So, it turns out I suck at blogging. I was looking at my first post and realized it had been over a month since my last post! With that being said, time is flying by sooooo fast! February 5th marked 1 month down! Now it’s almost the end of February meaning I’m almost half way through my study abroad. This past month sure has been an adventure. Especially with testing my patience (but we will get to that in a second).
Everything is going great with Spanish classes and my internship! Everyday is super chill in Spanish class. There are three Spanish books in the school: basic, intermediate, and advanced. Cara and I are pretty advanced, so we are already half way through the last book. Since there are still 2 months left of class, we usually just share stories with each other and don’t focus as much on grammar. Both of us have a pretty good foundation of the grammar, we both just need to practice gaining fluency at this point. My teacher is amazing and is constantly making Cara and me laugh. She tells us all sorts of stories about the Inca culture, traditional medicine, past students, people in the countryside, etc. She also is a matchmaker. Every day she asks us if we have found the love of our life in Cusco yet (just for clarification, I have not… yet.)
My internship is great! The people I work with are really what makes it great. We’re a really close staff and are constantly joking around with each other. Now that I have been working with them for a little over a month now, I have pretty good idea of what my purpose is there. Right now I’m helping Ben, the director of the English program, with a couple long-term projects. We’re getting ready to launch an after-school program at a school that we are partnered with next month. I’ve been helping with the marketing materials for that. In the past, the English program has had partnerships in place with businesses in the area where we go and teach their employees specific English that helps them communicate with tourists. For example, we had a partnership with Peru Rail, a train company in Peru. Our teachers would ride the train with the employees and teach them English on-site as they are helping the customers. Therefore, I’m working on re-launching that program by doing research with different companies in the area that we could teach English to. With the number of tourists who visit Cusco, English is in high demand. The other bigger project I’m working on is developing a good way to evaluate students in their speaking abilities. Proyecto Perú Inglés promotes itself as the most flexible English school in Cusco. We teach our students the English they want to know. Therefore, each class is very personalized to the student. We still go over grammatical terms (when necessary), but for the most part most of the class is targeted toward content vocabulary in the student’s workplace. Because of this, it’s sometimes difficult to evaluate the student’s progress and give the student a sense that they are improving. We are hoping once we have a good speaking evaluation in place, we will be able to properly evaluate our students and possibly help our retention numbers. The last thing I help with is Conversation Café that is held every Thursday night at this café. It’s a chance for local people to come and practice English with us for two hours in a comfortable setting. It’s really fun! I get to meet tons of locals and learn all about Cusco.
Aside from administration work, I also started teaching two of my own classes! One of my students is a tour guide and the other is working towards becoming a tour guide. Both are super nice and are super fun to talk to! They have taught me so much about the Inca’s history and recommended so many amazing places to visit in Peru. The one student also went out of his way to type me up a full itinerary for a hike. Most of the time in class we go over advice to give tourists, “rehearse” different stories, and go over content vocabulary.
As mentioned at the beginning, this month has really been an adventure that has been constantly testing my patience. After the first week of being here, I started having some stomach issues. I assumed it was just me needing to get used to the food. 3 weeks later when I was still having stomach issues I decided I might need to go get checked out at the clinic. When I got to the clinic I quickly found out that my travelers insurance wasn’t accepted there which was very disappointing. I gave them my regular insurance and they said they would ask if it was accepted. I went and had a consultation and the doctor told me they would have to run some tests to find out what was wrong. I asked the front desk how much the tests would be, and they told me they would be about S/250 ($80). I figured $80 was worth it. I finished the tests and was waiting for my results when the front desk lady came in and said, “Your insurance is going to cover everything!” I looked at her slightly confused because my health insurance barely covers anything in the United States, but I was pleased. 5 minutes later, she came back and said, “So actually they are going to cover everything minus $250.” I was so frustrated. I told her that she had told me soles and that’s why I had agreed to the tests. At this point, I still hadn’t received my debit card and didn’t have $250 to pay. I explained that to her and she told me to just fill out the insurance forms and then I could pay later. 10 minutes later, I got my results and found out that I had an intestinal infection from a parasite. I sat on the hospital bed feeling pretty down not knowing how I was going to pay for the bill, hoping that I could get rid of the parasite, and praying that my debit card got here soon. They sent me home with 4 different pills to take throughout the day.
Once I got home I told my host family about the bill and they were shocked at how expensive it was. I then asked my co-workers about the cost and they too were shocked at how expensive it was. I forgot to mention that the clinic never actually gave me a bill when I left because “the lady who prints the bills wasn’t there”. I went back to the clinic to try and get the bill and again “the lady who prints the bills wasn’t there.” I began arguing with them about my charges and didn’t understand why there were so high when I only had two tests done! I then told them I was going to talk to the people at Proyecto Peru and that they could possibly help me out. The lady then left and returned 5 minutes later and told me I didn’t have to pay anything more, I just needed to fill out the insurance forms. Super shady. During that week the prices changed daily. Here are the prices I was given from start to finish $80 --> $250 + insurance bill --> $225 (10% discount given) + insurance bill --> $125 (50% discount given) + insurance bill --> $0 + just need to fill out the insurance forms --> $36. In the end I ended up not filling out the insurance forms because they refused to tell me what my total cost was. I’m thankful I did because I it was a lot cheaper!
I finished my antibiotics about two weeks ago, and my symptoms had lessened but I was still experiencing them. Therefore, I just assumed that I needed to do another round of antibiotics. I went to a pharmacy and explained that I had a parasite and was wondering if I could a refill on the medication I was given. She looked at me and said, “None of this medication is for a parasite.”
In the meantime between the clinic fiasco and the pharmacy telling me that the medication I had been taking wasn’t even for a parasite, I was bit by a dog, the MacBook my work sent me with all of a sudden stopped working, and my crown on my tooth fell off so I had to go to the dentist to get it back it on. Like I said, it’s been an adventurous month. I don’t know if this was caused by me accidently walking under the bell tower on campus that one time or if the universe is just trying to see how much they can throw at me before I run back to the United States, but I can tell you that I’ve not let it get me down. I’M IN PERU LIVING MY DREAM OF STUDYING ABROAD! How boring would it be if this stuff were happening to me in the United States??
I’ve been also doing some pretty fun things with my family, new roommates, and friends! I’m going to save those for a special post. I hope you enjoyed the update! Sorry it took me so long to write. I hope to stay on top of it more in the next coming weeks.
¡Tengas un buen día!
Alex
"We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated." - Maya Angelou
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