Today is the worldwide launch of inaugural Peace Corps month celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Peace Corps. Today’s post comes from Sophia Forero, a jewelry designer from Chicago, Illinois who served in The Peace Corps in 1990.

I remember the day I got my Peace Corps assignment in February, 1990.

I had interviewed for a position in West Africa, someplace new, someplace totally adventurous to me, where I would learn about a completely new culture.

I opened up the innocuous yellow envelope and read very carefully:

Hungary.

What? Europe? Eastern Europe? Where trains worked, apartment buildings stood, streetlights pulsated? A heartbeat away from the family home country of Greece?

I’d been swindled!

After a brief stint in Washington where we were honored as the first volunteers since the fall of the Berlin Wall, my comrades and I landed in a region that I had read about in my political science books.

I had speculated on Hungary in my studies, but I didn’t know at that point how easily I would fall for the beauty of the Hungarian spirit.

In this land where “Hello” was a 6 syllable mouthful (Jo napot kivanok) and men still tipped their hats at ladies, I came to understand how very precious it was to be American.  We grow up with the knowledge that dreams can become a reality.

The Soviet system had entered into the Hungarian psyche in such a way that no textbook could have illustrated to me. As a youthful American, where the world was my oyster, I didn’t fully understand how that system permeated and limited ordinary life.

The typical Hungarian was full of questions for me- what life in America was like, about school tuition, about paying taxes…

Imagine a country where the only supermarket was called “SUPERMARKET,” where there were no brands to choose from, no choices. All the “DEPARTMENT STORES” had the same kinds of coats in one season in the same styles and in the same colors… No room to express- no way to interpret art, no superficial way, anyhow, to just be different.

The Peace Corps gave me a chance to work with Hungarians, laugh with them, listen to their stories of the past, and converse with them about the possibilities for their future.  I made friendships that I still hold today. This experience allowed me to become introspective about my home country in a way that I had not previously done on any travels.

On my last day, the oldest professor on our faculty, Mr. Laszlo, handed me a straw ornament. With tears in his eyes he asked me to never forget the staff, and to know I always had friends in Tata, Hungary.

I still remember his clear blue eyes and the ornament hangs in my office.

I went into my assignment thinking I was the teacher, and instead, I had the fortune of being taught — by hundreds — my students, their families, my co-workers, the folks I interacted with on a daily basis at SUPERMARKET or BANK or POST OFFICE. This was the most important part of my experience.

To serve others is a privilege, not for those you serve, but for yourself.