First news from Ukraine!

(Please comment on this entry, even if you don’t make it to the end! Thanks! :-)

Dear friends,

I must admit that finally having come the opportunity to use the Internet, it is difficult to know what to write. This blog has the most diverse audience of anything that I’ve ever written in my life and I want to use clear, neutral and respectful language. I will do my best to sum up the past two weeks right here.

First of all, I AM ALIVE AND WELL! My staging and pre-departure orientation in Philadelphia went off without a hitch – I was able to meet the other one hundred Peace Corps volunteers who were heading off to Ukraine and the bonding started immediately. I had my last American meal at Friday’s (appropiately enough on Friday evening) and then Saturday morning we were bused off to JFK Airport in New York City. To spare all of the boring travel details, the flight was long and uncomfortable. We arrived safe and sound in Kyiv on Sunday afternoon around 1pm.

What were my first impressions of Ukraine? Unfortunately it was a gray day as we walked out of the airport, but as our training coordinator happily told us, “A rainy beginning equals a successful adventure”. We spent our first two days at a Welcome Retreat at Desna in the Černihivs‘ka oblasť, about two hours north of Kyiv. This is a former Soviet vacation resort in a wooded area. It was beautiful there! As we traveled there, I noticed lots of flat fields and I smiled and thought of Natasha (Sheveleva) as I even spied large patches of sunflowers. There were lots of fresh produce stands along the highway and lots of people were walking and riding bicylces around for transportation. The cars on the highway were a mix of modern cars and old Soviet cars.

(Due to time’s sake and readability’s sake, I’ll be massively abrigding this narration.)
Our Welcome Retreat went extremely well. Peace Corps is highly organized not only within the States (pre-departure), but also within the host countries. Those two days were jam packed full of vital information about nearly every facet of Ukraine – history, food, traditions... We also received security briefings about how to stay safe. Let me just say that the American government makes incredible efforts to keep its volunteers safe and I feel that my support network here is actually more developed than back home. So please, don’t worry about me! I am in excellent hands. :-)

On Tuesday the retreat came to a close and we headed out to our respective training communities. There are about 100 volunteers and we were broken into training groups of five each. My four “cluster mates” and I were assigned to a small town called Borova for our training and so off we went! It was so exciting to read the sign for Borova from the highway and excitement continued to mount as we entered town! Our mini bus stopped in front of town hall, where a small group of people were expecting us. We unloaded our suitcases and anxiously looked into the crowd, wondering which of them could be our host family. Volodya, our language teacher and cultural facilitator, called our names out and then our families approached us to greet us with Ukrainian hospitality. My host mom came up to me and gave me a big hug. Most assuredly, a happy beginning to my training in this small community.

My host family consists of Al’bert and Olya, a retired couple. They are very kind, patience and fun people. Olya is a true culinary expert and most of my meals have been out of this world. Besides being my host parents, they are also grandparents and their two daughters and grandchildren come over often for meals, tea or just to pop in to say hi. I have a confortable room and cannot complain about anything in good conscience.

That having been said, I must say that this is the most challening adventure that I have ever undertaken in my life. There is zero room for exagerations here. Remember that I am serving in a third world country. Were it not so, the Peace Corps would not be here. I am well, I am healthy and I am happy (although it is true what they say: emotions do run like rollercoasters). I truly do love Ukraine and am thankful to be here. That doesn’t mean that the culutral adaptation won’t be very difficult. This, alas, is but a question of time. I cannot learn all about Ukrainians overnight. That’s why we have these three months of pre-service training before we start our real mission. Ukrainians and Americans think and act very differtly. In the States, I’m used to being very direct. I say what I mean and that’s what I mean. Here, people tend to say one thing, but mean something else according to cultural standards or body language. This will be difficult for me to learn. And yes, I’ve already been sick, moderately sick really (this is normal, all part of the adaptation), but a day of bed rest and expert (truly expert) care from the Peace Corps Medical Staff and I was on my way to a quick recovery.

Two more comments and then I need to close this entry. I don’t want to write too much and my posting this entry depends on whether or not I’ll be able to use the Net at a friend’s house tomorrow night.

A lot of people have asked me if I miss my family or the States. Well, truthfully it’s to early to tell. Let me put myself out there, though, and take this for what it’s worth. The one person whom I can truly say that I miss is Natalka from Lviv, Ukraine. She’s an awesome friend who basically taught me my elementary Ukrainian and I was in daily contact with her back in the States.

My last comment is about my biggest fear (before I left), or my biggest visible challenge (now during my service). I sure did hit the hammer on the head when I predicted that the most difficult aspect of my adaptation would be the food. I was worried about not liking it and about gaining weigh. Well, I’ve had some very delicous dishes and have been well fed! The quality of the food isn’t the problem (very fresh produce, a lot of it from their personal gardens). It’s the quantity. Ukrainian hospitality demands that a host takes excellent care of a guest. That translates to incessantly offering dish after dish of food. I haven’t been hungry for the past week. That is to say, I constantly feel full. Well, no need to worry, as my Ukrainian language improves I can explain more and more about my eating habits and as my understanding of Ukrainian culture improves, I can more and more politely (culturally sensitively) decline the dishes.

Thank you very much for reading this, my first post from Ukraine. More news to come and more news that will be better organized. For now, I have no Internet access and am just clammering to type these news onto my pen drive for when a ripe opportunity presents itself to jump online. Please comment on my post!

Also, please note that these are my personal views, and not those of the U.S. Peace Corps, either officially or unofficially. And if I haven’t managed to keep my language neutral, I will need to put a password on this blog to protect both the Peace Corps’ and Ukraine’ integrity (even though I love Ukraine and am highly devoted to the Peace Corps’ mission). Thank you for your patience and understanding. May God bless you all.
Matthew H. Eppley “Матвій”