Observer photo by Mark Maathuis
Carmen Apaza wearing a traditional Peruvian costume.

by MARK MAATHUIS

Carmen Apaza is a PhD student, but the 32-year-old Peruvian also volunteers at American University’s International Leadership Team and Christian Group, teaches Spanish to American students, and gives lectures to high school students about her home country.

“I realized that besides studying, I also had to take care of my spiritual life,” the 32-year-old Peruvian says.

Capaza, who was born in Peru’s capital, Lima, arrived in the United States 18 months ago to research ethics in public administration. The fascination for this area began when she studied at the University of San Marcos in Lima. She specifically wanted to do her PhD in Washington, D.C., because of the many international organizations in the U.S. capital, she said.

“In Peru when I have a problem, I send a letter or maybe an e-mail and wait,” she says. “Here I can discuss things in person. It is so easy.”

Her research project will last two years and she does not know what she wants to do after that, she says. She could return to Peru to pursue a political career, she said, because she is affiliated with the First Christian Party.

“But politics always depends on the next election,” she says. Maybe she’ll stay in America and work as a professor or a consultant, she says. “I have so many possibilities.”


Observer photo by Mark Maathuis
Peruvian student Carmen Apaza is a PhD student in Public Administration.

Apaza says accountability and separation of powers are the main things her country can learn from America. “I want to know how it works, so I can implement it in Peru. Here, the three branches are in balance. In Peru, the executive has all the power.”

She says she admires American legislation and enforcement systems. “Peruvian law is not efficient. We should work on that because we can learn so much.”

In 2002, she earned her master’s degree in Law and Political Science at Syracuse University in New York. This first visit to the U.S. was a culture shock, she says. “Compared to South Americans, people here are so cold. We like to hug and kiss. The first time I tried to hug somebody, she looked at me as if she was saying, ‘What are you doing?’”

After her graduation in 2004, she returned home and worked for the Ministry of Finance as a manager of Customs Enforcement. But she became frustrated with the corruption and mismanagement, she says. “I resigned and decided I wanted to go back to university.”

Her interest in traveling and studying in America stems from its political system, she says. “It is the most peculiar system in the world, but it works for Americans.” Not many Peruvians travel to the U.S., because of the language, she says. “Most of them prefer to go to Spain or a country where they speak a language similar to Spanish. I have always loved English.”

Establishing a Peruvian students club at AU did not work, she said, because “there are only four Peruvians besides me and two of them are graduating this summer.” This will not keep her down, she said with a smile, because she will give it another shot next fall. What life will bring her next, Apaza says she does not know, but she is optimistic.

“I do not worry, because God will take of everything.”