WASHINGTON — As a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to a school in Gostivar, Macedonia, Sarah Blake would listen, waiting for the English words that began to puncture the conversations during the first months of 2017.

Trump. Ban.

Ms. Blake, in her third year as a Peace Corps volunteer, was often the only American in the city of about 80,000 in the Macedonian foothills, where the predominantly Muslim population speaks Albanian. She began to stress about having to explain the Trump administration’s new travel policy and the president’s own statements about Islam.

Shoulders hunched, head down, she would conjure reasons to step away in case these questions came up, she said. Too much work. A meeting to attend.

“There hasn’t been a really perfect president,” said Ms. Blake, a Maryland native who now lives in Istanbul after completing her Peace Corps service in May. “But when the president of your country is saying horrible, horrible things, I felt embarrassed.”