A street mural in Barranco, Lima.

A Media Menu for Getting to Know Peru

No readings or listenings can prepare you for what it’s like to be immersed in a new context and culture, but it sure is helpful to have some kind of prior knowledge or context for when you first arrive. To that end, our first week will be spent getting oriented with our university partner. However, you can still ready yourself ahead of time. Below are some of my top recommendations for getting to know the culture, history, and daily life of Peru.

Peru Today

• Read through the Peru CultureGram, which offers all sorts of information about local culture.
• Contemporary Peru, like the rest of the Americas, is full of contradictions and inequalities. Indeed, most coverage for tourists focuses on the upscale side of Lima and Cusco, even when talking about “budget travel.” What travelers typically don’t pay attention to are the context of corruption and inequality.

Food

• Peru is world-renowned for its food, with Lima widely hailed as the world’s best dining destination.
• Prepare your taste buds with this photo guide to the country’s most famous dishes—or its most famous drinks (Inka Cola, anyone?).
• If you’re traveling with a dietary restriction, it can be helpful to prepare yourself ahead of time, such as with these guides to traveling gluten-free and traveling as a vegan in Peru.

History

• Before Europeans invaded, Peru was the Incan Empire. The National Museum of the American Indian has a beautiful exhibit, “The Great Inka Road,” that can provide background understanding of the scale and brilliance of this empire.
• Peru is often seen by outsiders as a monolithic mestizo culture, but it is far from that due to continued migration. Peru has large Chinese, Japanese, and Afro-Peruvian communities, for example.
• We will undoubtedly hear a lot of people talk about el senderoso luminoso, the Shining Path, a terrorist group from the late twentieth century. To understand this recent historical context, I recommend reading Vargas Llosa’s Death in the Andes, listening to the Radio Ambulante episode on the Shining Path (if you understand Spanish), and visiting the website for the Lugar de la Memoria, la Tolerancia, y la Inclusión Social, a museum in Lima devoted to remembering and reconciling these years.

Culture

• You’ve got to get ready for Peruvian music. Do you know chicha, a kind of psychedelic cumbia? One of my favorite albums is Cumbia Chichadelica.
• Are you a lover of literature? Then you should definitely add works by Peruvian Nobel Prize winner Mario Vargas Llosa to your “must read” list.
• Those in the know swear that Peru is at the heart of global surf culture—after all, it’s one of the world’s best surf spots!

And Then There’s Spanish

Whether you’re ready or not, you’re going to be immersed in Spanish. We’ve designed the program so that even those who don’t speak any Spanish can make meaning out of what they’re experiencing, but let’s be honest: the more Spanish you know ahead of time, the better your month will be. Here are some ways to brush up—or get learning:

• Are you starting from scratch? Or is your Spanish so rusty and so high school textbook that it’s basically like you’re starting from scratch? Then I recommend the free app, Duolingo, or the paid app, Babbel. While I think that Babbel gets more advanced more quickly, Duolingo is free and you can compete with friends.
• Coffee Break Spanish is a series of short (<15 minutes) podcasts introducing grammar and vocabulary from Spanish. It’s taught by two Scottish folks, so that accent is entertaining to an American ear, but it’s a powerful (and quick!) way to gain basic Spanish knowledge. Beginners should start at the beginning of the series, and more advanced learners can start later, depending on each episode’s description.
• A lot of students who’ve taken Spanish in school feel that where they are really lacking is listening comprehension. The News in Slow Spanish is a good way to scaffold your own listening comprehension. For those with more advanced vocabulary, I recommend Radio Ambulante, which is kind of like a cross between This American Life and a news story, but in Spanish.
• If you feel like you want to speak some Spanish before you leave, then I recommend attending one of the remaining Café con Leche sessions sponsored by the Office for Intercultural Engagement. It’s a mix of students, staff, and faculty, at all levels—from just starting out to native speakers.