The Million Soles Question

Being a gringo in Peru leaves you vulnerable to a lot of questions and prodding. Peruvians don’t find it prying to ask things like, “Are you married? Are you dating someone? Do they live here? Are you going to leave them for a Peruvian?” or “Where are you from? What are you doing here? Where do you live?” One grows accustomed to divulging parts of their life to complete strangers, or at least making up something to tell them. We actually have sessions on this sort of thing.

However, there is one question I am still not good at answering. The dreaded question I have been asked time and time again and have yet to come up with a precise or articulate answer for:

“Why did you join the Peace Corps?”

Oh, how I loathe this question!

I already addressed this slightly in my entry “The Interview” before I joined, but then it was, “Why do you want to join the Peace Corps?” Either way, the sentiment is still the same. Even as I sit in my small humble room adorned with only two decorations (a picture of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, and a poster of Marvin the Martian) 1000’s of miles from home in a foreign land that grows on me day by day, I cannot answer this question.

Part of the reason I can’t is because the answer changes all the time. In my first essay I sent with my Peace Corps application I wrote, “I have wanted to live my life the way anyone with an open heart, adventurous spirit, and hungry mind would. Helping others and integrating myself into a new country and culture fits my life story.” Before it was about adventure, challenges, and a broader global understanding. It still is all these things, but there’s something else added; like the smiles and laughter coming from the children I’m talking to in my charlas, my host brother shouting my name and opening his arms for a hug from his hermana gringa, or my host family telling me I speak, “como una peruana.”

The point is there is no concrete black and white answer. It’s a feeling-- a growing, living thing. The most precise answer I can give is, “it spoke to me.”

The other day I was talking with some fellow aspirantes and we discovered many of us had “a song” before we left the States that really spoke to us about where we were in our lives as we readied ourselves to embark on this journey. Helplessness Blues by Fleet Foxes had just come out, and its timing and relevance struck me. There was awhile when I couldn’t even listen to this song before I left because it made me cry cada vez. This song still chokes me up even if I’m listening to it crammed in a combe. If you listen to the words, I’m sure you’ll find a message that helps explain why I am where I am. Maybe the music will help convey the feelings I cannot express.

I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station
Oh just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful
And say "Sure take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls
And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing
It's that every thing that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable
Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy
And I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm raw
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables
And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight
My light in the dawn
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be
Like the man on the screen