10.21.07 Choices

At various times in my life I have struggled with answering the question, “What makes an American an American?” because our culture is so unlike many in the rest of the world which have a single (or a few) identifiable roots that go back many generations, into the beginning of time, in some cases.

What is “American Food”? I don’t know. My host family asked me once what my favorite dish was in the US and all I could tell them was that I could maybe pick a favorite Italian, Chinese, Pizza and so on, but that I couldn’t narrow it down to one food or one meal.

What is “American Music”? Um, Pop? Country? Rock? Blue Grass? Hip Hop? Folk?

What do “Americans” look like? They look like everyone in the world, how can you summarize it?

You get the idea.

Well, I was thinking tonight as my training group was working on our assignment for the week, a mini version of the community diagnostic we will do when we arrive in our sites to help us familiarize ourselves with the community and identify potential projects to do in addition to our primary project. Anyhow, in preparing this presentation (which we are giving tomorrow, in Spanish – wish me luck!) we did a lot of looking at what their (our community) resources and needs are and how well they match up, and I got to thinking that maybe one of the things that we can say defines “America” is choice, variety and opportunity. I’m sure this isn’t an original thought, but it explains a lot.

It explains why my Dona gets frustrated at me for hardly eating anything, and why I get frustrated because my dinner, day after day, is all or a rotation of fried eggs, fried salami, fried cheese, mangu, avocado, and… well, that’s about it. All I want is some variety, but variety is just not the way of life here.

It’s not so much a matter of I don’t like the food here, but that the cultural values we have about food, eating and meals is so different of a priority.

In the States, in any place most of us live, not only do we have the choice of several different major grocery stores within close distance, but also have several specialty markets, farmers markets and specific vendors where you will find the most obscure ingredients in the world. Here, not only is there a grocery store in this town (it’s ALL colmados, essentially a 7-11) but you are only going to find one type of each thing that is available (which is not to say that everything is available but with a limited selection).

It explains why the locals don’t understand how cooped up we feel when we don’t get out of our barrio for a week, yet the Donas often don’t even get out of their houses, and literally rarely get out of the neighborhood. People here pass the time watching tv or sitting outside on plastic chairs talking about nothing. It doesn’t bother them that we want to go do stuff, but when we ask what there is to do around here, they just chuckle at our Americanness and invite us to sit down in one of the countless plastic chair.