but there are just so many things to do, that it is at times a little difficult to keep up. Well, to start with the most dramatic change since my last post:

University has started. Yayyy! Fun times! Just kidding…I have never felt this overwhelmed before. Or to put it in a nicer way: This is the biggest challenged I ever faced in my life so far.

The university here is completely different from what I am used in Tilburg. In Tilburg I have a pretty relaxed life with little work during the semester, apart from some group work and case studies. Of course that also meant that I had to step up to my game before the exams started, but it was always manageable. It does not work like that here AT ALL. Although my level of Spanish is still horribly low, I can already identify my least favorite words: Trabajos grupales!!! In each of my classes (five to be exact) group plays an essential role, sometimes it counts up to 50% of the final grade. In Tilburg group work meant to me that it is enough to meet up once every few weeks to divide the tasks. Here it is not. We have to hand in case studies every week and give presentations on a regular basis, so on top of my classes I have up to five group meetings a week.

Group work here allows me to experience many of the cultural differences between Germany and Peru. It starts with the “Hora Peruana”. If there is a meeting scheduled at 10 o’clock, it is safe to say that showing up at 10.30 h is perfectly normal. You might even be the first person to arrive. In the beginning I found that a little bit irritating, but once I started adapting to this technique, I didn’t mind any more. Another difference I discovered is what I name “Peruvian inefficiency”. A meeting can last up to three hours, but in the end when you look at the results, it is startlingly poor.

Another big difference here: my schedule. On Tuesdays and Thursdays my first class starts at 7.30 am and my last class ends at 9.30 pm. So I have the pleasure to spend 14 hours at university. Fun times! On the other hand this also means that I only have one class on Mondays and Wednesdays, but if you count in the group works, I spend on average 10 hours at university every day. Sometimes even on Saturdays.

However, the biggest challenge of all here: my low level of Spanish. At times I am a little bit frustrated with Tilburg University for encouraging me to go to a Spanish-speaking country, while only offering us two poor Spanish classes, which did not prepare me at all for my life here. Of course I expected it to be hard, but reality is just insane. And it doesn’t really help that all other exchange students from different universities seem to have an advanced level. Of course the students and professors understand my situation, but nonetheless it always feels humiliating to sit in group meetings or classes and only be an extra.

One situation in the top-ten of my “I-have-never-ever-felt-this-stupid!”- list is when professors and students ask me: “Did/Do you understand everything?”. Quite often I don’t even have to answer, because it becomes clear that I didn’t even understand the question “Do you understand everything?”. But the positive thing…I am quite used to this situation by now and I don’t feel as humiliated as I did in the beginning.

Nevertheless, I love exchange. I realize that it might be hard to believe after this blog, but my life does not only consist of university here. During the week it does, but the weekends on the other hands are awesome. Great parties, travelling, Surfing and superb people. I am living a life of extremes here. But most of the times that is just how I like it. And as the days go by, I master one challenge after the other, I am pushed to my boundaries and at the end of the day when I come home from an exhausting day to meet all of my friends in my casa, I realize that this is the most interesting time of my life so far. So I can only encourage everyone to go on exchange and to be pushed to one’s own boundaries. It is worth all the tough times!!!

Besos,

Katrin

The adventure continues…

Hello everyone,

it’s been three weeks since I landed in Peru. A lot has happened during that time, I don’t even know where to start…

• The first week was harder than expected. Not understanding the language, not really knowing anyone and living in a completely chaotic (at least from my point of view) city made me realize that not everything is bright and shiny during the exchange.

• I went surfing for the first time ever. I bet there are a thousand nicer beaches to surf, but nevertheless, it was awesome. A bit cold though. No sunshine and frosty 15 °C. Can’t wait for the summer when it will get warmer and sunnier.
• I experienced the Peruvian Nightlife. My judgment: I like it a lot. One cool thing about the nightlife here: at most places it is quite cheap. I don’t have to think before every drink whether I can afford another one. And being a girl has quite a few advantages here. But the best thing about the Nightlife is that the Peruvians seem to be so much more open to dancing than I know it from Germany or Holland. If there is an opportunity to shake their hips, most Peruvians don’t have to think twice. Unfortunately my dancing looks quite poor compared to my dancing partners. I must have looked completely lost on the dance floor, with my arms dangling in the air like I was trying to wave someone over. Perhaps that was the reason why so many people wanted to dance with us “Europeans”.

• My Spanish improves slowly. It is still incredibly hard to have conversations, but at least my understanding improved a lot over the last three weeks thanks to my Spanish classes. I really like our Spanish course, since it teaches us exactly what we need: practice. We don’t waste too much time on grammar, but instead are forced to talk the whole time. With a group of five people (4 of us are from Tilburg) this works really well. I even enjoy giving Spanish presentations every day. Remembering my horrible, humiliating presentation at the end of my Spanish-2 class in Tilburg, I am really proud of my improvement.

