After graduating from the University of Illinois with a degree in advertising back in 1998, I had been too focused on my own professional track, (and wasn’t nearly yet tough enough) to consider the Peace Corps. I moved out West, joined the dot-com revolution, started a business, and got married. Slowly, we became demographic DINKS (Double Income/No Kids), busy with dinner parties, book club meetings, and wedding showers. My husband Michael’s demanding corporate job funded his taste for Chilean sea bass, African travel, and the pursuit of a graduate degree in political science, but it also kept him scheming to escape. My clients kept me creative and busy, supporting our home remodels, NPR donations, and my volunteer commitments, but I had become unchallenged. Life was comfortable, and certainly full of stuff, yet, somehow, empty. We sought to understand the rest of the world, live more simply, appreciate our roots, and explore a career change in the Foreign Service or international development. Peace Corps, we discovered, could help make that happen.

But while this Kennedy-inspired organization was started to increase world peace and friendship, and often conjures up images of Americans teaching English, planting crops, or digging wells, Peace Corps has evolved with the world. As part of the community and organizational development track, we were assigned to be business advisors in Bulgaria, a country on the brink of EU accession. We would live in the capital, Sofia, work for NGOs, and have indoor plumbing and DSL.

Michael was assigned to BlueLink, a virtual network offering Internet-based services to environmental and civil society NGOs, where he works on grant proposals, a Web site, the annual report, and research projects. I volunteer with two organizations. The first, the Bulgarska Traditzia Foundation, helps socially disadvantaged artisans—some with disabilities, some in social homes and some who are economically challenged—by helping them create marketable products and selling them in our gallery. The amazing result is a self-reliant life, a sustainable income, and a sense of pride for these vulnerable groups. I also work with Habitat for Humanity, an organization with a mission to provide safe, decent, and affordable homes to families in need. For both non-profits, I help manage volunteers, create marketing, coordinate events, generate publicity, and network to find donors, partners, beneficiaries, and clients. I encourage regular staff meetings, sound customer service practices, quarterly planning, and project matrices. Recently, I initiated a six-month corporate social responsibility training program to encourage public-private partnerships in preparation for EU accession.

We are also involved in secondary projects. I’ve started a Bulgarian book club, write for a national English newspaper, and serve on Peace Corps’s Volunteer Advisory Council. Michael is developing a tourist bike trail through Bulgaria’s monastery-dotted mountains and facilitates community English classes.

It sounds pretty modern, but it’s still a challenge. Here, we earn an average Bulgarian salary, live without a vehicle, and have learned to slaughter a pig. We rely on a wood-burning stove for winter heat and now require clothespins to dry our jeans. We still get confused by the Bulgarian’s reversed head-shake for “yes” and head-nod for “no.” Our language skills, despite Peace Corps’s stellar program, are only mediocre due to our unfamiliarity with the Cyrillic alphabet and to big-city life. But some things take a bit more time. And time, thanks to this wise, two-and-a-half-year program, is what we have.

Indeed, as Peace Corps volunteers, it’s our job to stay a little longer and dig a little deeper. In a place where we are a far cry from humanitarian heroes, challenges are more subtle than they are tangible and treacherous. Buried beneath the post-communist dust and the modernity of McDonalds’s sundaes and Diesel-stamped sweaters, we’ve discovered fundamental cultural differences. For example, the way a Bulgarian views fate, time, self, and communication is sometimes hard to understand. We are learning not just about communism, but about the aftershocks of five centuries of oppression, which includes a society that plans little, smiles less, avoids collaboration, is bewildered by volunteerism, relies on non-verbal cues and is not fond of defining identity through group association. These cultural distinctions, as we work to propose solutions to specific contemporary problems, are a major obstacle for us. But every day, I learn. With every project, my patience increases. At each meeting, I become a better listener and problem-solver.

And as the months pass, I have come to appreciate the Bulgarian way. Here, they live for the moment instead of planning away their lives. When we buy fruit and bread, we buy for today—not only because we lack refrigerator space, but because it will only be good for about 36 hours anyway. When I am an hour late for a meeting, ashamed and apologetic, there is no drama, only an assumption that it couldn’t be helped. Life, Bulgarians believe, is not what we do, but what happens to us. While this fate versus free will debate was initially difficult to accept, it is a response to feelings and circumstances instead of schedules. And that feels pretty good.
Of course, we miss the United States: the quick smile of an American, an optimistic attitude, a public sense of order. Most of all, we miss that intangible democratic spirit—something we only appreciated once we were distanced from it.

I often tell people that Peace Corps has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Like a marathon, it challenges my physical limits. Like starting a business, it tests my courage. Like travel, it boosts my patriotism. But Peace Corps has also demonstrated to me that real development work is harder to define. My most important contribution, surprising as it may sound, is not a grant proposal, a training session, or a web site. It’s my own curiosity, spirit of volunteerism, and goodwill toward Bulgarians that makes the biggest impact. My inherent interest in their lives makes a difference. It’s our daily conversations that they will remember. This is actually what the Peace Corps mission is all about: connecting.