Are You Reading the Dictionary?

When I show my 5 year old host brother Fernando a drawing of a raccoon, which he has never seen, he calls it a dog. He also calls a squirrel a dog, and any animal he is unsure of is a dog. Overgeneralizing is what kids do when they are first figuring out what everything is in the world around them, but it is also used by adults. As the lightest skinned, bluest eyed, lightest brown hair, tallest and clearly foreign person around in within about a 30 mile radius, I am consistently running into people who stereotype me, or who have difficulty understanding my behavior and my motivation for living in Paraguay for 2 years.

Frequently, probably more than a 100 times in the last 9 months, I have had to explain myself, what are you doing here, are you a spy for the U.S. government, etc. If the person who I am talking to has heard of the Peace Corps already it makes the conversation go smoother, but that is not always the case. There are a lot of Mormon missionaries in Paraguay, so if a Paraguayan has seen missionaries before, they assume that since I look like them and talk funny like the Mormons I must be part of some religious order. No, Peace Corps is not religious and I am actually prohibited from promoting religion, I tell them. They are never satisfied by whatever I tell them next, which most often is along the lines of “Actually I am working in the schools in the boondocks here collaborating with teachers sharing participatory teaching methodologies so that all kids will learn to read in the primary grades.” Doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue in English, let alone Spanish or worse still in my mediocre Guarani. Whoever I am talking to, after this statement, typically eyes me bewilderedly at best, downright suspiciously at worst. You must be a spy. Did you come here for the Gold? Or for the Aquifer? (Paraguay is home to the 2nd biggest aquifer on earth). For some reason moving abroad for two years to promote the word and convert people is more plausible to them coming to work to train teachers and do community development. In other words, people have difficulty fitting me into their world schema.

Another example: everyone assumes that I know all of the previous volunteers that were in my site, even ones from a really long time ago. I can’t even count the number of times someone has asked, ‘do you know Bren??’ (the volunteer that was here around 1996). No, don’t know him, I was in 3rd grade when he was here. There are 300 million people in the United States, and I’m facebook friends with about 700, and he’s not one of them…

My favorite generalization happens when I bring a novel to the elementary school, which is pretty often. As I sat at a desk outside during recess reading The Associate, I was confused by a question one of the students asked me: “Are you reading the dictionary?” “Why on earth would I be reading a dictionary?,” was my initial confused reaction. But after being asked this question by lots of kids and some adults too when they see me reading a big book, it finally hit me as to why: most of the kids have never even SEEN a big fat book aside from a dictionary. They don’t even have newspapers in my town, and the school hardly has any books. A “library” is a foreign concept to most. So it makes sense why they shouldn’t understand how addicting the latest John Grisham novel and that I have to carry it around and read it whenever I get a spare moment.

A cliché part of the Peace Corps, and a part that I indulge in, is just sitting around with nothing to do some days and reading lots of books. My host family, though, is confused by my behavior when I decide to spend an entire Saturday morning just lying in my hammock reading for pleasure while my host-dad and host-brothers are out working in the fields, planting crops, getting dirty and doing clearly measurable work. Again, none of them being avid readers, it is hard to convey to them that reading a mystery novel to me is just like watching a movie, but in my head… Riiiiiight. Sounds like someone is going crazy they say to me. What are you really doing there, reporting to the C.I.A.? Or worse, they just assume am a lazy bum who does nothing. Nde Kaigueeehina in Guarani. They are much more comforted when I spend the day working on my garden, like I did today, doing tangible, measurable work that they are familiar with. I walked over to their house to borrow a hoe, shovel, and hammer, and they must have said 3 times, ahhhhh going to work on the garden are we. Thataboy. And when I came back with my hands and feet caked with mud to return the tools, they looked took one look and said again, ahh working in the garden. Yep, you got those py ky’a (dirty feet). You’re so hardworking. Hows that coming along?

Then later tonight, I brought over a book (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, if you were wondering) to flip through while I was hanging out before we ate dinner, fresh chicken stew.

“Miguel, are you reading the dictionary?”