• Orientation day. Whoooo! I got to meet my fellow exchange students. My verdict: It is too German and French. We are relative small group of about 60 exchange students and at least half of them are either German or French. Not really what I expected, but I am happy that at least in my house there are many other nationalities and the main language is Spanish.

• Universidad del Pacifico. Having witnessed the chaotic life in Lima for three weeks already, I was amazed by how different the university is: It didn’t seem chaotic at all. Everything was well organized, clean and really modern. They even use Blackboard here and seem to be really proud of that. There is nothing better than being positively surprised!

• La Comida Peruana is awesome and delicious. The food is incredible good. And with my lack of Spanish skills it is always a surprise what ends up on my plate. Last time it was antichuchos, which is beef heart. But someone only told me after dinner what I had eaten. I guess I will go for the guinea-pig next time, which is at least recognizable at first sight.

• Peru is a great country to discover. Since we had one week off, I used the chance to discover what Peru has to offer. I went to Ica with some friends in my house. Ica is located right in the desert. It was my first time in the desert and it was awesome. Sun, sand , Sand-Boarding and Pisco Sour. Happy times :)!

These were just a few thoughts of what happened during the last few weeks. After only four weeks I can see why students always talk about “having the time of their lives” while being on exchange.
As each day passes by, I discover so many exciting places and I have met awesome people so far. I will be travelling to the jungle for 5 days on Wednesday and after that my classes will start. I am excited and afraid at the same time…if I don’t manage to understand the menu in restaurants, how am I supposed to understand my teachers at uni?

Saludos de Lima to everyone. Enjoy your exchange everyone!!

First days in Lima

¡Hola Chicos y Chicas!

For everyone who doesn’t know me: My name is Katrin and I am going to spend the next six months in Lima, Perú to hopefully have the time of my life. So far, everything looks really promising for that to happen.

I arrived in Lima three days ago after a long journey from Frankfurt via Caracas to Lima. I already got a glimpse of what I could expect in Lima on the plane when I accidentally ordered a strong, alcoholic drink, because of my lack of Spanish skills. It was probably not such a good idea to just say “el mismo” (the same) and referring to the drink my neighbor ordered. However, these two words were the only words I could bring myself to say to the only spanish-speaking flight attendant. As it turned out, he had ordered a coke with rum, too bad that I had missed the part where he said “with rum”.

The next adventure happened at the Immigration desk. The Universidad del Pacifico advised me to get a visa before I entered Perú. I send all the required documents to my host university weeks before the deadline, so it shouldn’t have been a problem. But when it was time to contact the Peruvian embassy in Germany, I found out that they received none of my documents from the authorities in Lima. I was non-existent in their system. In general this is not a big problem, since tourists have the right to stay up to 183 days without a visa, but in my case it was another story. Basically the people working at the German embassy told me that I might not be let into the country. So you can imagine that I was quite nervous when I was waiting at the Immigration desk. However, no need to worry. Although the screen of the Immigration officer said in big, red, bold letters “requiere visa”, the officer just turned up the volume of his Peruvian music, ignored the screen and gave me the permission to stay for 183 days. I started loving Peru from that moment on.

I had already arranged my accommodation in Tilburg, so I didn’t have to worry about that here in Lima and could move in the same day that I arrived. I chose to live in an international student house with eight other young people. At first I thought that a drawback of living here would be that I wouldn’t be able to practice my Spanish, but as it turns out I don’t have to worry about that, since everyone is speaking Spanish here, except for me. The two courses we had to take at Tilburg University were in no way preparing me for my adventures here. However, I will start attending Spanish classes by the Universidad del Pacifico from the beginning of the next week, so hopefully I will catch up very soon.

I have had some time to discover some parts of Lima, especially the district of Miraflores, which is the touristy neighborhood here. Lima is just crazy. First of all Lima is covered in a cloud of smog all the time. It is just grey. No sun, but no rain either. It is just grey the whole time. And loud. Lima is incredibly busy, hundreds of taxis rushing by with drivers trying to get me to use them. I had a small city tour with two of my housemates yesterday and we took a bus…I don’t know if I will manage to ever take a bus alone. Crazy. Apparently there are no bus stops, but you just indicate where you want to get off. How to do that still remains a mystery for me. There are also no official bus routes, every bus goes somewhere else. You may wonder how to know which bus to take…well, if I will ever find an answer, I will tell you. Right now it is safer for me to just walk.

Tonight I will dive into the night life of Lima. Stay tuned…