For instance, most Ecuadorians identify as mestizo, or as being of mixed indigenous and European heritage and many speak indigenous languages; most Uruguayans, however, identify as being criollo, or as being mostly European. Continuing my service in Uruguay has worked to link two corners of a continent, as well as to diversify my understanding of a population that is all too often reducd to a single type of person. It is important to recognize the diversity within a particular group. As Uruguayan singer Jorge Drexler writes in his song "Movimiento":
Yo no soy de aquí
Pero tú tampoco
Yo no soy de aquí
Pero tú tampoco
De ningún lado del todo
De todos lados un poco
An interpretation of what he says is, I'm not from here, but you're not either. No one is from one place, and everyone is from many.
Periodically, I still wonder how limited my fishbowl is. I still wonder how I could be better, more widely in-the-know, more experienced. But I do not just sit on these thoughts. They motivate me to act and to fulfill my potential. For instance, when I realized that I had never been formally trained in music I decided to learn the ukulele. When I wanted to understand the chemistry behind yeast I decided to learn to bake bread from scratch. I drove myself to practice yoga, to publish a book of poems, and to open my eyes to the minds of James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates. And now I have motivated myself to swim across the equator and to serve abroad. And somewhere down the line, my self-determination will hopefully inspire other young students also to expand the limits of their fishbowl for good, and towards the good.
