School

Hola. Sorry Ive been absent, school has been keeping me extremely busy.  I have officially completed my first week of school, and my ability to speak Spanish has soared since then.  The first day was extremely embarrassing for me, I entered the school without any uniform and the entire school was assembled for La Formaccion.  Every person turned and stared at me, I felt holes burning through me.  After I was presented to my class and began making friends immediately, as the people are extremely nice.  Soon, I realized that when my AFS booklet told me school here is extremely strict, they were exaggerating.  The words I would employ to describe my school are small and noisy.  My entire grade is in one classroom, and there is shouting, bickering, and complaining.  I have found that no matter what comes out of the professor's mouth, everyone has to loudly contest it in their own way.  After my first day I watched X Men: First Class in Spanish with my brother, it was a great movie.  Tuesday was an extremely long day at school, a whole eight days of incomprehensible school.  That night my Mother, Brother, Robbert (AFS), and I went out to the Waka Waka hookha bar.  There we drank beer, chillaxed, danced salsa, and sang French songs in karaoke.  We had an absolutely beautiful waitress, so I bought her a beer, danced some salsa, and retrieved her number from her. :)  Dinner next Wednesday.  This Wednesday was horrible, after a long day of school I grabbed a bite to eat with Robbert at Atikos.  After, we returned to my house only to have me shuttled off to the AFS president in Piuras house and speak about troubles in school.  It ends up someone took it upon themselves to fabricate a story in which I a drug consumer and seller, and I carry a gun, and told it to the principle.  After, we spoke to the AFS president and everything was explained, she informed the principle that it was a fabrication and a misunderstanding and everything was fine.  The next night, I went with the professors from L'alliance Francaise to dinner for Jimmy's last night.  Despues de la cena, we returned to Rogers office and belted our hearts out to famous french songs...In particular Belle from Notre-Dame de Paris.  Continuing to have a wonderful time, although  its starting to add up money-wise. Main expense: taxis and food :((

Outtings - La fin De la Semana

Hello, Im back, I was out for a while as the internet is extremely temperamental.  On the 13th of September I was able to meet many new people, and started my transition towards being more independent in Piura.  My brother went off to his French class at 7, and I traveled alone in a taxi (now having my own set of keys to the house) and picked him up a 8:30.  We went and had a beer then I returned to the French school at 9:45 since I had been invited to a birthday dinner of one of the professors.  We walked to the Mega Ronda Cafe and had a bunch of classic Peruvian food based off of turkey.  We stayed very late, until we began receiving horrible looks from the proprietors, as we were the final customers left and were stopping them from going home.  After the dinner I proceeded to walk home with Roger, a French teacher and my AFS contact, it was a nice walk as I was able to speak to him about some of the problems I had been having with the family maid.....  The next day Gabo and I spent a few hours walking around Piura looking at the scenery and, most importantly, keeping our eyes out for the prices of houses, as the family plans to move in October.  When we arrived home a huge Peruvian meal was waiting for us, absolutely delicious!!  That night I was again going to go to the French class to pick Gabo up, instead I received another call at my house from the girls in the French class, saying they had ditched and wanted to hang out.  I agreed, and we all went to the mall, there we ate ice creams and played children's games. I had a wonderful time.  The next day Gabo didn't have school and we were supposed to play basketball with the girls from his school at the Universidad Nacional de Piura, unfortunately the gym was closed so we went back to the kids games.  It was so much fun I couldnt believe it, with the girls and Gabo we played games, took photos, and danced in public.   Still having        a great time. Starting school in two days :(...

The First Days

Hola. Back again :) My host brother Gabriel and I do pretty much everything together. Two days ago, we went walking around Piura and visited all the famous places, the main Plaza, the Cathedral, etc.

After walking for hours we went to the local fast food restaurant Bembos, and ate a hamburger.  The hamburgers in Peru are in a whole different class of foods then the ones in America, there prepared in a totally different way and all of them have mass quantities of mayo on them.   Despues, we returned home for the siesta of the day, that night we had a wonderful dinner and watched a horror movie with the family.  Slowly the entire family left because they were frightened and only Gabo and I were left to watch it.  I will go down in the records to say that "The Collector" is one of the worst movies I have ever seen in my life, but I was watching it in Peru so that made it good.  The next day, Gabo and I went to the market, unfortunately I was unable to take pictures of it because its very dangerous to have anything of value in the market.  If you wanna picture it think of the souks in Morocco (family :) ) everywhere I turned there were vegetables, fruits, chickens, and many completely unrecognizable substances.   We bought a chicken and I looked away as the cute little fella was decimated on a table.  We ended up only getting half of the things we were sent there for, because we ended up being lost in the market for a better part of the hour.  Then we returned home, and wen to Alberto's school to pick him up.  I love Alberto, but I always feel bad because he wants to talk to me alot and I never understand a word of what he says.  I find myself saying, "No me entiendo Albert, " but I'm sure he understands.  after the daily siesta, I went with Gabo to his French class, it was in a building called L'alliance Francaise.  There I helped his class with pronunciation of French words, and helped them prepare for an oral exam.  Despues de la clase, Gabo, Cattia (one of his friends), and I went to a bar.  After two pitchers of beer Cattia went home and Gabo and I went to another bar.  Here we had another pitcher of beer and two bottles of dark Cusquena.  Soon Gabo and I were singing and dancing to the music, I am thoroughly in love with latin music.  Overall we had a wonderful night, and quietly snuck in to the house at 2am feeling mischievous.    I am having a wonderful wonderful time and love my family sooooo much.  Writing from Piura, will update soon. Ciaooo, see you all soon.         Pour ma famille : Gros bis a tous. :)

Arrival

Hola. My name is Cedric Dageville and I am spending a year abroad in Piura, Peru with AFS.  I arrived in Lima on the 9th of September around 6am.  From there we took a 3 hour drive to a hotel on the outskirts of Lima for our in country orientation.  There were around sixty other students who are going to study in Peru, around forty of them were from Belgium!  I spent two days (one night) at the hotel, spending the two most culturally diverse days of my life.  Everywhere I turned a different language was being spoken ie. Flemish, Icelandic, German, Italian, etc.  Tambien, these past days in Peru have helped me change my eating habits compared to my American ones, in other words I actually eat vegetables now.  On the second day around 4 o'clock everyone said their goodbyes and began embarking buses to their host cities. Eight students (including myself) were going to Piura, a 15 hr bus ride :(

The bus ended up not being to bad and our group arrived in Piura at 8am this morning.  Gabo (hermano) and Alejandra (hermana) were at the bus station to pick me up.  We went to the apartment where I began unpacking, although to my surprise, before I had finished a house maid (Charro) appeared and did everything for me.  After taking a nice cold shower (no hot water anywhere) we went to a restaurant where there was a family party put on by my little sisters school.  There we had lunch, and talked over a few cervecas as the children played.  We returned a while after por la siesta :)  We then ate dinner, a thick thick corn stew with a deep purple color, it was extremely filling.  After watching a movie I am writing this blog in preperation for sleep.  I begin school in five day and am already in love with Peru.  Adios todos.