4/18/2010 Oh, those golden arches
I find myself sitting in McDonalds once again. I have frequented McDonald’s more times since coming to Ukraine than I did in my entire life in America. And I am not alone. It seems to be the rule for most volunteers that they find themselves under the golden arches in Ukraine more than they ever imagined they could or would want to eat at a fast food joint.
Why?
Of course there is something of home in the cheery yellow arcs, the mostly familiar menu, the smiles and relative customer service (novel in Ukraine.) It is also about location. McDonald’s is open almost all day and all night and located next-door to the central train station in Kyiv, as well as in a number of other locations around the city. This branch was recently remodeled and it is far nicer than any McDonalds I have ever seen in America and it has wifi (supposedly, but it is currently not working.) Most importantly to me, McDonalds has a large coffee in a to-go cup waiting for me at 5:30 in the morning whenever I walk, or drag, myself off whatever slightly hellish overnight train ride I just experienced. As I traverse Ukraine for various projects and meetings, I can’t help but be thankful for America and its conglomeration for bringing me a bit of home and a large cup of coffee.
3/29/10 Please tell us, why are you doing this?
This past weekend I traveled to Mykolaiv, a city in the central southern part of Ukraine situated on a large river inlet of the Black Sea. It took basically a full day and night of traveling via bus and train to reach my destination. I went south to lead our second of eight Workshops in English Language and Leadership. The PCV helping host the event at her university, another young Ukrainian teacher from the university and I spent Friday running around the city purchasing supplies, making copies, ordering lunch, going over the lesson plans, and packing participant folders. We had over 70 participants arrive on Saturday morning (our goal for each workshop is about 40.) Despite scrambling to make more copies and stuff more folders for all of the participants, we still managed to start on time. We had a wonderful, engaged, and dynamic group of students so our team building activities and classes went well. During our lunch break, I was talking to my “team” and one girl turned to me and asked, “Please, tell us why you are doing this?” I explained that these workshops, the resulting summer camp, and other programs like them are the things that I find most rewarding in my work and, therefore, in my life as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Day to day teaching has its highlights, but the opportunity to work with the kind of students who are willing to give up a Saturday to push themselves to speak a foreign language all day and are so exuberant to do so keeps me going in this country. After saying this, I realized that in all of the purchasing, copying, organizing, explaining, and planning I had forgotten to be excited about the workshop in Mykolaiv, the rest of the workshops to come, the ideas and interests that these workshops may ignite in students to inspire them to continue attending similar programs, to continue pursing their education with interest. I smiled and left them to their pizza.
