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Drew Thurman ('94)

Beckley native gives back through the Peace Corps

By AUDREY SCHWITZERLETTE

What better way for a University of Tennessee graduate to spend his post-college years than volunteering?

Beckley's Drew Thurman took his desire for volunteerism to another level three years ago when he applied to serve in the Peace Corps.

"I always had a feeling of wanting to give back," he said during a visit to his Beckley home last week - his first in two years. "Peace Corps looked like a good way of doing that in a formal setting."

For the last two years, Thurman has been a Peace Corps volunteer in the Romanian town of Miercurea Ciuc (in Romanian), or Csíkszereda (in Hungarian) - a city of about 40,000 in the eastern part of Transylvania.

He'll return there next month to continue not only his work in the community and its adult educational center, but the cultural exchange that is such an important part of Peace Corps.

Peace Corps provides interested countries - 137 of them - with a university-educated volunteer ready to serve wherever that country needs him or her.

In Romania, Thurman has helped organize an international film club, conducted water studies, sought out and obtained grants for educational materials, volunteered in the community, offered English classes a chance to practice with a native speaker, solicited books in English and other foreign languages to create a library, edited paperwork written in English and basically served as a general administrative assistant for the Soros Educational Center - a not-for-profit learning facility that provides classes in everything from foreign languages to crafts.

But the service he has provided that he values the most has been "giving a face to America."

Thurman was nearly a year into the application process when Sept. 11, 2001, changed the country forever, but the disaster only encouraged him more.

"It made me more passionate about it," he said, adding he had originally requested to go to Jordan before being assigned to Eastern Europe.

"In some places, when they think of America, they think of the military, dropping bombs, invading nations. But at least in my community, when they think of America, they're going to think of Drew and Dustin and the other Peace Corps volunteers they got to know," Thurman said. "Everybody has their opinion of America, and it's all based on media blips. ... America is just this faceless nation that no one understands."

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Peace Corps, Thurman said, is "a real opportunity to learn and exchange a culture and at the same time feel like you're doing something good."

He lives as they live, which means he does not drive a vehicle and he washes his clothes by hand. He lives modestly in a minority community of Hungarians and he speaks both Romanian and some Hungarian.

Thurman referred to the Nelson Mandela quote: "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart."

"Really, I'm experiencing two cultures in one place," he explained.

And they are experiencing his culture.

Thurman's undergraduate education in sociology and political science and his master's degree in planning with a focus on community development have been useful. But it's his knowledge of all things American - such as Halloween and U.S. football - that the Romanians and Hungarians are most likely to remember.

For example, Thurman recently helped organize a traditional American Halloween party. Strangers to the uniquely American observance, the Romanians and Hungarians arrived dressed in full costume - including a few Transylvanian vampires and even The Village People. But the party was more than a cultural exchange; it raised money to buy shoes for gypsy families in the area.

His commitment to the Peace Corps was originally supposed to end after two years, but Thurman requested an extension.

"It's one of those things. You get into a community and you spend a year, but you still don't know much about it. And after that year your projects are taking off, so you want another year to see them through," he said. "Now I want to see if I can do something there that's not just a cultural exchange, but some real, working projects to help them."

When a Peace Corps volunteer is granted an extension, the organization strongly encourages that volunteer to take the Peace Corps up on its offer for a trip home.

"It's nice to go home and see family and friends, so when you go back, you're re-energized," Thurman said.

He only wishes his leave could have coincided with his class reunion, the Woodrow Wilson High School Class of 1994, which is planned just weeks after he returns to Romania for another 11 months.

But, he said, there will be others.

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Thurman said he would like to remain in international development as a career - maybe something with the U.S. State Department if possible - after the Peace Corps. But regardless of what he does, he'll always be connected to Romania, where the mountains aren't the only thing that remind him of home.

Just as some West Virginians make quilts and other crafts, some Romanians make embroidered fabrics, paint eggs and design other arts and crafts; and as farmers in West Virginia raise crops and livestock, so do farmers in Romania, "just with different methods."

For now in the Peace Corps, Thurman will continue serving both the United States and Romania by promoting a better understanding of Americans on the part of Romanians and Hungarians, and a better understanding of Romanians and Hungarians on the part of Americans.

"Culturally, everybody seems to want to point out what's different," he said. "What I've learned is really how similar things are, how similar we all think on everything - whether it's religion or the importance of family."

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There are 23 West Virginians among the 7,533 volunteers currently serving in the Peace Corps.

For more information on the Peace Corps, visit http://www.peacecorps.gov/

And to see the town where Thurman has been living and serving, visit http://clmc.topnet.ro/aszereda.html.