Fostering Development Through Technology

digital divide at home

2011-02-22T19:18:00.002-05:00

interesting to see the digital divide happening here in the US as well!

the NTIA released the first national broadband map last Thursday, showing several areas of the country without access to highspeed internet that many of us take for granted.

link to the article on PCWorld

state department addressing internet freedom

2011-02-15T20:37:00.001-05:00

from the NY Times article describing Hillary Clinton's speech today at GW...

"The State Department plans to finance programs like circumvention services, which enable users to evade Internet firewalls, and training for human rights workers on how to secure their e-mail from surveillance or wipe incriminating data from cellphones if they are detained by the police. The department has also inaugurated Twitter feeds in Arabic and Persian, and soon will add others in Chinese, Russian and Hindi."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/15/world/15clinton.html?_r=1&hpw

benefits of wireless

2011-02-10T21:51:00.002-05:00

Obama from a speech at Northern Michigan University...

“It’s about a rural community in Iowa or Alabama where farmers can monitor weather across the state and markets across the globe. It’s about an entrepreneur on Main Street with a great idea she hopes to sell to the big city. It’s about every young person who no longer has to leave his hometown to seek new opportunity — because opportunity is right there at his or her fingertips.”

Seems to me as if this would be applicable to almost any country around the world, especially when we're facing issues like the youth bulge, a lack of quality employment opportunities, and the social costs of urbanization.

www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/us/politics/11obama.html?hpw

making a local issue national news

2011-02-03T21:19:00.005-05:00

taking a break from preparing for my russian test, i ran across this story from npr's foreign dispatch podcast for the week of jan 28th. just thought it was an interesting discussion of how an issue that used to only be upsetting to a small group at the local level (the son of a chinese police chief kills 2 people while driving drunk and thinks he can get away with it because of his family connection) has now reached a national audience with the help of the internet...

www.npr.org/2011/01/26/133233065/Internet-Helps-To-Hold-Chinese-Accountable

changing focus

2011-02-03T21:07:00.002-05:00

i've now been back from Ukraine for more than 8 months, and have just started my second semester in the master of international development policy program at duke. since i was so good at keeping up my blog in ukraine :), i'm now reconstituting it to hopefully help with my research and interest areas at school.

one of my primary areas of focus is looking at the different ways that technology is impacting lives in the developing world. examples can be seen in anti-corruption campaigns, new methods for efficient project monitoring and evaluation, new micro-business opportunities for those caught in the "youth bulge", bringing new educational possibilities to youth, etc.

as i will be writing a master's thesis next year on this topic, i plan to start using this blog as a collection point for the various stories that i seem to run across every day. hopefully, this will help develop my ideas (and anyone else who happens across this) as to the various roles that technology can play in the future...

work hard, play hard - 07.29.2009

2009-08-03T04:46:00.007-04:00

obviously it has been a while since i have updated this blog. over the past months, i have unfortunately started numerous entries, and just never found the time to complete them with all of the information that i have wanted to pass on to all of you. the past couple months in particular have seen an amazing amount of action in between helping out with the group 36 training group, preparing for my family’s visit, lauren’s mom’s visit, our trip to turkey, language refresher camp, a last minute dash up to kyiv to see vice president biden, and of course, my primary work here in sovietskyi. needless to say, there’s a lot to catch you up on, and i plan on doing that over the next few weeks. to begin with though, here’s the latest from the work side of things, and the next entry will focus on the fun stuff…

on the work front, things have been going very well lately. as peace corps staff said in training, everything seems to pick up right around the year mark. they were definitely right! over the past few weeks, it’s been a whirlwind around here, starting with writing the first grant for Perspektiva. after a lot of ground work and discussion about the right project to fit numerous requirements, we finally decided that it was time to partner up with the hospital to help them address the issue of tuberculosis in Sovietskyi Rayon. along with buying equipment to assist them with the implementation of the WHOs DOTS strategy, we are using the project as an example to other local community organizations of Perspektiva’s new capacity as a “Center for Regional Development” and the way in which we hope to work with local partners to implement social projects. this basically means that Perspektiva hopes to contribute their knowledge of project design, grant writing, and training experience to partnerships with such organizations as the central rayon library, museum, local schools, and other small local ngos who are already very knowledgeable about their own technical areas of work. Perspektiva’s idea is that their own contacts with national and international organizations, combined with the local partner’s technical knowledge of their areas of work , can make for a powerful combination when implementing social projects here in the region.

in addition to the project with the hospital that we submitted through peace corps, Perpektiva also helped send three members of the sovietskyi community to a training in Yalta last month held by the National Democratic Institute (NDI). NDI invited a dozen or so small ngo’s from all over crimea to take part in an ngo capacity-building training designed to educate them in the system of support available to them in the forms of national and international donors. after taking part in this 6 day training (held over two three-day weekends), the participants were then invited to prepare a small grant of up to $3,000 for funding by NDI.

