So...What Exactly Did You Do There?

THIS POST WAS MOSTLY WRITTEN DURING MY LAST WEEK AT SITE. I HAVE BEEN BUSY AND GETTING TO IT WAS JUST A MATTER OF TIME. MY APOLOGIES IF THINGS SEEM OUT OF DATE.

“I ate camel last night in Fes, Morocco. It was delish.” “It’s raining in Moscow.” “I love Mexican food- oh my how I have missed thee.” “I am going through reverse culture shock. I didn’t realize how funny people in Alabama talk.” As I read these and other Facebook status updates from volunteers who have already left the country for the last time and have either made it back to America or are on their way, I am constantly reminded to check my own calendar and pinch myself as a reminder that my entire world for the past two years is suddenly coming to a halt and so will begin the transition to the next phase of my life. I have entered the series of “lasts.” As in, I just spent my last Monday night in my apartment. I just hand washed my clothes for the last time. I just bought my last box of milk. Of course this is a time for reflection and like everyone else I am sure I will be updating my Facebook status with my upcoming vacation with El as we will head to Ireland and Norway for two weeks. Some volunteers couldn’t wait to get out of here. They were ready for it to be over months ago. Not me. I knew my visa would expire on June 14 and wanted to stay as long as I could since I have no idea if or when I will ever make it back to this land again. Some volunteers were so hyperfocused on their departure, I’d be surprised if some of them took much time to look back on the work that they did when they were here. It’s not to say they had a bad experience necessarily, but looking to the “next” was more important than looking to the “now.” While I am in the “now,” I might as well take some time to think about my life today and what I have learned from this experience.

Me giving a speech at the first day of school. Wishing them luck on successful studies.

I think about the work I did while I was here. About the time I spent at the orphanage in the next town. When I went to a seminar two years ago and spoke with a volunteer who was working with a group of kids in her town and they would go once a week to “hang out” with the kids at their town’s orphanage. She said that the stigma associated with living there was really sad and how the adults in town would say negative things about the kids based on the reasons that most kids find themselves living in an orphanage in the first place (i.e. the parent is an alcoholic, so therefore the kid will be too). This volunteer wanted to show the kids in her town that the kids in the orphanage were just like them and that they could actually be friends with them. This is where I got the idea to visit the orphanage here. I was speaking with one of my volunteer friends who was assigned to work in an orphanage and asked her what she thought I should do with the kids and she told me I didn’t need to “do” anything. “Just hang out with them. They just want someone to pay attention to them for the time you are there.” I think I was able to do a little more than that and I am glad I did. I have always said I never wanted to have children of my own, and I still don’t, but I was glad to spend some time with these kids who will make great adopted sons and daughters to some families. The experience gave me a new perspective on young people and I am glad I was able to arrange to see them one last time before I left.

Me and some of the kids at the orphanage. [L-R Yanik, Nadya, Vera, Ivan, me, and Vika]

Vika was always up for taking pictures with me

The letter Vika wrote to me as I left Razdol'noye. TRANSLATION: "Thank you very much Sim for talking to us. I am very glad that you always treat us with love during this time period. Thank you very much. I was really happy when I talked to you, I say to you from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much.

Vika. With love."

I asked Lenara last year what the most important thing I had done since coming a year earlier and she told me that the HIV/AIDS Resource Center was that thing. While I didn’t agree with her assessment specifically, I do think about all of the times that we gave our HIV/AIDS education presentation in the schools or orphanage. That 130 students and teachers and other community members increased their knowledge of HIV prevention. We (volunteers) have to make a semi-annual report to the Peace Corps and each time before writing it, I remember saying “wow, it doesn’t seem like I did that much.” The report is cumulative though. And as I looked at the final report last month that included everything, I saw all of the projects I have worked on written in one place. All of the people I have worked with. All of my professional contributions to Ukraine over the last two years and I have to say I was a might impressed. I had done work with the Department of Education. The Department of Social Services. The Regional Administration. But, there is ironically one organization I spent only minimal time working with…the library.

