I just have to comment on the driving in this country. There is nothing like it anywhere else I've ever been. The photo above is the view I have from my seat of honor--the front single seat in the front of our bus. Yes, I am about the size of two Peruvians, so they have me up front--but also out of respect. The students sit all crunched together, all 25 of them, in the back of the bus, leaning into each other and not minding it one bit. From my perch up front, I can read all the names painted across the back windows of the little taxicabs. For some reason, the current style of signage is to have paint bleeding down from the letters. It's a bit odd, but apparently quite cool. The names, In Vacion, Arla Bonita, La Victoria, and Etsirsa bleed white and red paint down the back windows. 
I've been fascinated by watching the traffic patterns from my elevated perch in the front seat. The streets are full of all sorts of vehicles that we don't have in the States: Citroens, Opals, and the tiniest little Toyota busses I've ever seen. And almost anything can be used to transport people. Look at this lovely number! You can have about 20 people packed into one of these things and people's legs are all tangled around other people who they don't even know. Of course, most Peruvians are small people, so they can fit in them much better than Americans can. I have not yet seen one morbidly obese Peruvian. They all seem to be in pretty good shape, even those with some extra padding. 
These interesting three-wheeled motorcars are everywhere outside Lima's city limits. At least, I haven't seen any downtown. These motorcars are all over the country roads. They might have one flourescent or neon strip of light on the top of it, but that is all. Some of the newer motorcars have a weak, faltering headlight. It could be easy to come up over a hill at night and hit one of these by accident. Usually there are one to three passengers inside. The vehicles are powered by a motorized bike--maybe a Honda 150 if there is such a thing (they're smaller than a 350). These are definitely at the bottom of the pecking order on the street. The first say goes to the semi trucks, which are shorter but wider than ours. Then the big tour busses, then the medium sized tour busses, then the fleet of little Toyota and nondescript teeny busses and regular cars. But when you drive into an intersection, these little motorcars have to give right of way to whomever else is coming. I've seen these things cling to the side of the road as you pass by. Their passengers hold on for dear life and all lean uphill to balance it and keep it from rolling sideways.
As we drive through town, our driver aims for the center of the street, regardless of what the lines on the pavement indicate as proper passage. The goal is to avoid chuck holes. So sometimes we careen over to the left and drive there for awhile, and sometimes go off the road to the right to avoid a speed bump or a gash in the pavement. But those dirt roads leaving the university are something else! Our bus driver heads out of the gate and into a swirl of oncoming motorcars and taxis. Since we have right of way, they all move to the side as he drives on the left side of the road to avoid a big depression in the road. The little toy horns in all the cars beep and the driver completely ignores them, driving straight at them. Then we straighten out, move over to the right lane and off we go.
As we drive along, we come up behind a little Toyota bus. Our driver thinks we should pass it. There is an oncoming car. He flashes his lights several times, beeps, and off we go. We pass the bus in the middle of the street while the car moves past us on the left. I could reach out the window and shake hands with the driver of the Toyota bus if I wanted to--it's that close to my window. I see the driver inside, leaning ahead and swaying as he looks at the rearview mirror. Bear in mind that the lines in the middle of the street are merely suggestions and do not obligate anyone to adhere to them.
We come to left turn out of the little village near the university. People are everywhere and dogs are asleep in the dirt at the side of the road (and many times they sleep in the road!) There is a car ahead of us, his car turned into traffic, ready to make the left turn. Do we queue up behind him? Oh no, we pull up alongside of him so there are two of us jutting out into the oncoming traffic. When there is a one-car length space in the flow of traffic, we lunge out across it. Horns beep and we drive forward without a care. Only by the time we get into the left turn, there are three or four of us in a phalanx, all aiming for one of the two lanes going left. No matter--we jostle into whatever space there is and may the best man win.
Man.
My host asked me the other day, "And do you notice anything about who drives in this country?" It's all men. I've only seen about two women drivers. "That's because we have the idea that the woman is at home and the men take the women where they need to go." I told him that this idea lines up well with Sam's ideas about my driving. He laughed. "Actually, I never taught my wife to drive, so now I have to take her everyplace. That's our situation." He roared with laughter.
Necessity is the mother of invention. Cars, motorcars, and makeshift vehicles are everywhere here. Even with all the noise and jammed roads, I have not once felt nervous in traffic. Everything is taken in stride. You don't see people gesticulating angrily at one another, or someone stopped on the side of the road punching out another guy. No road rage. Life moves ahead in a relaxed sort of way. You weigh in your opinion by beeping the horn. You wave your arm out the window if you really need to merge into traffic, or you ask someone else in the car to do it for you out the passenger side. Someone will pull back and let you in, and if they don't you just head in and force them back. They honk and you ignore them.
In the end, everyone is your friend here. I have loved what I have learned about life by watching life from the front seat of the bus.
Life is good. People are important. Let your energy and passion be invested in who you're going to see, not in how you get to where you're going. This is the big lesson that I'm taking home.
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