Perspektiva helped send three participants from Sovietskyi Rayon including our youngest member Enver, Ruslan who represented the NGO “Center for Democracy” (also closely affiliated with Perspektiva as my counterpart, Elnur, is the Director), and Muzafar representing a community association from one of the small villages in the rayon. enver and ruslan were particularly interested in the training, and I have been working with them over the couple weeks to design their projects and complete the writing of their grants. both have fairly similar projects focusing on mobilizing small groups of people to work with their local elected official to solve a small problem in their community; however, the end goals are slightly different. enver is hoping to work with a group of parents from a small village of 1,000 people about 25 km from sovietskyi who have organized themselves and are working with their local official to build a new pre-school. currently, their efforts are only directed towards the actual building itself, and enver would like to help them build a playground around the new school that can be used by kids at the pre-school during the day, and then by other young children and parents as a safe place to play in the evenings. right now, as this is a very small village, children are generally playing in the streets, near the roads, or around old building sites. needless to say, not the greatest of places for safety or parental supervision.

ruslan’s project is in a similar vein, but he’s hoping to work with the children and parents in the Crimean Tatar neighborhood of sovietskyi (officially named “friendship”) to build a small athletic field, probably with soccer goals and a basketball hoop. as part of a government program a few years ago, many Crimean Tatars who have moved back to the region from Uzbekistan have moved into a specific area of town where land was set aside for them; there are currently about 1800 people in the neighborhood, including 100 kids up to 6 yrs old and 350 kids from 6 to 16 yrs old. ruslan’s idea is to organize a group of these children and their parents to work with the local officials to designate a small amount of land in the neighborhood for a small athletic field, design it together, and put together a fundraising plan to buy the necessary materials to build it.

i have to say that i really like this project, and not only because it’ll give the kids an opportunity to play more soccer (which is always a bonus for me, of course!) there is a small field in the apartment complex where i live now, and on any given evening, there are at least 15 kids of all ages out there playing together, usually with 3 or 4 mothers or young families sitting on the benches nearby to watch. it gives the whole area a nice community feel that is unfortunately lacking in the “friendship” neighborhood. this is the area that i lived in with my host family for my first month in town, and i spent more than a few hours last summer out on the soccer field with their young son and his friends. the main field that they play on right now in the center of the neighborhood is actually land from some old homesites that were started but never finished. a couple poles have been stuck in the ground at either end of the field for goals, and there are incomplete foundations and other building materials all around. not exactly the safest place to be playing what can become a pretty physical game.

anyway, both of these grants were finished and submitted this past Friday, and we were just invited to a press conference that NDI is having next wednesday, august 5, in Simferopol where they will announce the projects that they are going to fund for this year. so we’ll see what happens!

another grant that we were working on, and actually just managed to send off today, is a project from the east europe foundation that focuses on alternative energy and/or materials. sovietskyi rayon, especially out near the salt marsh and alongside the canals and rice fields, has a large supply of water reeds, that when processed correctly, supposedly makes a thatch with very good natural water-repellant and insulation qualities. a few people over the years have attempted to start up businesses in this area, but have never really been successful (from what i can gather, this is either because their business plans were not well put together in the first place, or they did not figure out the transportation problems associated with selling this in Europe). Perspektiva’s idea, partnering with a larger regional ngo in western Ukraine who has more experience with larger projects such as this, is to send a small group of people from several local villages to a training in Poland (someone already actually teaches a class on how to manufacture and use this stuff!), who can then become involved in the business when they return. at first, local demand would be provided by remodeling of the village clinics in the rayon, many of whom are in need of new roofs or insulation on the walls. after that, cooperatives and a business association could be organized a few years down the line, and they could start selling this stuff farther way, giving the villages a sustainable economic activity which many are badly in need of.

at first glance, it seems to me like a bit of a stretch for a project, but thinking more about it, the skills and capacity is already in place in various groups around the rayon. Perspektiva has the business planning skills and contacts around the rayon, there are lots of people with the agricultural experience to grow and harvest the stuff, and the manufacturing and construction capacity is also readily available. as long as there is some local demand in the short term to allow people here to get some experience with the whole process, whose to say that they couldn’t make a real go at it. several other countries already export the stuff, so it has some interesting possibilities. i don’t think we’ll know about the results of the grant for another month or two, so we’ll see what happens in the meantime.

in addition to these grants, the polish guys from NGO Terra Humana were in town last week to begin their strategic planning training. Perspektiva and Terra Humana wrote a project together a few months ago with the aim to assist three rayons in crimea with developing their strategic development plans for the next 15 years, and the project was funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. the guys from the polish ngo will be in crimea for at least two more weeks over the next month to train local government officials, businessmen, and community leaders in krasnoperekopske, nizhnigorskyi, and leninskyi rayons, with Perspektiva acting as a local coordinator and technical resource.

for anyone curious about any of this, i’ve updated the Perspektiva website with an english language document that summarizes their past experience, successful projects, and trainings.

