Settling In

I have been in Peru for 10 whole days now (here I am relaxing on my apartment patio), so life is starting to settle. I have my Peruvian cell phone, which I just figured out how to pay for today. I have not one, but TWO bank accounts, one for soles and one for dollars. I figured out the best way to send myself money from the U.S. I have used a variety of public transportation. I found a way to informally recycle some of my trash. And the biggest accomplishment of all is that we have solved the dilemma of schools for our kids. 

The biggest challenge we faced when we decided to live abroad was knowing that most countries would not have the special education support that Zinnia receives in Minnesota, especially if we wanted it to be in English. As we already knew that this would be a challenge, we had planned for Chris to homeschool Zinnia during her time here. We are so thankful that we get to have this adventure as a family, and we also mourn the fact that Zinnia will not be included in some aspects of this experience.

The second challenge we faced with schools was that as passionate public school educators, we were told that our foreign children would not be able to attend public school. I still haven’t figured out if that is true, but nevertheless, we decided to go the private school route as it seemed like a simpler option. The bureaucracy of getting foreign kids into the school system in Peru is quite different from the U.S.  Luckily, we found out that at private schools, they could be enrolled as “alumnos libres,” which allows the school to enroll them without registering them with the ministry of education. Since we are only going to be here for 1 year, we were totally fine with that option. 

The final challenge was that there are at least 15 private school options in our area, all with pros and cons. Some are more religious, some have nicer infrastructure, some are owned by corporations and some are taught in a more “traditional” way. Ultimately, we listened to a few recommendations and followed our guts and picked “Colegio Nuevo Mundo.” My favorite part about this school was that is was the only one with real green space (vs. fake grass), as you can see above. Today I went to the school’s book fair to buy the books that they will need for their school. About 20 books later, I regretted not bringing a backpack to carry all of them home. And check out this list of school supplies!