Lenara and I giving one of our many HIV/AIDS presentations

Lenara and I with the Peace Corps Country Director at our training session

Working for the library I have one question: “Why?” Why did the library request a volunteer? What did they tell Peace Corps they would do with one should they get one? After two years I still ask myself this question. And don’t think I didn’t ask the people that work here either. I have, and the blame and finger pointing starts immediately. It usually ends like “Sim, I have no idea why so-and-so asked for a volunteer, none of us do.” I have told this story a couple of times and I feel that this photo is the perfect metaphor for my time at the library. Every year in town (all towns in Ukraine) on May 9 there is a parade. Everyone lines up along the route and waits for the procession to come by, at which time they fall into the back of the line and join the walk which ends at the war memorial. Our library is on the parade route and several of us were waiting on the front steps. I suggested taking a group photo. There are enough employees to make a respectable photo and I stand looking from the steps for a passerby to ask to take the picture, as I secure my place on the step. Everyone gets ready and stands just so. I am still looking for a photographer. After about 10 seconds, impatient maybe, one of the workers pushes my arm and said “Sim, c’mon go take the picture” effectively excluding me from the staff photo. It’s a good enough picture, just one I wish I would have been allowed to be included in.

Several of the library staff...and me behind the camera

But, there were many other times in this country that I was asked to join the photo. I don’t usually like to be in other people’s photos as much as in my own so that I may have final editing say. But, I could make a stink about it and not be in any photo, or I could just play along and hope that others would choose the best ones- they don’t, but I can hope. I made two kinds of friends in Ukraine: Americans and Ukrainians. The first group I met were the Americans. Other volunteers who were all going through the same process as I was. Who had the same fears and concerns as I did. This lead us to a bond that for some will no doubt last a lifetime. We were 106 people that they split into clusters of 4 or 5 based on whether we were assigned to learn Russian or Ukrainian and how well we thought we would learn that language. For some, their cluster was a group you couldn’t get away from fast enough. Proverbial oil and water. I, on the other hand had a great cluster experience. It’s not to say it wasn’t rocky at points, but in the grand scheme of things, I think we did the best we could and had some fun along the way. In two weeks I will meet El in Dublin, Ireland and 4 of the 5 in my cluster will be there- I don’t know of a better ratio of post service cluster meeting yet.

I do believe this is our first cluster photo. Exploring Chernigov on our first weekend. At St. Katherine's Cathedral. [L-R: me, Patrick, Amy, Noelia, Sara]

Once we got to our sites after training, we started making our own Ukrainian friends. At first, most were looking to meet the English speaker to practice what they knew. Eventually, my Russian was good enough to spend time with the Ukrainians who did everything they could to make me feel welcomed and part of the community. Tanya, Natasha, and Gregorie are three who didn’t want to speak to me in English- but rather helped me use my Russian to communicate, learn, and laugh.

Gena, me, Vasily. Alex in front. I like this photo because it reminds me of an evening that I spent 3 hours speaking only Russian with 3 guys who just wanted to talk about all things American. Movies, music, politics, all of it. I understood everything they asked and they understood everything I answered. It was a fun night for all of us.