i think that sums up the craziness of the business side for now. next update will be the fun stuff, so stay tuned!

preparing for work - 09.14.08

2008-10-15T17:11:00.005-04:00

well the last couple weeks have been a good end to both summer vacation and the summer heat. the weather has started to cool off at night (even down to the 50s i’m guessing), and with that, everyone has started to return from their august vacations, even if it’s only mentally as in my case.

elnur and i spent the first week of September at a peace corps training in kyiv. the topic was social enterprises, ways that non-profits can start businesses to support their social programs here in Ukraine. there are a few peculiarities because of Ukrainian law, but the overall idea is very much consistent with everywhere else around the world.

as we were told, many countries came to aid Ukraine in the early 90s, providing funding for a huge variety of activities. however, this led to a culture of dependence on the part of Ukrainian ngo’s always looking for the next grant or project for which funding was available. now, as donors are either moving their money to other parts of the world or becoming more stringent with their requirements, Ukrainian ngo’s are facing a true test of sustainability. they need to be able to bring in money through membership fees, fees for products or service, fundraising, or through private business channels associated with their missions.

one idea that we’ve been throwing around is a partnership with the local credit union. here in Ukraine, credit is much harder to find than in the us. as an example, if a farmer comes to the credit union and asks for a loan to either start a cooperative with colleagues or buy new equipment, the credit union may give the loan at 36% interest per year or higher. this is also a similar rate that a bank may give to an entrepreneur hoping to start their own small business around the country, based primarily on factors such as the current inflation rate, the need to continue making a profit, and generally regardless of past credit history (which is sparse in many cases anyway).

to help with at least part of this equation, the idea is that the business center, which now has 5 years of experience helping entrepreneurs with various issues in starting up their businesses, can partner with the credit union to help reduce the overall risk of the business venture. perspektiva can help the farmer/entrepreneur create a solid business plan to present to the credit union, which will reward the entrepreneur for their planning with a reduced interest rate to help with their business idea. additionally, as the entrepreneur pays back the loan, a small percentage of that loan will also go to perspektiva for their initial consulting services and help with reducing the overall risk of the project. this money can then finance the social programs that perspektiva also wants to do around the county.

in this way, the entrepreneur is rewarded for their initial work in thinking through some of the risks for the business, perspektiva is rewarded for helping create a solid business which can pay back its loans, and the credit union can still make their 20% profit for its members but also reduce risk and potentially grow their pool of members. this is just one of the project ideas that we will be working on going forward, but things are definitely moving now that the weather is getting cooler.

after getting back from kyiv, i had a chance to talk to the first volunteer that was assigned to sovietsky four years ago. he was on a break from work and decided to visit Ukraine for a couple weeks, spending a few days back here in crimea. it was pretty neat being able to hear how much progress has occurred just in the couple years since he has left. there is now a “supermarket” that did not previously exist, more people are using scooters around town now instead of walking or riding their bikes, and young people that he knew have now gotten married and started families. it was a good visit for a couple days, and i’m sure i’ll come up with some more questions for him as we get started working over the next couple weeks.

these couple weeks wrapped up with my first visit to zaparozha this past weekend to spend some time with lauren (about 7 hours by train from sovietskyi). she’s been working there for a month now, and really seems to be settling in as the only American teacher there and making some great friends. we did some shopping for things that i can’t find here in sovietskyi, walked around the city a lot, visited the museum on the island in the middle of the Dnieper river (a very, very well done museum that tells the story of the Cossacks, highly recommended!), and had a very Ukrainian picnic on the rocks by the river. one of her fellow teachers also invited us to check out the local soccer team with her husband, husband’s brother, and brother’s girlfriend, although they lost 3-2 to the current first place holders of the Ukrainian premier league (great game with the winning goal scored in the 90^th minute!). we were also going to try to meet up with another volunteer who was in town helping with the American councils flex program testing (a program that provides a study abroad opportunity in the us for 9^th and 10^th graders of different countries), but unfortunately we did not manage to meet up with her.

on my way back to sovietskyi, i also managed to meet some volunteers from an older group during my couple hours in dzankoy to change trains. they have had different experiences from me as they primarily work in schools as English teachers and after school programs, but it is always good to hear from people with two years of experience already under their belt. mainly though, as i sat there listening to them talk about their plans when they get back to the states, it started me thinking about the things that i have already changed since i have been here (and how people might give me a strange look for some of them back in the us). here are some of the ones that i came up with…

- the obvious physical changes include a new form of air conditioning (the ubiquitous buzz cut) and rolling up my jeans to mid-calf when it is hot outside (generally, kids are the only ones wearing shorts, although it is becoming more accepted in my town)

- since no one really speaks english at my site and i am speaking Russian most of the time, Russian phrases are almost always in my head not matter what language the conversation is taking place in. this causes me to mistranslate back into English, or as lauren so eloquently put it…”you sound like one of my conversation club students trying to speak English” J

- i neatly fold my plastic bags to save them in a drawer in the kitchen (they cost money at the stores), and i always have at least one with me in case i need to buy something

- i will go out of my way to stand in the shade, no matter where the conversation first starts to take place. i also automatically point out where the best shade will be for a car that needs to be parked.

