My Peruvian family

These photos are of the neighborhood and house that I am living in.  The park on the left is in the middle of the block.  The house on the right is where I live.  The houses surround the park and look out onto it.

This is Barena, our dog.  Conventions with dogs in Peru are different than in the U.S.  Dogs are not neutered and they do not have leashes or collars.  There are not any rules for them as far as I can tell.  There are many dogs that appear to be stray in the streets but it is possible that they have owners, I'm not sure, it is hard to tell.

My room is on the roof, or sort of.  The roof is the utility room it also has a room for me.  The roof space in a Peruvian house is an open-air space where all sorts of housework gets done.  I sort of have a roof patio outside my door, not bad huh?.  The above photo is taken from the patio looking into the park in the middle of the neighborhood

 The photo above is of Sebastian, my Peruvian brother.  He is in fourth year of secondary school.  This means he is a sophomore.  I think he is 15 years old.  We have hooked up the trailer with his "quatro moto" and we are going to the beach.  The trailer has no license plates or lights and he does not wear a helmet when he rides this thing.  There are some rules about driving such a thing on the road and the beach but he does not have to follow them.

 The above photo is taken with the first dog I have ever met that has the same name as me, Aaron.  This is pronounced "are-rone" with emphasis on the strong "o".  The dog is owned by my paternal grandmother.  We go to her house on Sundays for dinner.  Extended families are important here.  Grandparents are visited regularly.

The women in the above photo make up the household of the paternal grandmother.  She is wearing the green sweater.  Her sister, Conchito, sits next to her in a blue jacket.  The women standing next to me are housekeepers, Christina and Victoria.  If the seated women were standing they would be the same height as the other two.  As with everyone in my family, they are very welcoming and generous.  There are many jokes between these women.  

Here is the rest of the family.  Eliana and Antonio on the left and Sebastian on the right.  This is the kitchen in the grandmother's house.  Antonio, grew up in this house.  It is about a 25 minute walk from his house shown in the photos at the beginning of this blog.

Here are the two sisters.  They are wonderful people.  They cook lots of great food and love to watch us eat.

Here is another photo of my Peruvian parents.  Eliana is a school psychologist and her husband, Antonio is an opthamological surgeon.