Gringa in Peru Past Review

Academic rigor, intensity, resources, etc.

Difficulty level, especially within the Spanish course, was not as high as I would have liked to significantly improve my skills and knowledge of the subject area, but all other courses provided a great amount of useful, interesting, and advanced information. The field study course was also not entirely helpful and did not provide enough information for me, but I was one of the few students in the program with no field study experience.

On-site administration of your program

All three leaders of the program were Peruvian, and two were fluent in English as well, which allowed them to provide all the support necessary for our group.

How satisfied were you with your living arrangements?

Living with a host family was the most rewarding part of my entire experience abroad. I was able to live with two host families while in Peru, one in Cusco for the majority of the semester and one in Arequipa during my independent study, and I feel like I learned more in some ways from my families than from my courses. Our group also lived for one week in a village in the Peruvian Amazon and were able to become part of the community for a short time.

The food was delicious, although refrigerators are rarely used and I got parasites from the food twice. No raw vegetables should be eaten, and any raw fruit should be washed well. The water isn't safe to drink without being boiled for at least ten minutes first, and food should never be bought off the street because the vendors have no place to wash their hands.

How integrated did you feel with the local culture?

We were able to visit many museums and attend festivals, plays, and religious ceremonies. We spent one week at an ecolodge in the jungle, and traveled often throughout the semester to experience different parts of the country. One of the best experiences I had was our end of the semester visit to Machu Picchu, which was an amazing way to sum up all we had learned throughout the semester.

How well were health issues addressed during the program?

The program-provided health insurance was reimbursement only, and was very difficult to deal with, and only gave me a partial refund for my hospital expenses when I had parasites. The insurance provided by my home institution-HTH Worldwide, I believe-was much more useful the second time I had parasites. Overall I felt very safe throughout the semester and the healthcare, although not at the same level as the U.S., was completely satisfactory. I did have to get vaccinated for Hepatitis and take malaria-prevention medicine while I was there.

(1 = not very easy/$200+ on food & personal expenses/week, 2.5 = $100/week, 5 = very easily/minimal cost)

As stated above the language course itself wasn't extremely helpful, but encouragement from the instructors to speak Spanish most of the time and my immersion in the culture forced me to use and improve my Spanish greatly at a conversational level, although not as much at a grammatical level.

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