Living in a foreign culture is like playing a game where the rules aren’t explained. A retired engineer from a small town on the Columbia River in Oregon moves to a large city on the Rio Piura in Peru and struggles to find some rules. This memoir of a year in Peru is warm and comical and affirms that the most important unwritten rule of any game is to enjoy it. My wife of 38 years and I realized a lifelong dream of living as a couple in a foreign land when we moved to Peru to fulfill a 1-year Fulbright Teacher Exchange assignment. Teri taught and I wrote every day about our experiences. My journal launched as a how-to book about survival in another culture but philosophical currents swirled and Peruvian stories soon eddied into personal stories. Reflecting on my childhood and youth, love and marriage, family and friends, aging and cancer ultimately helped me better understand and appreciate the confusing cultural mores in the ancient land of the Incas.
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