TBLI Round III: Almost One Year Later
“Hey Elliot, you’re Asian, right?” A coworker was asking the question. “Yeah,” I answered. “Okay, so would you say this name is a Mr. or a Mrs.?” She handed me an email and pointed at the signature. I looked. “Hmmm, sorry, I have no idea,” I answered. “Hmmmph, some Asian you are.” My coworker walked […]
TBLI Reflection III: Suspended Disbelief Beneath the Desert Sky
In Northern Peru, dogs can cure asthma. The proper proportions of pollen, aloe, and roasted herbs will cleanse the body of appendicitis, and a tonic made of cactus will show you the heart of the world. Nicola and I were sipping a juice made of melon and algarrobina in the port town of Paita while […]
TBLI Reflection II: Piura, Paita and Yacila
The region of Piura is unique to Peru in that it’s quite isolated; a province lopped off from the rest of the country by hundreds of kilometers of Secha desert. It took two taxis, one plane, and three buses to reach my destination, but two and a half days after leaving Lima, I finally arrived at […]
TBLI Reflection I: Exploring the Peruvian Identity
My first day in Lima, I woke up in a dustbowl. Far from the metropolitan district of Miraflores, Lima’s cultural hub most often seen by tourists, I’d found myself in the residential district of La Molina, in a third floor apartment halfway up a hill of crumbling shale. My driver Max, a Venezualan-Peruvian I’d met […]
The Bucket List Initiative, Round IV!
In Front of it All
I don’t think I’ve ever been told “No photos” so many times in one day. Then again I guess that’s to be expected when you’re on a military base in one of the most militarized areas in the world: the DMZ. But it’s a strange kind of base of troops with guns and tourists with […]