There are only five short days until I depart from the U.S. on my way to Peru along with a bunch of my classmates. Despite what you may be thinking from the title of this blog post, I do not speak Spanish. That was straight from Google translate. Though I learned Spanish throughout Lower and Middle School, I now take French, and have lost most of the ability to speak and understand Spanish over the years…I will be living with Maddie though, who is in Spanish 6, so I’m feeling pretty fortunate.

I have been at Westtown since first grade and have always heard about the amazing experiences that the seniors have over Senior Projects, and read many of their blog posts as an underclassman. Now it’s my time to discover a piece of Peru and share my stories, and possibly evoke some envy from those who are still in classes over these next few weeks…

Since November the Peru group has been meeting on Wednesday evenings in preparation for our departure. We’ve talked about many things including cultural differences, dressing in a way that is respectful of the local community, host family gifts, personality types, and even some very intimidating things like how to say “hello” in the local Quechua dialect: Napaykullayki (pronounced Nuh-pie-kuyaki). I’m hoping I can get away with “hola” most of the time, though I look forward to immersing myself in the culture and trying my best to learn the local language.

This past weekend I spent most of my time packing and reading up on the loads of information we were sent by the World Leadership School (the organization planning our visit). I spent over an hour at the drug store with my mother. I will be bringing my own pharmacy on the trip to prevent things like traveler’s diarrhea, altitude sickness, typhoid fever, motion sickness, bug bites, and all of the other horrifying diseases and side effects detailed in the trip literature.

If you ready Lindy’s post you know that our group will be participating in the “Unplugged Challenge” so we will likely not be able to blog over the trip, but I will be journaling and look forward to sharing my experiences with you all when we return, hopefully without any of the illnesses described above!

Thanks for reading!

¡Hasta luego!

Mary Beth