Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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This is just one example of something I�ve held off on writing about, but the frequency is such that it needs telling. What you read in the papers and see on television back in the States about foreign attitudes towards America and Bush is a watered-down version of the truth. Everyone here, and in Europe in general, HATE Bush. HATE him. They think he�s a complete idiot and say so frequently and with absolute candor. And unfortunately, that translates into many of them hating America as well. The malice for America isn�t as ubiquitous as it is for Bush, but it�s a part of my life here.
Last Friday I was with some friends at the aforementioned Bikers Bar. It was me, my friend Luke (another Peace Corps Volunteer from Chicago), our two Ukrainian friends Sergei and Jennya, Sergei�s girlfriend Julia, and some of her friends from work. It was a fairly low-key night, when the table next to us broke out in song.
�Fucking Americans go home, la la la, I hate fucking Americans, da di da, I hate Americans, fucking Americans go home.�
Things at our table grew quiet. Luke and Sergei (who speaks terrific English and is one of my favorite people here) and I exchanged glances of �just ignore it� when the leader of the band stumbled over to us. He was absolutely trashed and could barely stand up let alone speak. He addressed the table.
�I like America,� he slurred, �and I like Americans. But you come here and tell us what to do and how to do and you do not know us and you do not know Ukraine. You want to make us into America. But we are not America.�
All eyes at our table were turned down. Except, as usual, for mine, as I engaged him in Russian, asking what his name was and introducing myself, and he replied in English, which is pretty funny, considering neither of us knew the language we were speaking that well. I didn�t take the situation that seriously, but Luke, Sergie, and Jennya were extremely offended. The evening then abruptly ended and all went home in sour moods.
Like Lynch�s world, things look so normal on the surface that I sometimes forget that I�m here as a Peace Corps Volunteer because this country has so many problems. If you were to visit Donetsk, you would see nothing but fancy stores, restaurants, cafes, and streets filled with Mercedes and Hummers. I even saw a Lamborghini Diablo on Friday night. What you realize is that this represents about one percent of the population, and as Sergei so eloquently put it one night, �there is no honest money in Donetsk.� There is such a strong undercurrent of anger and frustration at this juxtaposition of disproportionate dishonest wealth against the backdrop of a typical Ukrainian life of struggling to make ends meet that people cope through alcohol and get ahead through graft. Though I�ve yet to see anything really bad in Donetsk, stories of bar fights and drunken hooligans ring from town to town. Part of me knows that it�s just a matter of time before I�m going to have to face something more serious than drunken diatribes against my country.
Also, the problem of anger and alcoholism is further exacerbated by the type of response given by Christina in defense of her boyfriend. People here, due to the set of circumstances already mentioned, also cope by living in a constant state of denial. It�s battered wife syndrome. They know things are bad, but they�d rather pretend to be normal than take a stand and fight to make their lives better. Excuses fall under the rubric of �culture.� This is just our culture, they say. This is normal for Ukraine. And I�m struggling between trying to just fit in and screaming at them that their lives suck because they allow it to suck and they only people who can make things better are themselves.
I�ve made no secret of the fact that I�ve had nothing but problems with my Kafedra (office) since starting work in February. First it was trying to get a set schedule of classes, which took five weeks. Every day I went in and asked for a schedule, and every day things changed. While I did my best to go with the flow, I made no secret of the fact I was extremely frustrated with their lack of responsibility and ability to execute even the simplest task. Then there was the issue with the Women�s Day party. And most recently, the bane of my existence is my apartment situation. When the Institute invited me here, they knew that they had to provide me an apartment by April 1st. Back in January, when I first arrived, I gave them the contact information for a terrific apartment another volunteer had had who just recently left. They asked how much it was, and I told them I thought it was $100 a month, which they said was more than they could afford but they would talk about it. I said, �I don�t know for sure that�s how much it is. Just give them a call and I�m sure you can negotiate something.�
So every day in February I asked about the apartment, and the head of my department said they were working on it. Every day in March I asked when I could see the apartment, and she said they were working on it. Finally, about two weeks ago, she said that they had agreed to pay $80 and Peace Corps would pay the other $20. Terrific, I thought! Until last Monday, March 22nd, when the head of my department told me they had a new apartment for me to look at.
�Wait. What do you mean a �new� apartment? What happened to the one I found?�
�It�s taken,� she said.
�Taken? Taken? I gave you the information three months ago! You mean to tell me nobody did anything with it for three months?� My heart sunk in inverse proportion to my ire, which skyrocketed.
�I�m sorry,� she replied. �It�s not my fault. Don�t blame me. I asked and asked the director and she said �oh, we have time, it�s early���
Without going into too much detail, I went off on her with a litany of charges ranging from being disingenuous to irresponsible to completely inept. She assured me I would have an apartment to look at that week. �An apartment?� I queried. �No,� I said, �I want to see five apartments. I had three months to find a place and now I have one week and I am not going to just take some crappy apartment because you didn�t do your job.�
The next day I went apartment hunting. We met the agent and then had to wait twenty minutes because she didn�t know where the person with the key was. The apartment was in a great location, but looked like it hadn�t been lived in since Khrushchev was in office. So then Wednesday I went to look at another place. We met the agent again and again waited twenty minutes. This time nobody showed up. So Thursday I went to look at another place. This time the address was wrong and nobody�s phone worked and they didn�t know what the story was. And once again, I lost my proverbial shit on them, expletives and insults flying out of my mouth in quick succession. Friday I was supposed to have two apartments to look at, and both of them fell through.
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