50 Nations
Time goes by so fast in the months leading up to staging! I’ve just been so busy practicing Spanish and getting final medical clearance (As a tip for new volunteers, go to a USA-ICD Dentist for a free dental exam and check your local VA Hospital to see if they offer a free physical).
In between doctor visits I’ve been reflecting on goal two of the Peace Corps, which is “Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.” How do I show Paraguayans American culture?
I decided a photobook would be an adaquate way to do this. So I started going around taking pictures of things that were undoubtedly American. People dressed up in red, white, and blue, people eating hamburgers, people in Cowboy apparel. However I soon realized that I was just delivering a plastic wrapped version of American life. The mainstream America that most of the world already sees.
So I stopped going to all the faux trendy festivals, and focused on normal people doing everyday things. Forcing myself to document routine activities made me realize that I’ve not fully appreciated the vibrant subculture found just in Fort Collins. We have our own foods, arts, music, and stories found only here.
While out documenting FOCO nightlife, I met a singer and her brother touring from Nebraska. It was their first time in Fort Collins, and yet they were saying they wanted to move here. They were tired of living in a town where everyone knows everyone and did not want to spend the rest of their lives in “cowboy country.” Colorado is just a state away, but to them represented a whole new way of life.
This made me realize what was wrong with my initial approach. I was trying to define America as a single culture, and in doing so avoided things which were uniquely Coloradoan or FOCOen. We’re not actually a single culture but many small ones. Even characterizing a state as a single culture might be pushing it.
I don’t think I’ll be able to capture the culture of Colorado, let alone the forty-nine other ‘nations’ that make up America in the next two months. But someday I think it would be fun to try. It would be one heck of a road trip!