Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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The Peace Corps is a government agency. It's funded by tax dollars, its leadership is appointed, and yes, while it has a mission statement and clear goals, it is also subject to the agenda of the United States of America.
Now, to some of you, this may be completely self-evident. To me, sitting at the US Embassy in Kyiv on the day of my swearing-in with 80 other volunteers listening to the US Ambassador describe American policy concerning Ukraine, what direction "we" want it to take, and what "our" goals are here, the reality of my employment slowly tiptoed into my ear canal and made its way from synapse to syapse, dendrite to dendrite, and up and down my central nervous system until it landed in my stomach and rested nervously on a bed of intestinal goop. Ho-ly shit, I'm now working for the Bush administration.
The Ambassador only spoke for a few minutes, but it didn't take long before words like "democracy" and "evil empire" and "end-game" started getting thrown around (and I can say this because the US position on Ukraine is all public record). Dude, are you kidding? Just when you thought the Regan years were burried in a time capsule... But the Ambassador made it clear that it is imperative that we promote democracy through our lessons and espouse democratic ideas, so long as we don't trip over ourselves and get involved in the politics in Ukraine.
See, here's the deal. The Peace Corps is, of course, a non-political, non-religious, government organization (and yes, I had to memorize how to say that in Russian, and yes, it's not easy: Corpusa Mira nepoliticheskaya, nereligioznya, galsudarstvennaya organizatsya.) However, while it's non-political, it's still a government organization, not a NGO, and thus occassionally raises some eyebrows. In Russia, for example, where the program was canceled two years ago, they were convinced Peace Corps volunteers were spies. In Ukraine, a volunteer was interrogated by Ukrainian police because she was in Crimea taking pictures and was a little too close to the navy yard. Subsequently, she was basically asked to leave the country.
And now, in 2004, there is a very big election coming up. Everywhere we go, we're being asked what we think of the current president, Kuchma, and what we think of the politics in Ukraine. Of course, the only thing we can say is "I don't know." Which is correct, since we've only been here three months and have no experience or exposure the the current situation or history. But it becomes a very slippery slope the deeper you get into it, and smiles are often better than opinions.
That being said, I'm now officially a Peace Corps volunteer, paid by all of you to make the world a better place. The ceremony was actually quite nice, and a number of important dignitaries were there as well as NPR and all the big Ukrainian press. One by one, our names were called and we stood up to represent our home cities and our new cities. And then, in unison, we stood to take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America (and later signed official documents to the same affect).
Things have continued to move very quickly. American Christmas was our last day in Kyiv, and I arrived in Donesk last Saturday. Let me say this: Kyiv is a beautiful city, strikingly clean and expansive, and I encourage any of you who can make the trip at some point to do so. Donetsk, while not as big, is very nice and the smell is not nearly as putrid as I made it out the first time. Last night I was at the opera and it was extremely impressive and well-done. And the ladies are not hard to look at...
The new family is so nice and so over-accomodating I sometimes need to tell them to stop, but it's kind of nice to be spoiled every once in awhile, even if that once in awhile is every day. I don't start work until tomorrow, and even then we have the rest of the week off. Tis the season in Ukraine. It starts with American Christmas on the 25th, then New Years, and we have Ukrainian Christmas on Wednesday and Old New Years shortly after that. You can imagine, it's pretty much just one huge party.
That's it for now. Hope y'all had a great holiday season as I continue to cruise through mine and best of everything in the new year! C Novim Godam!
Other Quick-Hits:
-- scored an Intermediate High on my Language Proficiency Interview. Not bad for only 10 weeks of Russian classes.
-- was the only trainee published in the PC Ukraine journal, including one that was the feature story. Actually, I had both my articles published.
-- at the swearing-in ceremony, I met with the US Embassy representative from the media department, and it looks like a few other volunteers and I are going to try and start a journalism summer camp. I'm also going to try and start an English-language paper at my school. Stay tuned.
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