Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Tres Leches

Sorry to burst your bubble, but nothing exciting happened on the micro this morning, however, my classes were a little more interesting today compared to Monday.  In Peruvian Social Reality we took a little time to discuss our cemetery field trip yesterday.  A lot of us had mixed feelings by being there considering we aren't part of the culture.  This was a similar feeling that Mark, Tonisha, and I had going to the Señor de los Milagros procession, too.  Our professor explained to us though that we're not tourists, we're students who are learning about the culture.  It's not like we're only here for a few days to do tourist-y things, we've been here for months now.  That made us feel a little better, but it was still weird, but at the same time I feel that some of the Peruvians yesterday enjoyed our presence there.  Actually, as we were leaving yesterday, one older man actually said, "Thank you for your visit."  It was nice and made me feel a little better.  Also, we talked a little bit about poverty in Peru and more about the informal jobs that are present in Peru.

In Living and Learning today we discussed the Intercultural Development Continuum which was adapted by Mick Vande Berg from Milton Bennett, Janet Bennett, and Mitch Hammer.  This continuum "describes how people can develop over time, as their views of difference (and similarity) grow increasingly richer and more complex."  There are five different world views along this continuum.  They include denial, polarization, minimization, acceptance, and adaptation.  Just for fun I'll explain each briefly.  If you want to skip this part I won't blame you.  Anyway, denial is when a person has the view that cultures are highly similar and are very low in differences.  Polarization is when a person goes to one extreme or the other (they see all differences or all similarities).  Minimization is when a person sees many similarities in cultures, however, they can also recognize the differences.  Acceptance is seeing a high amount of cultural differences as well as similarities.  We took a short quiz to figure out where we fall on the continuum and I'd say that I fall somewhere in the acceptance zone.  The last one, adaptation, is very similar to acceptance, but rather than just accepting the culture, you are also adapting with it.  We had a huge discussion concerning the adaptation world view and whether it was a positive or negative thing.  It was a pretty interesting discussion actually.

Anyway, then I ate lunch (lomo saltado..yum) and had Spanish Writing Workshop.  Like I said in Monday's blog we worked on subjuntive again.  It's pretty complex and confusing so I'm glad that we keep going over it. :)  Then, of course, I had Ethnography.  We talked about gender differences in the Amazon today.  It was a good day in that class.  I had already learned some of the stuff from the book I read, but it was a good refresher.  Also, I have a paper due in about two weeks concerning gender roles in the Amazon and I'm actually excited to learn more about it and write about it. :)

Once I got home, I did some homework and ate dinner and then joined Tonisha and Mark at Café Z.  It was a good time as always.  Frozen de fresa ..yum!  And this time I finally decided to try the tres leches here.  I've been avoiding trying it here in Perú because I had it in Costa Rica and it's sooo delicious there so I was afraid that it wouldn't meet my standards, but the piece I had tonight was pretty good.  I'd still say the tres leches from Spoon in Costa Rica is better, but I would get it again here.  Haha, I feel like such a food critic..trust me, I'm not.  I think I have the same attitude about food as I do movies.  I like most of it! :)  Anyway, I hope you had an amazing miércoles (Wednesday) and a good night.  Dulces sueños.

1 comment:

  1. Yummmmmm!!! I've only had the tres leches once when we made it but if it can get better, then that's a whole new level of delicious that I have never even experienced! Logan

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