2017 Peru Inspired Gift Guide

If you're looking for Peru inspired gifts, you've come to the right place! Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Food and Drink
Peruvian grains are becoming famous around the world. A great healthy gift is maca. There's a reason this super food is getting tons of attention. It's much better than rice and packed with nutrition.

Paneton and hot chocolate is a staple during the Christmas season. Don't forget a Peruvian mug. While some might snub their nose at fruitcake (paneton), Peruvians love it. If you're in Peru, drinking hot chocolate during summer might seem odd, but hey, it's Christmas, so why not?

Know someone who loves cooking? The Fire of Peru: Recipes and Stories from My Peruvian Kitchen is a great cookbook written by Ricardo Zarate. True to the title, he also has stories in this cookbook, which make it all the more interesting. The cookbook has tons of recipes like lomo saltado, causa, ceviche, pisco sour (Pisco is Peruvian), loads of sauces, and more.

 
Alpaca
Forget about cotton, alpaca is a game changer. It is superior than wool since it is softer, warmer, and has no lanolin which means it's hypoallergenic. Some people say it's as luxurious as cashmere, but more durable and longer lasting. Good socks can last for years. They're much better for your feet than cotton since they're anti-fungal, and many of them can be tossed in the dryer. You have got to try Alpaca socks for yourself, check out these: they are terry lined for extra warmth! 


Alpaca makes great blankets and throws. This alpaca throw is gorgeous and cozy. The rich colors are sure to cheer you up during the dreary winter days. It's great for cozying up on the couch and drinking hot cocoa, from a Peruvian mug with a llama on it, of course.

Accessories

Small gifts can be wonderful. This hand painted coin purse or this traditional purse, as well as fine jewelry like this blue Opal to woven handicrafts like these bracelets are sure to make unique gifts.

If you're looking for a practical gift, look no further than Tumi, which is a Peru inspired company that makes quality bags, backpacks, and luggage that are made to last.

Homemade gifts are always appreciated. Here's some yarn available in traditional Peruvian colors so you can knit your heart out and make someone a blanket to snuggle up to this winter.  

More Gifts
If you're looking for more ideas, here are other Peru inspired gift guides I've written.

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I'd Love to Have You Join My Patreon Page

I finally got around to starting a Patreon page. I'd love to have you join! Patreon allows you to support creators like me on a monthly basis. You can see my other blogs at my author profile.

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Doctors, Midwives, Doulas, and Birthing Centers in Peru

More and more women are choosing to give birth in birthing centers . While there aren't that many places in Peru, they exist and hopefully there will be more in the future. They don't seem to advertise much and I think people mainly hear about them by word of mouth. Sadly, I don't have much information about some of them. If you know of more places or have contact information for the ones listed, please email me at naturegirl321@yahoo.com

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Cost and Recovery
I'd like to believe that you can't put a price on something that happens once in a lifetime. Even if you give birth a dozen times, you only give birth to that particular baby once. It's also so much easier to recover from a vaginal birth than from major abdominal surgery, which is what a C-section is. Expect to pay about S/.10,000-S/.15,000 for a natural birth where the doctors will "allow" you to birth the way you want.

Midwives and Doctors
From what I've seen, the birthing centers mainly use doctors who believe in natural childbirth. Midwives don't seem to be the norm in Peru.

Views of Doulas and Natural Childbirth 

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Sadly, many doctors believe that they are gods and the C-section rate is high. In most places it's about 50%-60%. In Arequipa, it's about 90%. C-sections are fast, expensive, and the doctor is in complete control. None of those are the way that childbirth is meant to me. Many times the father isn't even allowed in the operating room. That's definitely not the way it's supposed to be.

And then after the baby is born, when they should be bonding and imprinting with their mother and father, they are taken away all alone to be observed for 8 hours. Sometimes if you cry a lot, they will let you hold your baby for 10 minutes. None of these procedures are evidence based. In fact, they are quite the opposite. 

This shows the importance of choosing a good place to give birth. You need to find a place that has similar views as you and ask the right questions to make sure they are not going to perform an unnecessary C-section on you.

VBACs
Having a vaginal birth after a C-section is going to be more difficult. Make sure you choose your provider carefully! Many women are able to have VBACs and report feeling empowered by this decision.

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My Experience
My children were not born in Peru. Having had a birth with a midwife and two doulas with my first. In fact, I was so moved by the birth of my first that I became a childbirth educator, postpartum doula, breastfeeding educator, and LLL Leader and started giving other women information through my blog, Tender Embrace Birthing.