- the extra ten minutes that it takes to heat water on the stove is just a normal part of my morning ritual now (it is kind of amazing how little water a person really needs to take a good shower)

- i’ve actually told someone not to buy a package of coffee at one store because there was a better price at another one down the street, for a whopping 50 kopeks difference (or about 10 cents). the scary thing is that they listened to me, and even thanked me later.

- my shoes are always taken off at the door, which of course also helps not have to vacuum the carpets as much

- when coming home, the first thing i do is to immediately change into my “lounging around” clothes. this helps me not have to do as much laundry in the bathtub later on.

- and lastly, i always have a roll of toilet paper with me because there’s a generally understood “everyone brings their own” rule

i know there are more things that i’ve already forgotten, but i’ll have to add to the list as i think of them…

pictured above

1) me, lauren, lauren's coworker natasha, and natasha's husband denis at the soccer game in zaporozhe,

2) celebrating sovietskyi's 210th birthday

starting fresh – 08.21.2008

2008-08-30T07:00:00.002-04:00

i realize that i’ve been pretty bad about keeping up with the blog for the last couple months. a lot has been happening over here, and similarly to working in dc, it’s been hard to come home and try to sit in front of a computer and collect my thoughts. it is really amazing how tired a person’s brain can get from trying to both understand and then communicate in another language throughout the day. despite that, i think i am finally at the point where i can feel that i’ve successfully passed the first stage of this journey and am starting to get more and more settled. i’ll try to summarize the high points here, and then keep up with the blog every couple weeks like i planned to do before.

basically, the last few months have been about wrapping up the last bit of training in chernihiv and starting life in my new site in crimea. i’m not sure i realized it then, but being able to look back now at those first three months in chernihiv, i can see that they are going to mean a lot more to me as time passes. when else in your life are you going to be surrounded, not only by so many Americans who have come halfway around the world to try life in a new country, but also by the incredible support of people that started out as total strangers speaking an unknown language and became so much more. although the pictures i took show a lot of proud, smiling faces around the square in chernihiv that final day, there were tears on many of those same faces when it came time for our group to say goodbye and head off to our new sites (my host mom included). i am very much looking forward to having the language skills to be able to tell them how wonderful a host family they really were.

as for my new town of sovietskyi, crimea, i am not sure that i could have asked for a much better situation. i am the third volunteer in town (all with the same organization), so everyone generally understands that i might do some things that they consider pretty strange (like always putting my bag on the floor instead of on the chair beside me, or smiling and saying hi to basically everyone on the street). my counterpart already knows the vast majority of the information that peace corps passes on since he is going through this for the third time, so he feels free enough to joke around with me and most other people (not that i could ever relate to that, of course). and my primary organization, the business promotion center ‘perspektiva’, would like to do some interesting projects over the next couple years, including some of the following possible ideas

- write a strategic plan for the organization to address its need for long-term sustainability

- work with the hospital to develop a rayon wide tuberculosis testing process

- start school newspapers around the rayon, especially in some of the smaller villages, that can help students develop a variety of skills (ie. computer, journalism, civic action, carry on school & cultural traditions, etc)

- support the creation of a rayon-wide strategic plan

- help the central library and a local youth club with their ideas for the future (ie. media center, increase in foreign literature, other ways to expose the youth of sovietskyi to new possibilities, etc)

- and a few others, especially after finalizing the new priorities of the organization

So although the last few months have been a lot of fun, they have also been fairly busy trying to understand the needs and priorities of my new community, and adapting to the overall pace of life here. in that time, i have lived with a new host family who helped me get acclimated to town, started playing soccer with the local men’s team (i made it here just in time for the last game of the spring season, and the new season just started last weekend), started making friends with the kids who play soccer almost every day near my new apartment, headed to the beach at feodosiya, visited the old fortress at sudak (and the beach close by at novy svet), attended two crazy birthday parties and a tatar wedding, spent a few days with lauren and her family in yalta, met the volunteer who only lives in a town about 20 minutes away from me, and headed to kyiv for a 4 day project management and design training with my counterpart. not to mention that i have moved into my own apartment and am now living on my own for the first time in five years. oh, and did i mention that i have had some amazing Russian practice because only a couple people speak much English around here :)

overall, i am very much looking forward to the next stage of the adventure. work is starting to sort itself out, lauren is enjoying her first week in zaparozha, i’m figuring out the process of regular internet access, and a lot of the little everyday challenges have already been conquered (washing clothes by hand, ordering meat and cheese from the deli counter in a foreign language and in grams and kilos instead of pounds, asking for directions and actually understanding the answers, etc) . the language still causes the most difficulty by far, but that should get easier once i have a tutor in September. after that, we’ll see where the road leads…

while i am updating everyone on my life here in Ukraine, i also wanted to say a big CONGRATULATIONS to the following people back in the states for things that have happened since my last post. just to let you know that someone halfway around the world is thinking about you, and i look forward to catching up more over the phone soon…

- to my sister, who not only got rewarded and promoted for her hard work, but is now living it up on her own for the first time!

