Shaking things up in Lima, Peru

I think there’s a Miley Cyrus song that goes something like this “Hopped off the plane at Limaaaa. Got my Peru Crew Sweatshirt and Deuter Bag. Welcome to the land of Ceviche and Surprise Earthquakes…WOAH. Am I gonna make it down the stairs?”

That’s right folks so this morning went something like this.

11:00pm- Acquiring of Peru Crew T-shirts (thank you Juan and Maribel!!!), Bonding, and leaving Miami (bonus points, got moved to Emergency Exit Row….God Bless for Leg Room)

4:10 am – Arrival in Lima, Peru

6:10am- Cleared of Customs (sad news was no stamp…yet! I am getting excited for my first ink on the new passport)

8:10am- Cute little vintage bus pulls up the mountainous hills into Miraflores, Peru and breaks down for a minute. I hold my breath until we start moving again…and we did. Blessings…nothing is gonna break our stride yet!

9:10am- Arrive at hotel, greeted by Corvettes, kindness, and a beautiful bed that has my name on it.

11:10am- Start stirring and getting ready for the day when Miraflores started singing….”shake, shake, shake”… “shake, shake, shake”…the earth is SHAKING! -KC & The Sunshine Band (+Sarah rendition)

I was sitting at my desk working on my laptop when I thought for half a second “Huh? Weird? I didn’t feel the underground train before”. And then it was the ‘Oh Snap!’ moment as I realized, this is an earthquake and my Jersey self was truly showing. Soon after, Disha and I found each other and the stairwell and made our way downstairs only to try all the wrong doors until we found our way outside where the rest of the city seemed to be waiting.

After our Earthquake fun, we had a lovely lunch at the hotel, walked off the pork and rice lunch by heading to the beach where we saw a slew of dog fashion, cute little cat houses everywhere, and paragliders.

After that we had a great morning session with Violeta where she talked to us about Peru’s educational system. Some things I discovered were:

Uniforms are optional in public schools; however they are often worn
School year is from March-December
English is mandatory in Secondary Schools
There are three levels of schooling in Peru:
- Initial (Ages 3-5)- 25 hours a week
- Primary (Ages 6-11)- 30 hours a week
- Secondary (Ages 12-16/17)- 35 hours a week
Class Sizes are 35: 1 (in a city), 15-20:1 (in rural settings)
Government spends $1,450 by government per student
Drop out rate among Migrant students is a problem (Venezuela is a common country students immigrate from)
There are four types of schools in Peru:
- Public (Ministry of Education managed- religion is taught apart of the national curriculum)
- Private (fees are involved)
- Parochial (Catholic schools that are government funded)
- Specialized Public Schools (inclusion classrooms, tech, vocational…etc)

Some questions I wanted to know more about included supporting immigrant students in Peru, what differentiation for special education students looks like, and how teachers motivate their students to learn a second language (whether Spanish, English, or an indigenous language). After a day with weary eyes and open minds, we headed to a great dinner that was attached to an archaeological site, Huaca Pucllana! It was a truly amazing site and awe-inspiring to be in front of the pyramid-like structure in real life thinking about the masonry work involved. Overall it was a fantastic end to the day enjoying Sin Gas water, talking amongst friends, and walking around double checking that the plants were real! Ha!