Sharing experiences from Peru...

Here is a picture of the street outside Leo's house in Lima. I took the picture from the window of the bedroom I stayed in. Notice that the houses are right on the street with little or no front yard.

This bust of JFK is in a park in Miraflores, a subdivision of Lima. I thought it showed how worldwide his popularity was and I thought it was interesting how the facial features seemed to look Peruvian.

My trip to Peru was a trip of dreams! My first impressions were that here in the United States we take for granted so many things. We do not appreciate how fortunate we are and we are arrogant about the fact that we are "Americans". First of all, I better not ever run for public office because I will be accused of being "unpatriotic", but when you visit a country that has so little, but yet they are happy and proud of their heritage, you (at least I) come away with a renewed awareness that we are just one little aspect in the whole scheme of things. I believe that travel abroad does wonders to broaden your horizons and help you to realize the importance of diplomacy and how "pushing our weight around" in world affairs does little to make us "loved" in the world. Everywhere we went Peruvians asked us about Obama. They were excited about his election - one woman even told me "the world rejoiced the day Obama was elected." They liked to be asked about their president, too. Since I listen to NPR, I knew about Fujimora, but couldn't have named the current president. However, on a bus trip traveling south out of Lima, "Fujimora" and "Alan" were painted on fences and sides of buildings. Alan Garcia is the current president and Peruvians are pretty passionate about their opinions of his presidency. The lady who made the comment about Obama said that people in Lima like Garcia, but people in the provinces like Fujimora, who is now in prison. Grant said his friends from Lima liked Garcia. I asked a taxi driver who had asked us about Obama what he thought of his presdient and he really went off (all in Spanish, so I only caught bits and pieces) saying that he was a liar (Grant told me that) and that he had a son by another woman (I caught that). Anyway, I have to say that I was proud to say that Obama would be our president and excited to see that people around the world are feeling better about the United States.