During my time in Peru, one thing I grossly underestimated at the beginning of my experience was the value of the weekly language exchange. Part of our program itinerary includes a once or twice weekly hour-long session with students from our host university, Universidad Antonio Ruiz de Montoya, where we discuss anything we want for half an hour in Spanish and then change our conversation topic and switch to English for the second half hour. Each exchange group has about five Mizzou students and five UARM students with varying levels of Spanish and English abilities and the overall goal is to build confidence in our speaking skills and learn with native speakers of our studied language. During the regular semesters at Mizzou, I rarely have time outside of classes and other university commitments to find conversation partners, so this was my first time having extensive, intentional conversations with native Spanish speakers.

One of the first language exchanges started kind of slowly: We were all nervous and asked the basic questions such as our names, ages, majors, music we liked and favorite celebrities. From there, walls began to come down and we asked about romantic interests. When my turn came around, I shared that I have a boyfriend and we have been together for four years (tengo un novio, y tenemos 4 años juntos), but for some reason this led to confused, distorted faces. I soon learned that in Peru, a novio is a fiance, and an enamorado or enamorada is a boyfriend or girlfriend. The confusion was that no one saw a ring on my finger for me to have just made a declaration about having a fiance. Because of this interaction, I knew I wanted more meaningful conversations to happen during these hours because everyone seemed so open and we were able to bond quickly. Other topics that came up during these conversations included marriage, racism, travel, food and slang. For example, a best friend is your “causa,” which is actually a dish comparable to a fancy potato salad. We later made it in my Peruvian culture class.

From the language exchange, I was able to make quick friends with other students on the trip from Mizzou and with Peruvian students. One night, some of us went to an Afro-Peruvian festival together and later tried the infamous chifa, which is a mix of Chinese and Peruvian food. It was delicious! I did not expect the language exchange program to have the lasting impact it has had on my cultural immersion, but it is something I will hold onto forever and challenge myself to do again in the future.