- to kevin and emily for making the big decision to head to houston in another month… all the best in preparing for the defense and then the move!

- to piya and ryan for their big day and starting their life together!

- and of course, to lauren and david for their first and newest addition to the family! (i got the announcement in the mail a few days ago, and i see you’re already brainwashing the little guy with the VT shirt :) )

i hope everyone else is doing well, and i’m looking forward to replying to emails and catching up soon!

general update 05.17.08

2008-05-19T12:10:00.000-04:00

i think it just hit me this week that the time has been flying by around here, and i know i have not had a chance to respond to many questions over email, so here’s a general update for the moment…

overall, things have been going very well, and i have been much busier than i anticipated. on the language side of things, i have really enjoyed the pace of the classes, and i definitely feel like i will be able to survive after training is over and i am at my site without the support of the other trainees around. we have had a lot of work to do outside of class, usually an hour or two of Russian homework each night, but it has been a great mix of useful vocabulary and example dialogues along with the more traditional grammar sections. between having Ukrainian teachers who know what we should expect when we reach our sites and then coming home and having to communicate around the house or the neighborhood, it’s much different than studying a language back in the US. minus some vocab, i feel like i will be at the same level in Russian as i was with Spanish after college.

on the work side of things, we have finalized our small community development project idea for training and begun to have meetings with our partner organizations to work out the details. in general, our group of 5 trainees is hoping to help the organizations in the city with the professionalism of their websites and the message they want to send to the rest of the community (including current donors to the org, members of their orgs, and potential funders who visit their site). as we have done site visits to various places over the last month and a half, almost all of them said that they were interested in “help with their websites”. since that is a pretty general work description, our smaller group has been conducting a basic survey of the organizations (in Russian and Ukrainian) to find out exactly what help they need most. in addition, we have done some research into existing sites on our own and will be putting together a resource cd to give to the organizations when we leave with high level information about how to use the web as an effective marketing tool. many of our own group of volunteers have expressed hesitancy around their knowledge of this material also, so we’re hoping this will be a resource that everyone can take to their sites.

the other fun piece of this, to make it more sustainable, is that we are pulling in some help from the local technical university. we just met the other day with a small group of 2^nd year students who are interested in helping us translate the materials on the cd into both languages, working with us to learn some of these skills (as their curriculum seems to be geared more towards the specific technologies than the organizational side of their work), and then offering their web development services to these organizations who may have little funding to work with a professional web development firm.

it’s hard to believe that we only have one month left here in chernihiv! we had our site placement interviews this past week, and the next big date is May 27 (only a week and a half away) when we will all find out where we will be going for two years. after that, it’s a couple more weeks to finish up projects, hang out with our host families, and then off to our sites. supposedly, life will slow down after that, but I don’t think I’ll be holding my breath on that one.

I hope everyone is doing well, and i’ll be bugging you over email as well!

my ukrainian diet 05.03.08

2008-05-19T12:04:00.001-04:00

what better way is there to start off a day than with a big ol’ plate of freshly made french fries, eggs, kielbasa, yogurt, an orange, and peach juice? i might have to make that my new breakfast of champions, at least for the next couple years while the access to frosted flakes is rather limited.

so far though, the food has been great. i’ve heard all of the complaints about wanting more spices or exotic flavors in the dishes, but there’s really not much you can’t do with salt, pepper, garlic, sunflower oil, and a couple of fresh or dried herbs. sure, some hot sauce might be a nice addition once in a while, but salo and soy sauce (not necessarily together) will more than adequately get you by.

i’ve been lucky in that my host family makes some very tasty food. most meals start off with some sort of freshly made soup (so far this has generally been borsht or some version of chicken soup). i haven’t figured out exactly how my host mom manages to make fresh chicken stock every other day, but one of these times i’m going to catch her in the act and be sure to get a lesson.

and the big lesson i’m still learning…no matter how big a bowl of soup you are served (or how hearty it might be), there’s more food coming…

i still need to learn the names of a lot of these dishes before i can post a good description, but here are a few of my favorites so far… (additionally, i apologize for the spellings. scarily enough, i’m feeling more comfortable spelling in Russian right now than translating the names from their Cyrillic)

- blini – basically blintze-like pancakes that can be filled with just about anything. my two favorites so far have been a shredded chicken and onion mixture, and a ricotta cheese and raisin filling. these are then pan-fried and served up nice and hot (the chicken one is amazing with some soy sauce)

- buterbrat – who doesn’t like an open faced sandwich of bread, butter, and kielbasa?

