I had been so impressed with myself for consistently blogging once a month, but at the start of 2018 the ideas and the energy dropped off and my blogging streak ended. I think it is because I typically blog when I am traveling, but at this point my time in Ukraine doesn't feel like traveling anymore. I've adjusted to my new status quo, and being in Ukraine is just my normal life now. Hence, it's a little harder to feel inspired to write.
The one-year mark has come and gone unceremoniously. I spent my Ukrainiversary sitting in a health clinic doing hydrogen breath tests to figure out why my gut seems to hate everything, which felt like a suiting way to honor my group's arrival back on the Ides of March, 2017.
Anyhow, the winter doldrums are finally lifting. The daylight persists well into the evening now, the streets are no longer so perilously icy, and it's time to get back to the blog. I figured I'd take this opportunity to answer a pretty basic, yet complicated question:
What do I actually do?
My work has mainly fallen along three lines since I got here:
- Developing the internal operations of young, growing nonprofit organizations
- Coming up with various side projects or contributing to other Volunteers' projects, including English clubs, trash cleanups, cultural fairs, and various workshops
- Being the novelty American who gets invited to things just because of being the novelty American
Summer 2017 Side Project: Dakhnivka Beach Cleanup
My first side project was to coordinate a cleanup day at the beach in the neighborhood where I lived when I first got to site. I did this mostly to force myself to start getting out into the community and interacting with people. I had to figure out basic things like how to locate the beach on a map, where the nearest bus stops were, where to obtain trash bags, etc. It was a great way to start getting acquainted with my city, and it also just so happened to get national media coverage! I'm hoping to help coordinate another one in May, but this time with more of the leadership and coordination handled by the locals.
Fall 2017 Side Project: Sharing Our Wacky, Hybrid American Culture!
Another little side project came about through a fellow volunteer who works at the local Business College. He invited me to come do a cultural workshop on pumpkin carving, so I gave a short presentation about the origins and history of the tradition, and then we had fun getting a little more hands-on with it. I was told (I'm not sure how jokingly or seriously) I should feel honored that the school's reigning beauty queen was there (yes, there is a Miss Business College pageant). She took an active part in carving our two pumpkins. The supplies were less than ideal (no fancy sets of pumpkin-carving tools to be found here) but we made it work!
Winter 2017/2018 Main Project: Capacity Development Training
Side projects are an important part of Peace Corps, but my "main job" is working on organizational capacity development. A major accomplishment so far was encouraging a recently-formed and somewhat struggling regional development agency to apply for a capacity development grant. We first had to do a capacity assessment, including some preliminary training on what constitutes organizational capacity, along with how and why to assess it. I then coached the staff through the grant application and documentation process. We didn't get the grant the the first time around, but with some more more coaching on the art of grant writing, the second application was successful, and with the grant funds they were able to bring in an expert facilitator to work with them for three days on strategic planning and fundraising. Key to this process was some time that the facilitator spent with executive staff and the board of directors to help them align their strategic priorities, and draft a five-year strategic plan for the agency.
Winter 2017/2018 Side Project: Write On Ukraine!
One of the highlights of my service so far has been helping with the international Write On competition, a creative writing competition in English held in about a dozen countries and organized entirely by Peace Corps Volunteers. I both organized a competition in my city, and served as the coordinator and judge for my region. As a judge, I got to read more than 50 stories written mostly by students in middle- and high-school, as well as by some university students and professionals. Reading creative writing is so fun. I had a lot of good laughs while sipping tea and poring over the stories with my Ukrainian co-judge. And of course, it is a lot of fun to be able to announce winners, give out prizes, and tell the participants how darn proud I am of them. I can't wait to run Write On again next year. For more information about Write On, you can check out the international website.
Spring 2018: Helping Out in the Village
One of my fellow volunteers has an amazing project going on in a village in my region, and I was lucky enough to come help out at a week-long training she organized at the village school. She's helping the schoolteachers, staff, students, and even members of the village council to get training in project management, HIV/AIDS prevention, human trafficking prevention, gender equality, leadership, and volunteerism, so that they can then lead sessions on these topics at a big summer camp in June. I led some sessions on the topics of youth engagement, volunteering and leadership opportunities for students, and growth mindset as a way to think about self-esteem and learning. However, the funnest part was just being an extra set of hands for the activities another volunteer organized with the youth leaders.
What's in Store for 2018?
Even though it's already almost April, it feels like 2018 is just getting started. (It's hard to do much of anything when the sun sets by 4:00 PM and the streets are covered in 8 inches of solid ice). One NGO I've been working with just got a major grant, and I look forward to supporting them as they expand from being a part-time side gig to a fully operational organization. Serving in the Peace Corps is turning out to be much of what I had hoped for as far as an opportunity to try my hand at multiple aspects of organizational management and sustainability. I'm also continuing with a couple of English clubs, including the Short Story Club that most of you on Facebook have seen me post about at some point.
Apart from work, I seem to have stumbled into singing with a local church choir, and we have a bunch of rehearsals for the next couple of weeks until the Orthodox Easter Service. It's quite a challenge, since most of the songs are in Church Slavonic. The choral director and one of my friends teamed up to transliterate the words phonetically into quasi-Ukrainian, since letters in Church Slavonic are pronounced differently. It feels so good to sing again! I'm also fortunate that my city has a couple of good dance studios, so for exercise I go to dance classes a few nights a week and the occasional social dance parties that are held here. I am pretty sure I'm the joke of the classes, since it's all Latin dancing and I am much more comfortable with Lindy or Blues - not to mention the classes are taught entirely in Russian, but hey - at least I'm having fun while serving as comic relief.
Okay, it feels weird to write so much about myself, and I'm starting to get self-conscious. But hey - at least those of you following my journey now have a taste of some of the opportunities I've had so far. As crazy and frustrating as things get sometimes, I am very lucky to be serving in Peace Corps Ukraine.
Okay, it feels weird to write so much about myself, and I'm starting to get self-conscious. But hey - at least those of you following my journey now have a taste of some of the opportunities I've had so far. As crazy and frustrating as things get sometimes, I am very lucky to be serving in Peace Corps Ukraine.