Then there are the friends I have that I still can’t communicate with. That is the sauna, called a banya here, for me. The banya became the epitome of operating outside of my comfort zone. We were told during training that our service would include a lot of boundary bending and comfort zone testing. You had to leave your life in America behind and embrace your new surroundings. Failure to accept these new traditions or situations could only serve to make you look inflexible and not willing to accept a culture that has invited you into theirs. Learning to wash clothes by hand. Living in a house with livestock. Living without running water. Eating foods you didn’t even know existed. These were just the beginning of the challenges for some volunteers. I had my share of these issues, but I tried to see the humorous side, rather than expressing disappointment and resentment. Some have made for some funny stories and to me, there is little better than being able to tell a story in Russian and have a bunch of Ukrainians laugh riotously. Although I don’t get most jokes that are told to me in Russian, my anecdotes (usually self-deprecating humor) tend to translate pretty well and they get a good laugh about how I adapt to my life in their country. Back to the banya though. I wrote about my first experience at the banya where my biggest hurdle was going to be feeling comfortable with my own nakedness in front of other men I was just meeting for the first time. Now, my biggest concerns at the banya are if I remembered my shampoo or how I am going to get home if my regular ride doesn’t show. I wouldn’t say that I am comfortable in my nakedness now, but I am comfortable around this bunch of guys who I have seen almost every week for the past two years. They have done so much to welcome me into their group of friends. At the end of service conference there were three kinds of volunteers: those who never did and wanted to experience a banya, those who had experienced a banya once or rarely, and a very small number of us who went to banya regularly. Needless to say, many were jealous of me.

This is my friend Valentine- from the banya, I understood a grand total of 0% of anything he said, but he was the first to help me when I needed it or wave to me from his bike. Wonderful guy.

I am sure to miss these friends I have made and who knows what the future will bring. Will I see them again? I hope so, but only time will tell. Sadly, in my time here I know of a few who I will never see again. Those who passed away. In my first year, first couple months really, I lost one sauna friend named Peter and one of the guys who worked in the market named Misha, the butcher, who worked to prepare the meat for his wife, Nadya, to sell. Last week I stopped by her counter in the market and said that I would be leaving next week and remembered Misha as my first “friend” in Razdol’noye. She got a very sad and contagious look in her eye. “He was a good guy and I will remember that he was nice to me every time he saw me,” I said. She lowered her head with a saddened smile. She knew what I meant. Of course, the night I was cooking at Erin’s and got the phone call from Vera that Tanya had passed away- was a real downer. I couldn’t help but think about how close I was to canceling the trip that turned out to be the last time I would see her when she taught me how to cook one of my favorite Ukrainian meals. She was closer to my own age than my own mother, but she was so matronly and I will keep her in my heart forever. I will never forget the first time we met when she picked me up from the arrival retreat in Chernigov. We were introduced by my language teacher who translated our first conversation. Her biggest concern was that I liked her cooking. I liked it Tanya. I liked it a lot.

Tanya and I near the park close to her house

Before we came to Peace Corps, even before they told us where we were going, they told us to be open-minded and flexible. “Don’t get your heart set on anything,” they would say. The less expectation you have, the less disappointment you will have. I spent my time preparing for the worst I could conjure up. At least what, in my mind, the worst could possibly be. A hut with no electricity where you can’t leave your mosquito net covered bed at night when it is more than 100 degrees to go to the bathroom for fear of encounters with poisonous snakes, spiders, or other hazards lurking in or on the path to the pit latrine. Looking forward to eating yak, because your steady diet of horse meat and sour camel milk is seeming a little monotonous. Learning a language that is only spoken by a handful of people and you will never have occasion to speak again. With thoughts like this, you can imagine my surprise at every turn when I moved into a house with running water in a country with generally amazing food and learning Russian. Well, I expect my Russian is as good today as it will ever be, although that isn’t saying much. Though, I expect, if my 4 years of French have taught me anything, I will at least still be able to read a menu after a few years. When people think of Peace Corps, most think of undeveloped countries where volunteers go to teach people the importance of washing their hands. On the other side are the developing countries, like Ukraine, that went from being a communist society where the government took care of everyone (albeit badly) to a capitalist society where everyone had to fend for themselves overnight. How does one learn the art of customer service if they have never experienced it before? There are a couple of Peace Corps sites that are just about as far removed from those (very real by the way) images I expected before learning of my assignment as you can get. These sites are affectionately (if you live here) and disaffectionately (if you live in a hut without electricity) known as “Posh Corps.” Sites where volunteer complaints tend towards internet speed being too slow to stream a movie vs. volunteers who get food poisoning once a month. Anyway, suffice it to say, I was not only happy to be placed where I was, but glad not to be placed in one of those other places.

