Teddy Dondanville
Rock Climbing Guide & Freelance Writer
Archives
In Peru, one of the most common ways to say goodbye to someone is “cuidate“. For a group of people, it would be “cuidense“. It comes from the verb cuidarse which means to take care of or to look after. After a while, I found myself saying this a lot. I would even step it up a notch and say “cuidate mucho” which doesn’t really make sense in English. You probably wouldn’t… Read More
My two years in Peru were surrounded by mountains. I lived in the Andes. Between the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra. It was epically beautiful to have such towering mountains on all sides of me every single day. They were always the highest things. The sun and moon would always set and rise behind them. My horizon was greatly diminished in distance because of how close I was living to the… Read More
Another thing I have noticed since I’ve been back in the US is that some of my eating habits have changed. The most obvious to me is my concern for not wasting food. While living in Peru I learned not to say no to someone who is offering you food. Along with that, it is very important to finish everything on your plate. Receiving food and being grateful for it is really… Read More
Adjusting back to the pace of Los Angeles has been interesting. For the most part, I do a lot of bicycle riding. I work on my bike as a courier, and when I go to my nanny job, I commute on bicycle. However there are some times when I need to drive. This mostly is when I am commuting to the farther reaches of Los Angeles or leaving the city completely. Since… Read More
Readjusting back into the United States has been an interesting process. What I have discovered is that once you’ve lived in a different culture for long enough, culture shock impacts you once again when you shift back to your home country. Culture shock works in both directions. This post isn’t necessarily about the moments of culture shock I’ve experienced since I’ve been back in the United States. Although that would be pretty… Read More
In Peru there is a lot of waiting outside of doors. If you go to someone else’s house it is polite to wait for the host or hostess to invite you inside. Going to someone’s house and walking straight in would be really strange. This much is true for bedrooms also. When I lived with my host family, my host siblings would never just walk into my room. They would always be… Read More
Figuring out how to understand humor in Spanish took me a while. Understanding when to use it myself took even longer. Now I am able to joke amongst colleagues and friends like I would normally in English. I’ve got a better handle on what Peruvians think is funny and how/when to deliver jokes. I think it’s really hard to try and explain each individual good joke. There is so much that is… Read More
In English we use a lot of different ways to describe money. Buck, stacks, benjamins, bill, wads, cash etc. In Peruvian culture there are also a couple slang terms to talk about money. You hear them getting used all the time so it’s important to know what they are and how to use them. Additionally, like other slang terms, they add authenticity to your Spanish and locals love it when you use… Read More
A lot of the travel in Peru gets done in buses, minivans or some weird car-contraption thing. Whether you are traveling within a city or perhaps in between two or three, you will probably use whats called a combi. I am not sure where the name came from, but I like to think that combi comes from ‘combine’ or ‘combination’. Like a whole ton of people (a combination) combined in one car…. Read More
Teddy Dondanville 