My second was supposed to be born peaceful at home, but I ended up with an emergency transfer that lead to an emergency C-section. It was a traumatic nightmare. 8 hours after I gave birth to my first, I walked out of the clinic and slept in my own bed that night. 13 hours after my second I was still flat on my back with tubes and drugs being dripped into me and suffering from amnesia.

Where to Go
Below are the birthing centers, clinics, and doulas that I know of. Sadly, I don't have much information about some of them. If you know of more places or have contact information for the ones listed, please email me at naturegirl321@yahoo.com

Arequipa

Kusi Wachay is a natural birthing clinic focusing on wellness. From pregnancy, to birth, to the postpartum period, they offer a variety of services. Dr. Illa Camargo is a doctor at Kusi Wachay and specialises in homeopathy and natural birth.  It's expensive.

• Classes for moms, dads, and babies, such why you would really need a C-sectionas prenatal and postpartum yoga, postpartum exercise, attachment parenting, nutrition, breastfeeding, and newborn care. 
• Water labor and water births are offered here. 
• Homeopath and herbal medicine. 
• Andean belly binding aka Bengkung belly binding.
• Social support for mothers.
• Doulas

Mate Pardo de Schade used to be a doula in Arequipa but is not anymore.

Cusco

Ruruchay - Casa de Nacimiento (Facebook) is a natural birthing center. They also attend home births. Dr. Ruro Caituiro Monge is a doctor and doula at Ruruchay - Birthing Center. They offer a variety of services

• Prenatal swimming, yoga, and dance.
• Doulas.
• Postpartum workshops, womens' circles.

Lima

Casa Pakarii - Casa de Nacimiento (Facebook) is a natural birthing center. Dr. Angela Brocker Wiebers, from Germany, is the director. The doctors also attend births at home and other clinics. They offer a variety of services.

• Prenatal swimming, birthing and breastfeeding classes 
• They have also offered these activities in the past: placenta ceremony, temascal / inipi / birthing ceremony, prenatal singing, clothing swaps, women's circles, nutrition classes. first aid, round table about the hidden problems with vaccines, Reiki, Mayan Calendar workshop, wooden toys conference.
• Doulas.

Clinica Delgado-Auna (Facebook) is a regular clinic but the doctors will "allow" you to birth the way you want.

Doula.pe is a website for 2 doulas in Lima. 

Tarapoto

Carmen Ordonez (Facebook) is a doula.

Urubamba

Casa Lucero (Facebook) is a natural birthing clinic. Their Facebook page hasn't been updated in a while and their website isn't working. I'm not sure if they're still in business.

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How You Can Go Through a Divorce in Peru and Still Be Considered Married

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Marriage, divorce, and Peruvian citizenship are probably the most popular topics on my blog. I've written a number of articles about getting divorced in Peru. 

• How to get divorced in Peru
• A timeline for getting divorced in Peru
• Registering your Peruvian divorce back home
• How to register your Peruvian divorce with a Peruvian embassy or consulate abroad
• Registering a foreign divorce in Peru (Exequatur)

Emotional, Financial, and Practical Advice
You need to be practical about the divorce. Take your emotions out of it. You need to think about finances and avoid these mistakes. If kids are involved, try to co-parent, even if your ex tries to turn the kids against you.

If you're divorcing a narcissist, you have even more to think about. Narcissists can turn everyone against you, even your friends, your lawyer, and the judge. They use techniques, such as gaslighting, to convince you that you're crazy. They will tell lies and believe them, totally ignore you, re-invent the past, and turn people against you. If you're in a relationship with a narcissist, I highly suggest you read more about it and find a support group. Here are some links to help you.

• 9 signs he is a narcissist
• 10 signs you're in a relationship with a narcissist 
• 15 signs you're dating a narcissist
• 16 clear signs you're in a narcissistic relationship
• 30 red flags you might be dating a narcissist
• 50 ways to tell if your partner is a narcissist
• Becoming the narcissist's nightmare
• Divorce poison: how to protect your family from bad-mouthing and brainwashing
• How to know if you're in a relationship with a narcissist
• Identifying a narcissistic sociopath 
• Narcissistic women
• Rethinking narcissism
• Splitting: protecting yourself while divorcing someone with borderline or narcissistic personality disorder
• The wizard of Oz and other narcissistics
• What is it always about you? 
• What makes narcissists tick (a 500 page PDF) 
• Will I ever be free from you?

My advice to you would be to educate yourself and distance yourself both physically (if possible) and emotionally from this person.

Court Documents
When your divorce is finalised you will official documents from the courts. I got two documents: a "registro personal" and an "acta de concilacion extrajudicial". The first translates to a personal registration which basically says you're divorced. The second breaks down the division of property, custody, alimony, and child support.

