Anthropology Museum

This past week, our advanced Spanish class took a trip to an anthropology museum in Lima. It was so awesome to see all of the ancient pottery, jewelry, and everyday items used by the indigenous people of Peru. I studied Andean indigenous culture with the study abroad program I was with in Ecuador and every since then, I have had a bit of a fascination/passion for the indigenous culture. My heart aches thinking about how the Spaniards came to Latin America to pillage and rape all of the indigenous people and to turn those left alive into slaves, wanting to get rid of this “savage” culture and these “savage” people. And it was all in the name of “gold, god, and glory.” How lovely. I was so excited to be at the museum looking at all the ancient indigenous art and material remains, so content lost in the thoughts of the beautiful indigenous culture... And then I got to the section in the museum about the Spanish conquest and my heart dropped and I literally thought to myself “Oh yeah, and then the Spaniards came and tried to ruin it all.” This may be cynical thinking because of course I do enjoy the mainstream culture of Latin America that is known as “mestizo” which is considered to be the race of the majority of the people in Latin America and literally means mixed between indigenous and Spanish. But to me there is nothing like the beauty of the indigenous culture J

Here are some photos from the Anthropology museum:

A canoe as well as bow and arrows used by the indigenous people in the jungle

Dates that the Spaniards came over and "discovered" the Americas. Discovered is definitely not my word of choice.

When Lima was concurred. Just look at the expressions of the indigenous women and tell me that doesn't break your heart. 

Peru's version of the last supper...Jesus CLEARLY ate cuy at the last supper of course :) 

My language class outside of the museum

Something else exciting is that we have been having individual meetings with the Peace Corps staff about our site placements! Since Peru is such a climatically diverse country, we get to state our preference on the type of site we want. The two general options for site placements are either coast or the Sierra mountain range. Can you guess which region I have requested?...I want to be in the Sierra mountains! I do realize that this means I could be living in very cold weather depending on the altitude of the mountains that I am living in. But I really love the mountains, and furthermore, the indigenous communities tend to be in the Sierra Mountains and I really want to be living amongst an indigenous community because as I said, I have a bit of a fascination/passion for the culture of the indigenous people of the Americas. So, I have requested a site in the Sierra in an area that is Quechua (the most common indigenous language spoken amongst the indigenous people of Peru! speaking. This means that I get to learn some Quechua and I am so excited!!!  I am pretty much guaranteed my request because I am one of the only people in my group of 44 volunteers that is interested in learning some Quechua. Plus since I am one of the advanced Spanish speakers, they said that I can learn Quechua since I don’t have to focus on improving my Spanish so much. The large majority of the volunteers want to live on the coast where it is hot, close to the beaches, and where life is more modern. Only a small handful of us have requested the coast in a Quechua speaking region. Even if we are in a Quechua speaking region, Spanish will still be the primary language that we will use since Spanish is what is spoken in the schools. Quechua is a language that is dying out since kids speak Spanish at school. I am not planning on becoming fluent in Quechua, but I am really excited to learn a little bit to speak with some of the elders in the community. It really shows respect to the culture when you at least try to learn and speak in Quechua with the elders. I will post more about my site location as soon as I know!! I can’t wait to find out my exact site location!!! I won’t find out for another month so for now I just have to patiently wait as we are taught so well to do in the Peace Corps on so many occasions.