The first course of Easter dinner at Tanya's house

As I get ready to restart my life in America I can’t help but think of the people who supported me the whole way through. Those who checked in on this blog. Those who sent emails or posted words of encouragement on Facebook. Those who sent care packages or participated in my pen pal program with the kids at the orphanage. Those who asked after El and listened to me tell you all of the equally amazing things she has been able to accomplish in her life in the past two years. I try not to be as needy as some of the other volunteers I have met. I mean, for some it was the first time being away from home at all and dealing with those emotions would be compounded by living this far from home. I think I overcame a lot of those challenges years ago and was able to focus on my own hurdles that didn’t include homesickness and sitting in a dark room whimpering at the first sight of snow. People who would call their loved ones in the middle of (the loved one)’s night because they were having mental breakdown. I’d like to think I wasn’t too taxing on my support system. But, I thank them for being there for me, just in case I needed someone to wake up to complain about how my heat wasn’t working or that my director didn’t like me, or that someone told me they didn’t like Americans and I was questioning why I was here in the first place.

The contents of one care package from El. A little taste of home.

I do look back with a couple of things that I hesitate to call regrets. In the grand scheme of things, I did the best I could with what I was given. I wish I had made a better effort to learn Russian. I was surrounded by it every day, but in the end Lenara’s wont to improve her English was stronger than my will to learn Russian. Yeah, I can communicate on a basic level- in fact officially at an “intermediate-high” level, but seeing the volunteers that worked to get better leaving with advanced level language makes me wonder what could have been had my counterpart not spoken English and I would be forced to improve. At least I can point to her improvement and say that I am leaving here a little better than it was when I arrived. I also wish that I was able to convince more people to join me in ecological initiatives. I tried to get helpers, but persuasion was not my plan. My plan was to have others see me working for improvement and want to help. On some levels that plan failed.

This awesome group came out to help me clean a park one Saturday morning [L-R Lena, Olga, Katya, Vadim, Nikita, and Valerey]

I know I have often questioned if I made the right decision to join the Peace Corps. I maintain it was not the wrong decision. And it might take some time before I can reestablish myself in America and say “yes, it was worth the sacrifice that El and I made.” However, the more I think about the people I have come to know and experiences I have had reassure me that the only way I could have had a better experience would be if El was here with me. Now, that would have been an experience!

TRANSLATION: Hi Sim, Nice photo. Wish you good luck in the future. A lot of fun in your life. Wish you always have luck on your side. And you always have a good mood. Diana

TRANSLATION: To the first American in my life. Remember Razdol'noye. I wish fortune will always smile on you. Good luck, Sim. Sergey

As I leave here, these photo's with notes on the back will forever remind me of the people that helped me so much and made the time I spent here worth every minute. As Lenara read the messages (she was the translator for me so that I would be clear on what everyone had said to me), she remarked how I had touched so many lives in a positive way here and that was the sign of a successful service. I held my last English Club yesterday and brought some music to listen to while we played some games (I just taught everyone Yahtzee). I made a playlist and wanted to highlight four specific tunes. We read the lyrics and then listened to the songs. The first was “Back In The USSR” by The Beatles. Next, Billy Joel’s “New York State Of Mind”. Third, Neil Diamond’s “America” and lastly I will admit I started to choke up a little as we read and listened to “Leaving On A Jet Plane”- the Peter, Paul, and Mary version. Between when I left New York 27 months ago and today one of the key differences is that I knew then that I would be returning in 27 months. As I leave here, I can’t say the same. I was reminded of a wonderful quote by Dr. Seuss today: “Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.” I’ll have to try to remember that as I make sure never to lose sight that I was part of something bigger than myself and did not go through it alone but with the support of people on both sides of the Atlantic. Peace Corps is not for everyone, but then again, neither is the military. I am happy and proud to say that I served my country peacefully during wartime.