Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Enredados

So, we didn't have Peruvian Social Reality because obviously my professor is still staying with his son in the hospital, but his son is recovering from what I've heard so that's great.  But, I hope that you keep praying. :)  Anyway, since we didn't have that class, I started out my day in Living and Learning.  In Living and Learning we worked on critical incidents.  Critical incidents are essentially cultural misunderstandings that have happened throughout the semester.  It was actually a pretty cool activity.  We each got to share our critical incident and then we had to break them down and see the situation from both perspectives in order to better understand the Peruvian culture.

In Spanish today, of course, we did more subjunctive and we also started making an outline for our final papers.  We've (Tonisha and I) finally figured out what our paper is going to be on.  We are going to discuss the history of Afro-Peruvians in Peru (slavery, discrimination, etc) and then we're going to explain how their culture (music/dance) has become a part of Peru's national identity even though they have been discriminated against.  It should be pretty interesting to research, however, we're running out of time!  I'm done with classes in two weeks!  That's crazy!  I can't believe it!!

Anyway, next on my class list was Ethnography.  We talked about Shamanism and Ayahuasca today.  I think I've already told you about these, but I'll remind you that Shamanism refers to a group of beliefs and practices that deal with the communication between the human and spiritual world (Thank you Wikipedia). :)  Anyway, Ayahuasca is a hallucinogenic drug that is used in Shamanism and also for religious purposes in the Amazon.  We also turned in our third papers and we will be starting our last ones next week.  They are going to be on myths and rituals in the Amazon from the books that we read earlier in the semester.  It should be fairly easy and I'm sure I will end up writing about Shamanism.

I'm sorry, but nothing exciting happened on the micro today except for sitting in the passenger seat.  And tonight...well I watched the movie Enredados (Tangled).  Yep, it's a Disney movie and yes it was amazing, like all Disney movies! :)  Anyway, my host mom won't be here until Sunday.  She's on some sort of retreat, so it's just me and the empleada this weekend.  I'm planning a huge party...just kidding!  I have nothing planned for the weekend, except I am going surfing!  I'm quite scared, but it should be a blast, but I'm not looking forward to the salt water or falling several times, but I'm still excited.

Anyway, I hope you all had wonderful days and nights!  I will talk to you tomorrow! :)

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