I’ve read some gripping memoirs in my time working for BookReview.com. Some of them have been heart wrenching stories by mothers raising mentally handicapped children, or survivors of rape, or even family members who are taken hostage by their siblings. But, of all of them, I have to say I identify with Paul Arfin’s “Portrait of a Peace Corps Gringo” the most. It is a tale about searching for a life direction, a purpose, and finding it in the most unlikely of places.

Paul Arfin left for Colombia in 1963 for one of the Peace Corps’ first missions and, in a sense, he has never returned. His mind turns over the experience as it resides in the nucleus of his life, everything else emanating outward of those defining two years. Reading his memoir, and understanding the amount of work he’s done in the field of youth development, I wouldn’t say that his Peace Corps experience defines Paul Arfin, but that perhaps Paul Arfin defines himself by it. It was the two years of his life in which everything came together and pointed in a single direction.

This is also the case for the book itself since the title perfectly illustrates the duality of its purpose. Yes, the book is about being in the Peace Corps, and learning from the experience, but it is also a “portrait”. It is as much about Arfin as it is his experiences in Colombia, and although the most interesting third of the book are in those details of life in South America, there is an uplifting fervor that comes with witnessing the veins of that heart spread throughout the rest of Arfin’s life.

As a young man, fresh out of college, and considering the Peace Corps myself, I am perhaps the ideal audience for just such a tale. In many ways, Arfin has led the ideal life, which normally makes for a bland memoir, (that’s why Carrie Fisher makes the big memoir bucks!) but he has a natural way of drawing out the conflict therein. After all, everyone knows what it’s like to be unsure in their lifestyle, even if they’re relatively happy. What Arfin’s journey teaches us is that happiness is not the same thing as fulfillment. Arfin finds fulfillment in fighting for underprivileged youth, a reflection of the social service work he did in Colombia, and a direct result of the lessons he learned there.