RENIEC Documents
You may think that with this you will be considered divorced and you might be, depending on your nationality. Some countries will accept an apostillised copy of these documents and you can register your Peruvian divorce back home. Some countries don't register / record foreign civil status documents. My county in the USA used to, but now they don't. So while I was able to register my Peruvian marriage, I couldn't register my Korean divorce and my Peruvian divorce.  (I divorced my ex twice since he didn't want to register our Korean divorce in Peru.) This was not an issue when I re-married in the US. I simply showed them a copy of my divorce papers and that was good enough for them.

Other countries won't accept the court documents. If you're Peruvian, these documents are NOT enough to show that you are divorced. You need to complete one more step in order to register your divorce in Peru. You need to take these documents to RENIEC and have them register your divorce. You can then get a copy of your divorce certificate. If you got married in Peru, then they will print out your marriage certificate and in the margins there will be a note stating that you got divorced. If you didn't get married in Peru, they will print out a document stating the details of your marriage and also include the divorce in the margins. This document is what you need if you're Peruvian or if your country doesn't accept the other divorce documents you got from the courts.

The irony of all this is that BOTH parties (if Peruvian) need to go and change their civil status. For example, I was only given the court documents and was unable to change my DNI while living in Korea. My ex easily got the divorce certificate since he was living in Peru. He went to RENIEC and is now registered as divorced. So even though he is no longer married to me (according to RENIEC), somehow I am still married to him (according to RENIEC). You would think that once one person registered a marriage or divorce, the other would automatically be registered, but they're not. I'm not sure if this is just a way to get double the amount of fees or simply lack of logic.

Conclusion
I, personally, would do this last step if possible. If you're in Peru or paying a lawyer to do it, just get it done. You never know when laws will change and you will need your divorce certificate from RENIEC. 

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Poll Results: Why Are There So Many Indians and Bangladeshis Interested in Moving to Peru?

Here are the poll results for Why Are There So Many Indians and Bangladeshis Interested in Moving to Peru?

• Love: 23% with 11 votes
• Work: 13% with 6 votes
• The ability to get Peruvian citizenship: 19% with 9 votes 
• Schooling / Education: 6% with 3 votes
• Culture: 9% with 4 votes
• Language: 6% with 3 votes
• Being far from home: 6% with 3 votes
• Being able to start over: 4% with 2 votes
• The Indian community in Peru: 9% with 4 votes
• Other: 4% with 2 votes

Love conquers all!
In first place is love with 23% of the votes. The ability to get Peruvian citizenship is second with 19% of the votes, and in third place is work with 13% of the votes. Thanks for voting!

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Help Those Affected by the Devastating Floods in Peru

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Since December 2016, rains have been beating down on Peru resulting in the worst flooding in 30 years. Mostly recently, catastrophic floods have hit northern Peru leaving hundreds of thousands affected. Piura River has flooded in banks. Having lived in Piura, I know how much rain can affect this desert. Nearly 100 people have died and 700,000 have been left homeless in 12 of the 25 regions. Thousands of kilometers of roads and crops have been swept away. Archeological sites have been affected as well which will in turn affect tourism.

Many organisations are raising money for Peru Flood Relief. Peruvian embassies and consulates are also helping out. Below you can find some places that are accepting donations.

• Children's Hunger Fund
• Convoy of Hope
• Direct Relief 
• Embassy of Peru in Washington, D.C.
• Global Giving
• PADF
• Red Cross

You can also read more about the flooding at the following sites.

• BBC
• Los Angeles Times
• NBC News
• Reuters

 

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1,000 Comments on the UPL!

🇵🇪 Today the 1,000th comment was published on The Ultimate Peru List! 🇵🇪 

There are 802,000 page views. I'm sure we will be at a million very soon! 

Thanks for your support!

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How to Register Your Peruvian Divorce with a Peruvian Embassy or Consulate Abroad

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This information is for the following people.

• Peruvian citizens (or naturalised Peruvians) who live abroad yet get divorced in Peru and have not updated their Peruvian passport and/or DNI. What often happens is that they got married in Peru while they were young and then left. Years later they decide to get divorced. 
• Couples in which one person is Peruvian and the Peruvian has not updated their Peruvian passport and/or DNI. In this case what usually happens is that the Peruvian wants to get married in their country, so they have a wedding there for the family, but they live abroad. Then they decide to get divorced. 

In both of these cases, there are two options, provided that at least one of them is a legal resident in the country where they are living.

1. Get divorced in the country they are living and then register their foreign divorce in Peru (aka exequatur).
2. Get divorced in Peru and register their Peruvian divorce in the country they're living in.

