By Alexandra Paucescu
The first impression you get when you meet her is that of a jovial, friendly and optimistic woman who is always on the move. That’s how I met her many years ago, when we were both living in Berlin.
Our initial conversation, I remember well, was about Bucharest, my hometown. It was the first thing we had in common, the memories of a city that we both had lived in before. But later we discovered that there were many other things that connected us.
She is Petia Heinze, born in Sofia, Bulgaria, who travelled the world for the last 34 years, together with her German diplomat husband. Bonn, Brussels, Bucharest, New York, Zagreb, Berlin, London, were cities she called in turn ‘HOME’.
‘I was alongside my husband everywhere, except for Moscow, because of the brutal war that Russia waged against Ukraine. I could neither rationally nor morally come to terms with this situation and live a quiet diplomatic life there’, she confesses. But then she adds: ‘of all my posts so far, I have been happiest in Brussels‘.
Brussels, the city I call ‘home’ these days, another thing we have in common… She tells me she completed her PhD, worked for the EU Commission, and also had her first child in the Belgian capital.
She adds with an unmistakable mixture of fine humor and intelligence, which I noticed in her from the very beginning: ‘when people ask me about my background, I always tell them that I am one of those political scientists who graduated during Perestroika in a socialist country, observed and participated in the difficult and dramatic change of an unfortunate system. What better political training than to see an ideology collapse and its political-economic system implode? I worked during those extremely challenging times as a PR in the election campaign for the Grand National Assembly, then as a marketing and advertising specialist in a new democratic newspaper, later as a correspondent for a national radio, an advisor/expert on EU Phare programs, but most of all as a manager of the Heinze family.‘
Last part sounds familiar? Aren’t we all first and foremost successful managers of the most complex corporation: our own family?
‘The hardest time for me in my diplomatic life was when the children came along, with all the challenges that popped up, especially with the frequent changes of culture, language and environment, education system or healthcare. They became my top priority. The rapid building of new infrastructures in different countries was my main focus, to ensure their positive educational development and especially the psychological support they needed. Оften enough, this ‘job’ requires extraordinary efforts, strong nerves and infinite patience from us, the family managers.‘
‘However, very often in the whirlpool of all these changes and challenges of life, we forget ourselves; we forget that if the engine breaks down, the car stops. And basically we are that engine in our families. When we are healthy physically and mentally, our family is healthy. Remember it and seek help if you need it! We have been fortunate though, that supporting the families of German diplomats is a top priority for our German Foreign Ministry and we have always received strong support when needed.‘
She recently added another city to her diplomatic life map: Ashgabat, the capital and largest city of Turkmenistan. To her, it is a new opportunity to discover and learn about people and new places.
‘In addition to the love for my husband, which made me follow him during his diplomatic work and give up a professional career of my own, the opportunity to personally experience and immerse myself in other cultures and worlds, to meet new people and make new friends was another reason to live this kind of life. To this I must add that diplomatic life is associated with both pleasant and unpleasant challenges, which require a certain mental preparation, ability to adapt to new conditions, readiness to acquire new knowledge, but also a lot of humor. To young spouses of diplomats out there, my only advice is to empty the basket of prejudices and biases, to be open to the world and be patient. There is always a solution to everything!’
I asked her about the proudest moment of her life… and I got another piece of Petia’s humor, combined with her realistic approach: ‘I haven’t thought about what I’m most proud of, no one around me has won a Nobel Peace Prize yet, but I am surely proud to have kept my family together all these years and to have raised my children to be respectful of others, empathetic and helpful, open to new challenges and always eager to learn more.’
This is something more than any Nobel Prize moment for any proud parent, indeed!
About the author:
Alexandra Paucescu- Author of “Just a Diplomatic Spouse” Romanian, management graduate with a Master in business, cultural diplomacy and international relations studies.
She speaks Romanian, English, French, German and Italian, gives lectures on intercultural communication and is an active NGO volunteer.
