Today was the second day of classes at El Sol. Our lesson today for the grammar class was continuing with the subjunctive using needs, desires and wants. The class was very informative and Andres did an activity where one student would describe a picture and then another student will say what they think the subjects are saying. Then after both students went he reveals how the conversation would have gone in the in subjunctive. I learned a lot more words today too using Andres' technique. For example I learned the prestado means loans for college and the best part was that I used the word later in the day while talking to my host brother Alvaro about how his college works here in Peru. For conversation class we talked about giving advice to others. We did an activity pretending that we were writing to a magazine for help and then someone had to be the advice column writer and give advice for problems such as trying to avoid stress or trying to learn Spanish. Again this class was challenging but I fell it getting easier everyday as I continue to immerse myself in the language. I can see the combination of the immersion and the classes greatly increasing my speaking and language abilities as a whole. I also am really enjoying the culture classes at the school. Today we learned about the PreIncan cultures, Caral and Chavin. Caral, we found out is the third oldest city in the world dating back to 2900 BC. Caral was a sacred site that many different peoples traveled to from far away to see. In a way it united some of the tribes at the time. After Caral we learned about the CHavin who appeared in 1400 BC and they were famous for the stone monoliths and clay pottery. I specifically enjoyed learning about the La Estela Raimondi. La Estela Raimondi is a beautiful piece of stonework with an pictogram of a man with many animal features such as a snake belt and jaguar teeth. La Estela Raimondi is a large stone tablet and Romeo told us that the chileans tried to use the carved side as atable at first bu then flipped the beautiful art over because the other side was flat and a much better surface. The best part of learning about that today was that only a few hours later I got to see La Estela Raimondi in person at El Museo Nacional de Arquelogia y Anthropologia y historia del Peru.
At the museum too I really enjoyed learning about the burial rituals at Cerro Colorado and the Necropolis. The "mummies" that they found were all wrapped in bundles of cloth depending on who they were in their past life. The guide showed a diagram of one and made a joke saying that whoever was the person in the diagram much have been really important because they had 16 wrappings and usually they had no more than three and sometimes less if you're less important. The tour then continued through the history of Peru up to colonial times when the museum was actually Simon Bolivar's house and before him Jose San Martin's. The tour was extremely informative and the guide Julio as very fun. I'm excited for tomorrow as my host mother said Historic Lima is extremely beautiful and that city hall is built on destroyed ruins. Como chevere!
No comments:
Post a Comment