My Single Story

Sunday brunch with my loving host family

 My blog, which began as a way to keep friends and family up to date as I served with JVC for two years in Peru, has transformed into a tool with which I can process my experience of being a foreigner living abroad. It is an opportunity to honor the small differences in daily life and create a space for me to explore my discomfort with the bigger challenges I discover when culture clashes come knocking.

Many of the experiences I write about might seem trivial to the average local. Why write about bus fairs and the local market? I'm sure you would never have found me writing about the strangeness of combination gas station-restaurants in the rural US. or our habit of only singing the national anthem at sporting events. But here I am, an American citizen abroad, taking delight in the differences I find before me. Little did I think that my observations could be interpreted as an accurate picture of Peru in general. 

"So do you, like, live in a village or...?" 

I received that question after having spent at least six months in Peru. Perhaps it was because I wasn't communicating with my connections back home or perhaps it was because my focus was on all the differences rather than the similarities I have discovered while living in Tacna. 

Let's note that Tacna is far from a village, with almost 300,000 inhabitants, and growing every day. The question puzzled me because it was obvious to me that Peru had many large cities. Yes, many rural, small towns too, but to immediately assume that I was in an isolated village because I was doing service revealed to me that service abroad still has a certain stereotype or image. 

A misconception about the work I have been doing with JVC is one thing, an inability to understand the diversity of a country or its people something entirely different. That danger becomes more prominent when someone decides to read a blog (like mine) about a foreigner living in Peru and draw full conclusions from a single person's experiences. Just because I wash my clothes by hand, does not mean all Peruvians do. Nor because I live near a desert does it mean that all of Peru is an arid wasteland.

During my orientation for new JVs, we watched and discussed the power of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Ted Talk called A Single Story, which I highly recommend you check out. In her talk, Adichie explains the pitfalls and dangers that she experienced growing up with a predominantly white, british narrative, how her understanding of her own country was affected and transformed by the words of foreigners. I think the struggles she went through as a child perfectly illuminate the dangers any of us face if we do not make sure to notice where and who our stories are coming from. It might be easy to listen to a friend's experiences and think "so that's how it is", without questioning if that reality holds true for everyone else.

At the top of the sacred valley. What a view!

This blog is my perspective and my own personal experience. It is not a representation nor a summary of Peruvian culture. Peru is home to over 3,000 species of potato (as any taxi driver worth his salt will inform you when you first arrive). It is a country with three distinct regions selva, sierra and costa. The diversity of people, wildlife and landscapes is breathtaking. My journey has taken place in one small town in the south of Peru, a drop in the ocean of possible experiences. I hope that everything you read here is taken with a grain of salt. It's one gal's personal perspective and her quirky observations all wrapped up in one; a window into my life and into the día a día of a gringa trying to learn the ropes of surviving and thriving abroad.