{"id":4365,"date":"2022-10-31T15:09:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-31T19:09:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/?p=4365"},"modified":"2022-10-31T15:09:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-31T19:09:24","slug":"peru-the-fog-of-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/2022\/10\/31\/peru-the-fog-of-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Peru: The Fog of Winter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garua!<\/span><\/p>\n

Living in the Southern Hemisphere at the end of October means that we are transitioning into Spring!\u00a0 Warm sunny days are slowly replacing the dense fog and humid cold of the city.\u00a0 Most of our group is used to American winters.\u00a0 We know what to expect and how to dress for the dry cold.\u00a0 We rely on central heating to take the edge off.<\/span><\/p>\n

Winter in Lima requires that we take a <\/span>Lime\u00f1a <\/span>approach.\u00a0 Extra blankets, layers and warm drinks have become the norm for most of us.\u00a0 Small electric heaters are cheap and easy to find, but the electrical costs are prohibitive.\u00a0 A family of four will spend $200 a month on electricity.\u00a0 When a typical lunch costs around $3, spending double that on electricity per day is a lot.\u00a0 Adding a small heater to your bill won\u2019t go unnoticed. \u00a0 While daytime temperatures are mostly fine, sunset freezes the air and our bodies.\u00a0 On the coldest days, a dense fog hangs over the city all day.\u00a0 <\/span>Everybody talks about how London is foggy, wet and cold.\u00a0 Lima gets 300 hours less sun than London annually with only about an hour of sunshine daily in winter!<\/span><\/p>\n

Garua!\u00a0 It sounds like a swear word, and maybe it should be.\u00a0 Garua is a Spanish word meaning <\/span>drizzle <\/span><\/i>or <\/span>mist<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0 It never rains in this desert city, but the air is always wet.\u00a0 Apparently, the droplets are just so fine that they can\u2019t form actual raindrops.\u00a0 What a shame!\u00a0 While Peruvians have figured out creative ways to create value using the fog (\u201c<\/span>Peru Fog Catchers Net Water Supplies<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u201d), we mostly just feel its cold dark presence.\u00a0 American <\/span>author, Herman Melville, said of Lima \u201cit\u2019s the strangest, saddest city thou cans’t see.\u201d\u00a0 We feel you Herman!\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a student\u2019s perspective on the Lima winter:<\/span><\/p>\n

Close your eyes and picture yourself standing in front of an old analog TV. You\u2019re moving in between channels, but nothing\u2019s on, so every time you twist the knob you\u2019re greeted with another blank wall of static. So you keep searching, but again and again, you find nothing on, only static.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is what it\u2019s like to live in Lima, Peru\u2019s capital city; it\u2019s a cold place blanketed under a cover of smog or fog or just general grayness, enough that the days start to blend together ever so slightly until you\u2019re not quite sure how long you\u2019ve been here or how much longer you will be. But just like staring into that blank TV, that static slowly absorbs you just enough for you to find the tranquility underneath it all, and just enough so on the days where the sun peeks through the grayness for just a moment in the afternoons, you relish its warmth just a little more, like the faint dashes of color in the mess of black and white.<\/span><\/p>\n

-Joe Whetzel<\/p>\n

Garua! Living in the Southern Hemisphere at the end of October means that we are transitioning into Spring!\u00a0 Warm sunny days are slowly replacing the dense fog and humid cold of the city.\u00a0 Most of our group is used to American winters.\u00a0 We know what to expect and how to dress for the dry cold.\u00a0 … Continue reading Peru: The Fog of Winter<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":4370,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4133],"tags":[4039],"class_list":["post-4365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-peru-2022","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4365"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4371,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4365\/revisions\/4371"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/intercultural\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}