- borscht – of course. beets are surprisingly tasty (although i’ve really only had them in borscht so far)

- vareniky – the best comparison i can think of is probably a pierogi, although the vareniky are not as doughy on the outside. they can be filled with just about anything, but the main ones i’ve had so far are either potato and fried onion or a mix of ground chicken, pork, or beef. and you have to have the smetana (sour cream) on the top. i’ve sat down to a plate of 8 or 9 of these guys and come away stuffed.

- Smetana – speaking of sour cream, i can definitely say that i was not a huge fan in the US. the stuff over here though is really good. a little creamier and not as sour, it’s got a surprising number of uses (the most interesting was probably this morning though as a replacement for mozzarella on top of fresh tomato slices. i was quite pleasantly surprised!)

- pilmeny – a smaller version of vareniky, but i think they have a slightly different outer shell. just to give you an idea, i can probably eat about 20 of these before being totally stuffed

- and probably the most eaten food….the glorious potato in all its wondrous forms! i’ve had freshly made French fries, au gratin style, mashed (called puree here), sort of like homefries with some kolbasa and shredded carrots, and amazing shredded potato and onion pancakes (called direny). yes, think Hanukkah for inspiration.

these are just a few of the foods that i can think of at the moment. i know there are more as i have not walked away from a table yet without being fed extremely well. i’m also trying to learn a few of these recipes from my host mom, so i’ll be able to make them for anyone who happens to come visit. i will definitely keep everyone updated with more descriptions as I try them again; everything was going so fast the first time around its hard to remember.

the most interesting thing with all of these dishes though is that these foods can appear at any meal; there are no real specific “breakfast” or “dinner” foods that i have seen. i’ve sat down to breakfast with everything from fried fish and puree from the night before to an omelet with yogurt and fruit. it definitely surprised me for the first week, but it doesn’t take long for me to want to eat tasty food no matter what time of day J

getting adjusted 04.26.08

2008-04-26T05:47:00.002-04:00

when was the last time you saw a group of grandmothers with their hair dyed various shades of eggplant sitting outside of their apartment building chatting amicably and keeping track of all the comings and goings of the entire complex?

… or the last time you’ve seen a group of young women wearing long leather jackets and knee high leather boots dodging puddles and mud among 800 year old buildings?

… or the last time you saw a person on a crowded bus reach down to wipe dirt off the collar of a complete stranger?

… or the last time you’ve seen someone pass a $20 bill up 8 rows of people to the front of the crowded bus to pay the fare, and not only expect, but receive their $19 in change right away?

needless to say, it’s been an interesting first few weeks of getting adjusted to my new life here in chernihiv. everything is new, everything is an adventure, and everything takes more time in a new language than you might expect. but at the same time, it’s pretty amazing how quickly you can adapt to new customs and be able to get around comfortably.

in the last couple weeks our group of 27 has visited many types of organizations around the city including various city government departments, youth organizations, the city employment center, a professional women’s organization, and the local technical university. each one of these visits has given us various perspectives of life here in chernihiv, along with a basic idea of possible needs and future priorities. our next task is to take this information and come up with community projects in groups of 4 to 5 volunteers to complete over the next two months. of course, we only know so much about the language and culture at this point, so i’ll keep you posted on the lessons we learn J

in addition to the work, i feel like i’m adapting to the other parts of life here pretty well so far. after 4 solid weeks of Russian class, i figure i’m picking up every 5^th word or so of my host family’s conversationsJ and after about 10 mins of confusion with my host dad this morning, i was finally able to get out my question of “whether or not he knew if the tulips were blooming in front of st. catherine’s church because i wanted to go take pictures later today”.

the food is amazing, although that’s a huge topic that i’ll save for another post. i’ll just say that i’m discovering some great alternatives to things that i was used to cooking in the states. i’ve been making some version of a cuban panini for lunch, and i even made a couple attempts at chocolate chip cookies this week with my host mom. of course, i then learned the Russian phrase for “million calories”.

i’ve also pretty much thrown out whatever portion control i learned in DC, at least for the next few months while living with a host family. i’m constantly amazed at the amount of food i eat, and yet i’ve definitely lost weight. so far, all of the walking must be good for me because my body is a happy camper!

another fun thing has been discovering the local soccer team. a few of us went to a game last week, and i think we’ll be making it a regular event. the team is called desna (after the river that runs beside the city), and i believe they are generally towards the top of the Ukrainian second division (although that was me translating an answer from Russian myself, so i need to do some independent research to confirm). who can complain about $1.50 tickets?

lauren also made it up for a visit the other weekend from kyiv. (i’ll be posting a couple pictures on the picasa site) she’s doing great, and i’m definitely jealous because she was just able to take her first vacation yesterday. she’s on her way to Krakow for the next few days with a couple of fellow teachers, and then they’re going to try to swing down to bratislava before heading back to kyiv at the end of next week.

