Tai Chi Group/Chinese New Year's Party

I accompanied Tere to a special dinner on the Chinese New Year's. Every weekday morning, Tere gets up at 6:30 AM to join a group that does tai chi in the picturesque park that lines the Costa Verde - Lima's stunning "Green Coast". The instructor is an elderly Chinese man that invites everyone in the group for a dinner that he prepares by himself every Chinese New Year. I've been meaning to join her in the mornings, but haven't had the spunk to get out of bed at that hour. Nevertheless, she invited me to the dinner and we enjoyed a lovely meal with some of our neighbors.

The host of the party was one of the students whose family lives in one of the old mansions in the neighborhood. Unfortunately, the latest real estate trend has been to buy up these old properties, bulldoze them and build more lucrative apartment complexes. The once-secluded fountain and garden area where we dined was now invaded by the balcony-advantaged gaze of their neighbors.

We all enjoyed the traditional Chinese food while the chef had just a cigarette, exhausted from cooking all day. I had some interesting conversation about Peruvian politics and enjoyed meeting the mother of the family who lived there. She had worked for several years with the World Bank and offered to introduce me to someone that could teach me more about it.