Lessons learned by Peruanos en general:

1. if you honk your horn when you‘re running a red light, you won‘t get hit.
2. “Solo sentido” means only one direction, unless the other direction is convenient.
3. “No estacionar” means absolutely nothing.
4. if you are in a traffic jam, honk your horn to remove the obstacle.

Lessons learned by one young Peruano:

I hope he learned them, else he’s going to learn number four the hard way.

1. Don’t rob a recent retiree.  (I didn’t survive 62 years by being stupid).
2. Don’t rob someone who knows where you work and how to find your boss.
3. Don’t do it in an office with four video cameras
4. Don’t do it in a country where the penalty is 25 years regardless of what was taken.
5. Don’t rearrange the contents of the file box and try five times to break into the computer when you might have to tell the police you only picked it up to return it to him.

I did what I could to prevent number four this time.  Including not telling the police or his boss about number five.  The police wrote a report and filed it, nada más.  It was up to me to recover the bag.  I didn’t contradict his explanation to everyone, but I hope he realizes that I know it isn’t true.

Lessons learned by me:

Americans like to make fun of a stereotype of men not asking directions.  Well, after asking directions an uncountable number of times in Perú, Italy, and elsewhere, I have a possible reason for this reluctance (if it actually exists).  it seems that if you ask a hundred people where to find something, you’ll meet (approximately)

• Five people who don’t know and say so.
• Eighty-five people who don’t know and make something up.
• Ten people who know but can’t describe it in a way that makes any sense.

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