i’m gonna wrap things up because i need to get started on some work before the day starts slipping away. tomorrow is easter, following the orthodox calendar, and i know that as soon as my host mom gets back from work this afternoon, everyone will be put to work. i’ve seen the preparations for easter eggs, special easter bread, homemade kolbasa, and other good looking stuff in the fridge; my mouth is watering already!

hope everyone is well! the crazy part of our schedule is basically over now, so i’ll have more time the next few weeks to make more regular posts. next up, easter and amazing food!

first week 04.02.08

2008-04-02T17:38:00.002-04:00

it’s hard to imagine that it was only one week ago that our group started our trek to Ukraine. so much has been going on in that time that it’s hard to boil it down to a short page of text. i can’t speak for everyone, but i know that since i’ve arrived i’ve had a lot of questions answered (and probably thought of even more).

on to the big stuff though…

as i mentioned before, i am about an hour and a half north of kyiv in chernihiv (the Russian spelling is Chernigov which you may also see on a map). the city itself is amazingly rich in history and culture, and i’m hoping to have time to explore as much as possible over the next eleven weeks. i’m not going to be able to begin to describe it all, so if you are interested, i highly suggest checking out the Wikipedia entry for some basic info and further links.

the training seems like it is going to keep everyone very busy though. in three days of language lessons, we’ve already covered what is probably a month’s worth of material in a college Russian class. pages of basic vocab, business terms (many of which are cognates, and so are fairly easy to remember), three different cases/uses of pronouns, meeting and greeting, hobbies, likes and dislikes, the list goes on. even though my Spanish background does not really help in terms of the words, the structure and grammar ideas are similar. and even if my host family doesn’t quite believe it, i pick up a few more words from their conversations everyday :)

of course, all of that is only half of the puzzle. on top of those 3 and a half hours of language lessons every morning (starting at 8, for those of you who know what time i used to get into work!), there is also the community development work that we are learning and preparing for. this includes technical language class, technical training (in English) about different development ideologies and tools , and site visits two afternoons a week for the next four weeks. after that, we’ll be expected to take the initiative on a small community development project with our team members to implement in the last month of training. supposedly, some of the organizations that we will be visiting over the next few weeks have ideas already, so that should be interesting to hear. we’ll see what kind of ideas our group puts together (i’ve already got a couple ideas, but i’m trying not to think about things too much until we’ve met with a few organizations and hopefully figure out a few of the current priorities around town)

after all of the peace corps work though, i get to come home to a host family that seems to have dynamics very similar to my own :) my host dad doesn’t sit still and is always doing things around the apartment. he’s also got a pretty corny sense of humor that transcends language boundaries (he literally JUST handed me a pen that gives you a shock when you click it). my host mother checks to make sure my jacket is warm enough before i leave, and i’ve already been dragged back twice from the doorway so she could wash something off of my sleeve that i couldn’t see. she also gives her husband 'the look' when he tries to show me everything with any English on it around their apartment, and laughs at his childish happiness when he’s using his homemade rotisserie. so if you hadn’t figured it out by now, i feel right at home!

i also live with a host sister and brother who are twins and just turned 19 on Monday. they both speak English very well, although my host brother studies at a university in kyiv during the week so he is only around on the weekends. they have another older sister who is my age, but she lives in the south of the country with her husband and young child.

being able to speak a little English in the house has been very useful so far. we’ve all been able to learn about each other pretty quickly, and as i get more comfortable with Russian, they will help me with that as well. my host mom is a high school teacher, so she is always telling her daughter that she needs to speak to me in Russian so i will learn.

all in all, the little i have seen of Ukraine so far has been amazing, and i’m looking forward to whatever comes our way!

*one note that i did want to throw out there regarding the information on this blog. it seems that the peace corps overall is trying to come up with a good policy regarding blogs and the information that they can propagate unintentionally (google ‘infamous peace corps postcard’ for an interesting example). they asked that we password protect our site so that the information only gets to those people who we specifically want it to get to.

since it is not required, i do not really want to password protect anything as reading blogs was an amazing way for me to do research on what volunteers were actually doing and experiencing before i was able to actually be here. i feel that i have traveled enough to be aware when i may be crossing boundaries into territory that could become misunderstood, and i do not plan to use this blog as a way to complain to family and friends about how things are different between the us and Ukraine. if anyone reading this happens to come across information that you think may be misunderstood, please let me know and i will edit or remove it. and please remember that everyone can see any comments that you post. thanks for your help!

arrival 03.27.08

2008-04-02T17:35:00.000-04:00

well I have officially made it to Ukraine!

and just to summarize very quickly, i will be learning Russian and leaving for chernihiv tomorrow (Friday) to meet my host family for the first time.

it’s been a whirlwind few days and i still feel the after effects of the flight, but here is a quick update of what our journey has entailed so far.

