One of the most stressful activities we can face in life is moving home. No matter how many times you do it, it is a difficult situation. And it is even more so, obviously, when you move to a different culture and language.
Whether this is your first move abroad or the tenth foreign posting in your career, the secret is the same everywhere: relax, be flexible, hang loose.
Above all, approach Lima with a sense of adventure and a sense of humour.
When you find yourself faced with attitudes, opinions or even values that appear to be diametrically opposed to yours, remember: different country, different history, therefore different customs and perspectives.
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One’s destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things – Henry Miller
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Lima may be part of the Third or Developing World but that by no means makes it third rate. As a Spanish city, Lima has been around for 470 years: San Marcos University is over 450 years old and the oldest seat of learning in the Americas (yes, older than Harvard), the Acho bullring is the oldest in the hemisphere, and the port of Callao could tell more than a few dark tales about Francis Drake and other pirates of his day. Lima also has a very rich legacy in the arts, both pre-Hispanic and colonial as well as contemporary.
And that is just looking at the most recent 500 years.
Lima was inhabited as early as 100 B.C. and the Rimac valley was a thriving farming community long before Francisco Pizarro reached these shores. The cultural memory of Peru as a whole dates back at least 5000 years, and the ruins of Caral, north of Lima, inhabited between 2900 BC and 1600 BC, are the remains of the oldest city discovered so far anywhere in the Americas. Pachacamac, just south of Lima, was one of the coast’s main oracles even during the Inca empire.
Of course, there are many things that will try your patience in modern Lima: the anarchic driving, the casual disregard for punctuality, the usually broken promises of delivering the goods mañana, the bureaucratic labyrinths, the corruption that this breeds, and the inequalities and stark contrasts between rich and poor.
But Lima is a great city for many reasons: the pace of life is pleasant; Limeños are friendly, hospitable, and they know how to enjoy themselves; the city offers an active, varied and sophisticated social and cultural life; you’ll get a chance to meet people of probably more nationalities and walks of life and careers than you would anywhere else; and Peruvian cuisine ranks with French, Chinese and Indonesian as the best in the world.
Enjoy! ¡Provecho! Bon appetit!
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