Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Ty Wilson can be contacted at upr10r1anetscapednet
Country of Service: Bulgaria
Training Group: TEFL
Cities you served in: Popovo & Haskovo
Arrival Year: 1994
Departure Year: 1996
Work Description:
Taught English as a foreign language to students between Preparatory and 11th grades.
Bring us up to date on your life after the peace corps:
Upon my return from Bulgaria, I became a longhaul trucker for a major trucking company, with which I drove for two years. This provided further adventure and a genuine welcoming home to my country or origin. I then moved back to Alaska to drive shuttle bus during summers for my friends' company, covering routes of 360 miles daily between Fairbanks and Anchorage. During the winter I returned to college as a fulltime student seeking an Associate degree in Computer Support. Additionally, my time was taken up improving a rustic cabin (without plumbing) with my partner at the time. I am now working in Accounts Payable at a major Seattle law firm, representing two east coast satelite offices. On the side, I sing and tour with the nation's largest community chorus and world's largest Gay chorus: the Seattle Men's Chorus.
Any thoughts you have now looking back on peace corps days?:
So young I was, and so green. Yet so much more idealistic, with a sense of adventure that lacks with me now. I thought I would learn so much in the Peace Corps, but my true learning occurred after I returned home; the Peace Corps was an introduction to the bigger lesson.
I miss the Peace Corps, for all its adventure, its craziness, triumphs and the trials, the stresses and the rewards. Never can I say that I am more alive today than when I was a Peace Corps volunteer. The Peace Corps was the best and the worst of myself combined. With such a mirror, how can one not be a little self-centered? So much was I learning about myself, I never believed I ever taught anything to anyone else, but I know I did.
The Peace Corps was a great life choice, and when I retire, I may join the Peace Corps again...Zashto ne?
Any message for returned volunteers?:
I'm really lousy at keeping in touch. Sorry. Part of me has put the years '94 to '96 behind me, part of me wants to stay connected with RPCVs. In the end, correspondence goes by the wayside as do any further thoughts on getting a cell phone or cable TV. But I remember you all. I know how we all must have changed by now. And yet, we never really change completely, do we? (Maybe we wish we did, but we don't, really.) Never have I felt more a part of an extended family than I did with Peace Corps Bulgaria III and IV. This is my message: Mnogo radvum sum da kazha, "Zdravete, skupi zhivotni i priateltsvo!"
There, Sherri always wanted to say that at our closing ceremony, now I did too!
Originally posted: August 2, 2004