This article will discuss the second option. In both of these cases, what usually happens is that either neither of them live in Peru or only one of them lives in Peru. You do not have to live in Peru in order to get divorced there if you are a Peruvian citizen. One of you can live there and the other spouse can give a lawyer power of attorney. Or both of you could give your lawyers power of attorney. What happens is that you get divorced by proxy (similar to marriage by proxy). Here are some lawyers that you can contact for more information. I have been through the process and it is legal. The article how to get divorced in Peru discusses more options if you are both able to go to Peru.

Peruvian Citizens
If you are the person living abroad and are Peruvian, you will have to change your DNI so it says you're divorced. If you're a woman and have taken the "de", you will have to change your name on your DNI and passport. In order to do this you will need the proper paperwork.

For marriages that took place in Peru
If you got married in Peru, you will need to get the marriage certificate from the municipality. It will have an annotation on it that states you're divorced. This is the document you will need if you want to update your documents. Hopefully your ex will be nice enough to send them to you (mine wasn't, so I still haven't updated my documents after all this time), if not you can either ask a friend or family member to do it or in the worst case scenario get a lawyer to do it.

For marriages that took place abroad
If you got married abroad, you will have to talk to the embassy or consulate that has jurisdiction over your area to see what the requirements are. More likely than not you're going to have to get things translated and apostillised (or authenticated if the country isn't in the Hague Agreement). Hopefully you got married in the country you're living in. If you got married in one country, divorced in Peru, and are now living in a third country, you will probably run into difficulties. Some people have said they just need their marriage certificate and their Peruvian divorce documents. Other people have said they need to register their Peruvian divorce in the country they're living in. (If you're in the USA, you might have trouble registering (or recording) a foreign divorce. I know that my county no longer registers foreign divorces.)

In conclusion
Either way, you are also going to need your DNI and your passport. If they're not valid, it should be ok and you can still update your records. Whenever you decide to renew your documents, the changes will be reflected on them. You will also need to fill out some forms and pay a fee. Make sure you call the embassy or consulate and see if they have any other requirements.

If you are not able to update your documents for whatever reason and you hold citizenship in another country, then don't worry. You can still get married again. You will just have to show your Peruvian divorce agreement. Make sure it's translated and apostillised (or authenticated if the country isn't in the Hague Agreement).

If you are not able to update your documents and you do not have a second citizenship, then you will have problems if you want to re-marry. You will either have to update your documents, stay single, or simply live together.

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Internships in Peru

The following is a guest post by Nils Schulz. Nils is CEO at Inside Peru. He lives in Hamburg, Germany and visits Peru regularly.

Internships abroad are increasingly common today and there are many good reasons for that. Broad language and cultural skills are needed in many jobs if you want to succeed in a global economy. Many degree programs require at least one internship as part of the training and many students choose to go abroad. For many people their years of study are the time in their life where they are able to live abroad for a while without much hassle.

There are many ways to do so: volunteering, work and travel, taking a language course, study one or more semesters abroad, or – last but not least – doing an internship. Of course, apart from learning new skills and testing possible future career paths, a given time abroad always enriches ones personality and leaves you with many new experiences, memories, friends, ideas…

At Inside Peru, a placement agency from Germany specializing in Peru, we notice that Peru is also a place which is increasingly popular with young people from all over the world. It’s a relatively stable country with continuous economic growth (which has been a bit slower lately) and the Spanish spoken in Peru is considered to be especially “pure” and easier to learn and to understand than in many other Spanish speaking countries. But above all, Peru is just an exciting country full of colors and contrasts, perfect to discover marvelous landscapes and ancient cultures.

Yet when people start planning their stay in Peru they often encounter obstacles. How do I find the place for my internship that really fits? Why is it so hard to get in touch and they never answer to my emails? These are typical situations many have to deal with. Let alone the language barrier or concerns about security, visa matters, and the like. So reaching out to a place like Inside Peru turns out to be a good decision for many people willing to go to Peru in order to get things done well right from the start. For a modest one-time fee they get professional help planning the trip, finding the right internship and a cosy and secure place to stay. Also while staying in Peru they get follow-up assistance via Internet or with a local contact person and regular activities with other foreign interns.

Many interns going to Peru are social-minded and look for internships dealing e.g. with indigenous people or human rights matters, development cooperation or social work (working with vulnerable groups in society). But also many other work areas like law, teaching, environment or sturdy marketing and economy-related internships are asked for and provided by Inside Peru. If you are interested in a stay in Peru visit Inside Peru’s website and get in touch with us. We are happy to help. -Nils Schulz

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