I have been in Arequipa for just over a week now.

It is a very beautiful and very typical Latin American city. By that I mean that some parts are very attractive and others, not so much. The traffic is terrible, the drivers are certifiably insane, the people are very friendly, the food is DELICOUS, the pollution is bad, the population is proud of its home region, and there is always a lot going on.

This is a picture of El Misti, the huge volcano that literally looms right over the city. Locals are quick to point out that in the past, it was always snow-capped, but in recent years, with the "cambio climatico", that has now changed. Occasionally it will get some snow, although it is infrequent (and the snow never reaches the city.) You can see from the picture that the scenery is beautiful, although the smog is always present, to varying degrees.

I am living with Lucy and her husband, Alberto. They are a very nice couple and have one son, Luis Alberto, who is in college in Lima. Lucy runs a language institute here in Arequipa (actually located on the second floor just above her home) and Alberto is an economist, who is involved in various development and microfinance projects, and also teaches graduate courses at one of the universities in the city. They have a live-in cook/maid named Marcela, who has been with them for about 12 years and makes amazing food.

My daily schedule has been something like this: I get up and have breakfast, then go to a clinic where I am "volunteering" (mostly just observing, and feeling confused.) This has been a mixed experience so far, but I have definitely seen some interesting things. I get to and from the clinic by public transportation, which is an adventure all its own (I will write more about this later.) I come home for lunch between 1 and 1:30. This is the big meal of the day here, and it is always at least two courses and really good. Then I have time for a quick nap or some emailing or some homework before my Spanish classes in the afternoon. I have one-on-one classes that have been somewhat focused on health and medical issues, although we are still working our way through a much-needed grammar review for me. After this, I usually read until dinner, which is normally a very low-key event, and the nightly telenovela that we all watch while we munch on bread rolls with cheese and tea or something similar. I have picked up the plotline and finally know who (most of) the characters are and the convoluted way they are all related to each other, and I am starting to get really into it.

Speaking of Spanish language television, if you have ever noticed that it is rather cheesy and the acting is rather bad, particularly so in commercials, and wondered why, I can tell you. It is because they will take anyone off the street. Literally.

My second or third night here, a casting agency called, having found Lucy in the yellow pages by looking up Spanish schools in Arequipa. They were looking for foreigners to act as a group of tourists in a commercial for a Chilean pharmacy, InkaFarma, and they wondered if she had any students currently? Lucy and Sandra, my teacher, were very excited about this possibility and so they invited the woman in charge of casting right over to the house (they made me change my t-shirt and put on a little makeup first.) Anyway, they ended up casting me in this commercial, and I spent most of Saturday filming. I think the point of the commercial was to depict a tourist group seeing the sites of Arequipa with a guide, and the guide ends up taking a couple of them to InkaFarma to cure their ills.

This is the church in the plaza of Yanahuara, a nice area of Arequipa with many picturesque nooks and a great (smoggy) overlook of the city. We started early, so there weren´t too many people out yet.

This was the film crew. The director is on the right, in the grey shirt and hat. He spoke a little English, so that when he tried to repeat his Spanish directions in English for the one person who needed it, it always came out sounding a little funny, but he got the point across. In any case, he did not seem too concerned with the quality of our "acting."

This was our "guide" for our scenic tour of Arequipa.

The "tourist" group. Of the eight of us, two were American, one British (the one that didn´t speak a word of Spanish), one was from Barcelona but has lived in Arequipa for 30 years, one was Chilean and the other three were Arequipeños. I guess we all looked white enough to be foreigners, or something.

InkaFarma. The few Arequipeños whose opinions I have on the matter agree that they would never shop there because it is a Chilean company, but that they have the lowest prices around.

The commercial is due out in two or three months, and my homestay family has assured me that they will either record it and send it to me, or just post it on YouTube.