If you could visit just one place in a great city, where would you go? The Eiffel Tower or the Louvre in Paris? The Statue of Liberty or Central Park in New York? Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City in Beijing?
I have answers for three cities we just visited along the Danube River: Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava. My picks aren’t necessarily the most famous spots in these cities but they’re the ones Champa and I will remember the most.
In Vienna, it was the opera house. Not inside the opera, where two tickets can cost more than our monthly Peace Corps budget, but the sidewalk outside. You can sit in chairs there and watch a performance live on a giant screen for free. We discovered this after we arrived in Vienna and saw the ballet Raymonda starting as we strolled by. We sat and enjoyed it for nearly an hour, returning the next day to catch part of Richard Wagner’s opera Die Walküre.
It was magical to sit outside on a beautiful evening and watch world-class performances in the Austrian city reknown for its music and culture.
In Budapest, we’ll most remember the Chain Bridge and adjacent funicular, which provide stunning views of a picturesque city. We’d already taken a boat ride down the Danube, sailing under the bridge and past the Parliament building and other sites. As in Vienna, we’d also toured the city with Big Bus.
However, nothing topped the view from the historic bridge that spans the river between Buda and Pest, the western and eastern sides of Hungary’s capital. Well, nothing except the historic cable car that climbs to an even better view from Buda Castle.
Our biggest Bratislava memory will be St. Martin’s Cathedral, and not only because it’s a landmark of the Slovakian capital. For us, it was also the view in the window of the Airbnb we rented across the square. We could admire the three-nave Gothic church while sipping our morning coffee and then walk a few steps to tour the interior.
A sidewalk, a bridge and a cathedral weren’t the only places we enjoyed during our eight-day trip, the last vacation of our Peace Corps service. We saw lots of other things, too. Some were surprising, as I’ll explain in my next post. For now, you can see for yourself that many of them were amazing.
Vienna, Austria:
Budapest, Hungary:
Bratislava, Slovakia:
“No, you actually have to get on a plane,” replied Kennedy. “That’s the ‘volunteer’ part.”
Fair enough. If I were Jimmy Kimmel, I wouldn’t walk away from a network talk show and millions of dollars, especially with a young family. More to the point, if the thought of leaving America for two years to serve in a distant community sounds unappealing, then it’s not a good fit for Jimmy Kimmel or anyone else. Especially during the past year, he has emerged as an important voice on health care, immigration and other issues. He and others can pursue meaningful lives in so many ways.
When I tell them we’ve come to love Moldova and will miss it when we return home, they are often surprised.
Inevitably, they respond with “but what about”: But what about the bad roads? What about the overcrowded buses? What about the low salaries? What about so many people leaving the country to work elsewere? What about the corruption?
I love the grandmothers talking in the market, the mothers carrying babies, the dads holding their children’s hands. I love everyone’s hospitality and generosity.
Certificates and diplomas are a big deal here in Moldova. They are awarded at sporting competitions, school ceremonies and other events. A certificate typically includes the official stamp of the organization and may be laminated.
In other words, as the walls of many American doctors’ offices make clear, our traditions are similar in many ways. Here in Moldova, though, certificates are way more popular, not to mention cheaper, than sports trophies. Kids here sometimes also receive medals, like the boys on our robotics team shown below.
Certificate ceremonies in Moldova are usually filled with pride and appreciation. The speeches are heartfelt, the smiles are genuine and the certificates themselves are lovely. The moment is always captured with a poza — a pose for the camera.
The new site features the library’s many new services, such as its clubs for robotics and film animation, and its “Bebeteca” room for kids and families. It highlights a library blog that previously existed on a separate site and was often overlooked. There’s an automated calendar that lists upcoming events. 
A map provides directions. An online exhibit offers a video, photo exhibits and historical information about the library’s namesake, folklorist Petre Ștefănucă. A multimedia section shows YouTube videos about the library. Another section provides the annual work plans for the main library and its two branches.
My head spins sometimes when I try to remember the best way to call someone while I’m serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe. My older son back home uses Skype. His wife and my older sister prefer Facebook Messenger. My other son and his wife use FaceTime, as does my younger sister. Our nieces in England like Viber. We also speak with our nephew who recently finished his medical studies in China, where he used WeChat.
Here in Moldova, I can call a friend’s number with my cell phone but they may respond faster to a text, unless of course they prefer to receive a message via Facebook or WhatsApp.
PCVs who didn’t bring a phone received one from Peace Corps, together with a SIM card. When I travel outside Moldova, I add extra money to my phone account and activate its international roaming feature, for prices far below what companies charge back home.
It’s great to have all of these communications options, particularly since so many of them are free or cheap, but remembering everyone’s preferences reminds me of planning a dinner party where one guest is a vegetarian, another is lactose intolerant and another doesn’t eat gluten. Who can keep track of it all?
I never bothered with it. Neither did most of my PCV friends. We mailed letters instead.
Some accounts say he wrote the famous aphorism: Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
With salaries and budgets that are tiny by American standards, they look to external sources for additional support, especially for projects. Potential funders range from USAID and other agencies affiliated with foreign governments to international NGOs, local embassies and others. 
As someone who thinks a lot about communications and cares about the Peace Corps deeply, first serving as a volunteer four decades ago and now again, I’ve tried to understand the logic of this. I still don’t get it. Americans and people in other countries need more than ever to understand each other. I think the Peace Corps, which just celebrated its 57th birthday, could be more impactful by fully embracing its communications role and bringing its portfolio into alignment with its mandate.
At its best, though, communications has the deeper purpose of advancing organizational goals. I worked in the philanthropy world for many years and saw that even as some foundations focused on their slick annual reports and websites, others embraced communication as a strategic tool. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, for example, spent a lot of money on advertising and other communications activities to fight Big Tobacco and 
It played an important role in turning the tide on that issue. Other foundations helped change attitudes towards the LGBTQ community and on other issues.
I am not picking on Peace Corps Moldova, which has expanded its communications activities and supported innovations by its chief communications staffer, who I’ve been assisting. Some volunteers here have organized wonderful classes and cross-cultural events, such as during the recent “Peace Corps Week” or to celebrate American holidays.
"Not Exactly Retired" 