traveling internationally with a group of 64 is a pretty impressive logistical bit of fun. we all made it safely, although there were some tired people on the layover in munich. overall, the trip was very smooth though, and we reached kyiv with the sun just starting to set, allowing us all a decent view of the city as we drove through.

kyiv (incidentally, this is the ukrainian spelling of their capital city) seems to be an interesting mix of historical and soviet architecture sprinkled with new apartment towers, planned communities, colorful markets and bustling people. you can see the development taking shape just in the new billboards lining the highway advertising all types of products. it is definitely a place i’ll have to explore more, although that will probably have to wait a few months until training is over.

as for the volunteers, we were whisked off to a “typical soviet resort” where we’ve spent the past couple days getting prepared for the training about to take place. the pc staff welcomed us in with a traditional Ukrainian welcome ceremony of bread and salt, and we have since eaten our fill, gone through initial medical screenings, received welcome speeches from the pc director and the us ambassador, and had an initial language lesson to hopefully prepare for that first meeting with the host family (probably the one thing i am nervous about!)

everyone from the ambassador, director, training coordinator, and on down the line have all stressed the same good piece of advice over these two short days. and that deals with our definition of success as we begin our transition into this new culture and eventually discover our assigned projects.

peace corps has three goals for a reason. the first one relates to our specific projects by trying to provide skilled American men and women to assist another country’s project needs. the second and third goals relate more to the cross-cultural component, providing a mechanism for Americans to share our culture with Ukrainians and for pc volunteers to share Ukrainian culture with those still in America, respectively.

when, as Americans, we inevitably get frustrated at some part of our projects over the next two years, that will be one of the most crucial times to remember goals two and three. a successful peace corps experience is built on all three goals, and the relationships established, images of a role model, and cultures appreciated are the things that will be remembered by your Ukrainian friends and community members long after the volunteer has returned home.

well, we leave for chernihiv tomorrow afternoon to meet the families that will be helping us over the next three months, and i still have some language studying to do in the hopes of lessening the awkwardness of that first meal!

i hope everyone is doing well, -c

leavin' on a jetplane

2008-03-25T07:54:00.002-04:00

i just have a quick moment before getting this final packing done and taking bags down to the buses. it's been a fun staging event here in philly, and the group i am with seems to have some really great people in it. it's definitely going to be a fun two years, and thank you to fyock for sending me off with the perfect pat's cheesesteak!

we head over to kyiv tonight by way of munich, and by friday i will be with my new host family! until i get there, i will not have any real chances for outside communication, so i will write some details of first impressions and the other excitement i've experienced when i have a chance. until then (as i've been told to re-iterate over and over to friends and loved ones), "no news is good news!"

it’s gettin’ real

2008-03-14T08:38:00.005-04:00

it’s hard to believe that there’s only a week and a half before i head up to philly for the PC staging event and meet the people that i will be spending the next two years with overseas. i’ve been thinking about this whole adventure for so long now that the waiting has become almost commonplace. the idea that this thing is actually going to happen in 10 days, well…it’s finally startin’ to get real!

lauren and i had a great final roadtrip this past weekend when we went down to birmingham, al to visit my oldest friend Kevin and his wife Emily. it’s amazing to think that we’ve known each other since second grade, and it was really great to see him happy and hear about the exciting next steps in their lives. best of luck with the job decisions guys, can’t wait to hear where you end up!

and a helpful hint for anyone who decides to drive the long, scenic highways from alabama to virginia, watch out for the signs around knoxville. if you let someone distract you by getting excited about the shoe outlet signs and happen to stay on 75N instead of cutting east through the mountains, you might add four extra hours to an already 11 hour trip! not that we did that and ended up pulling into Richmond at three thirty in the morning though J

otherwise, everything has pretty much been about getting ready for the trip. i’ve met with two returned volunteers and asked them all of the questions i can think of. the 67 people in my group have been throwing ideas back and forth over yahoogroups and facebook, so we’ll at least recognize each other’s names when we meet for the first time. and i’ve read as many blogs of former and current volunteers as i can find (these have been extremely helpful). i guess i’m as prepared as i’m going to be before stepping off the plane in kyiv and realizing that i have no idea what anyone is saying around me!

speaking of which though, time to get moving on some more shopping/packing/language studying. the plane leaves on the 23rd!

pictured above are

emily, kevin, me in the birmingham botanical gardens
lauren in a rodeo event with their big baby beau

welcome family and friends

2008-02-11T09:44:00.000-05:00

hey everyone! i am hoping to have this be a central place to pass on my adventures in ukraine to family and friends. depending on my access to an internet connection, i'm aiming to post something up every couple weeks or so. so check back and leave comments (or see my wishlist over on the right, letters and emails will always be welcome!)

i'll be leaving DC at the end of February to head home for a few weeks. then it's up to philly to meet the rest of the volunteers before we fly out for kyiv at the end of march.

i look forward to seeing or talking to everyone before then!