When perception is reality in the Muslim world

I remember a hallway full of sunlight that streamed through floor-to-ceiling windows. Off to one side were tables and chairs for 3- and 4-year-olds. Miniature wooden tea sets from Russia, hand-painted in brilliant colors, were set neatly atop each table. At the end of the hall, I entered a playroom with rainforest murals covering the walls.

This, I thought, is the Evil Empire?

It was the first time I toured a detska gradina, a Bulgarian pre-school. I had arrived in Sofia, Bulgaria's bustling capital of 1 million people, two months earlier, in the summer of 1991, with the first group of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers to travel to the Eastern European nation after the fall of communism in 1989.

I grew up during the waning decades of the Cold War in the 1970s and '80s, and my imagery of Eastern Europe was formed by TV news reports. As I think back, the only picture of the USSR and its satellites that comes to mind is of Red Square in Moscow, with generals peering down from parapets onto long lines of soldiers marching in lockstep, followed by trucks hauling missiles.

What I discovered was that Eastern Europe was nothing like the media reports to which I had been exposed. Contrary to popular belief in America, Eastern Europeans were not godless, mindless drones. Most people I met were hardworking, intelligent and deeply religious. They loved soccer, long walks and their gardens. They cared for their children and the elderly.

The communist era was a terrible time for dissidents who opposed the government in Eastern Europe. Twenty million people died in labor camps or were executed under the Stalin regime in the Soviet Union alone, according to most estimates.

But the government didn't represent the people, the vast majority of whom yearned to live freely. Average Russians, Bulgarians or Hungarians were good people trying to eke out a living to support their families.

My first encounter with a Bulgarian school was a shock, because it contrasted so starkly with the little I knew about Eastern Europe. The experience was one my great life lessons: Perception is not always reality.