The Lightyellow Journal

This Journal, and the Lightyellow website, began in 2004, when I accepted an invitation to become a Peace Corps Volunteer in Ukraine. I went to Ukraine as a Trainee in September 2004, and was sworn in as a Volunteer in December 2004. For the next two years, lived in a town called Chernomorskoe, which is in Crimea. I kept this Journal, sometimes more regularly than others, to help let family and friends back home know what I was up to.

I'm now back in the U.S., but the Journal remains, now presented in chronological order. (Though beware of invalid links.) If you enjoy my adventure, please let me know!

The regular disclaimer: The views expressed on this website are my own and in no way reflect those of the U.S. Peace Corps or any agency of the U.S. Government.

The Entries
August to September 2004 - Getting Ready to Leave ~ October to December 2004 - Training & the Orange Revolution ~ January 2005 - Arrival in Chernomorskoe ~ February 2005 - Settling In ~ March 2005 ~ May 2005 ~ September and October 2005 ~ January 2006 - Bird Flu and Other Stories ~ February 2006 - On the Train ~ September 2006 - Final Projects ~ November 2006 - The End

August to September 2004 - Getting Ready to Leave

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Kiev, or Kyiv?

There are two ways to spell Kiev, which I learned soon after I started reading up on Ukraine. I thought the difference was one of transliteration, with two different translation styles yielding different results. But no!

I recently signed up to receive the Action Ukraine Report, which is a sort of emailed newspaper, containing a lot of articles about Ukraine from a variety of news sources. At the bottom of the newsletter is this bit: "Kyiv vs. Kiev----SPELLING POLICY--Chornobyl vs.Chernobyl THE ACTION UKRAINE REPORT uses the spelling KYIV (Ukrainian) rather than KIEV (Russian), whenever the spelling decision is under our control."

Well! Isn't that interesting?

On a more personal front, I'm coming up on the end of my employment. I have only a week and a half of work left (the work I get paid for, anyway). I'm trying to figure out fun stuff like voter registration and 401K rollovers and powers of attorney. I need to figure out when I'm going to find time to wash my car so I can take some pictures of it and put the For Sale signs in the window.

I also need to find time to go to the outlets in Gilroy to pick up a few things, and if anyone knows where I can find postcards of the San Jose area...let me know!

I had about a month of calm and waiting, but now it's over. There's so much to do.

Friday, August 13, 2004

A Post About Ukrainian Politics

I'll be arriving in Ukraine during an interesting time. (Ah, that most flexible of adjectives.) Ukrainian presidential elections are on October 31st. The president who is elected this October will be the third president of Ukraine since it declared independence in August 1991. The current president, Leonid Kuchma, is at the end of his constitutionally approved two 5-year terms in office. Although a court ruled last December that he could run for a third term, Kuchma has decided not to--in the face of much international outcry, I believe. His approval ratings are only at 7%, according to one article I read in the Action Ukraine Report. Imagine--7%. That astounds me.

In any case, Kuchma has decided to back the current prime minister, Viktor Yanukovich. (Whom I believe he appointed, I should mention. See here for a brief rundown of Ukrainian government.) The popular presidential contender is Viktor Yushchenko, who has a reputation for fighting corruption, and who has promised to open Ukraine to the West. (Which means turning away from Russia.)

Now, most of what I've been reading has a decided pro-Western bias, but the Yushchenko-Yanucovych race sounds like a dirty fight for the future of Ukraine.

The current government is beyond heavy-handed in its support of Yanucovych. TV stations and newspapers that present a favorable (or even unbiased) view of Yushchenko are being shut down with the flimsiest of excuses. Rallies supporting Yushchenko are being disrupted; in at least one case, the military sent trucks to block roads into a city where a rally was being held, preventing supporters from participating. And Yushchenko's (state-provided) body guards recently caught a government-sponsored spy who had been trailing Yushchenko and recording his conversations with a long-distance mic.

Reading all this, I can't help but feeling vaguely shocked. It's all so...so...un-American. Part of me is stuttering, "But...but...but it's not fair." (To which my Mom-voice replies, "Well, Carrie, life isn't fair.")

According to the accounts I'm reading, Yushchenko will win if the elections are fair. He's leading by about 8 points, or something like that. However, it's highly unlikely that the elections will be fair, even with international observers watching the proceedings. I could give a great example using a recent mayor election in a small Ukrainian town, but then this post would just get too long. (See here if you're interested in all of this.)

So what happens if Yanukovych wins--which I think is likely? Probably very little, actually--Yanukovych will keep Ukraine in the economic and social slump it's been in. Corruption will continue unabated, or increase. Ties with Russia will strengthen, and ties with Europe will remain tentative.

Ukraine is seen by Western eyes as a buffer country, limiting the reach of Russia, and--by being independent--limiting her power. And if Yanukovych wins, it will be seen as proof for many that the Ukrainian government is hopelessly corrupted. I wonder what happens then?

I just finished reading Borderland, a history of Ukraine, and I'm feeling sentimental. I want Ukraine to establish its own identity, one that is not intrinsically linked to Russia. Half the country feels, is, Russian; I want them to be Ukrainian, to root for this new country they are a part of. And, like most Westerners I'm sure, I hope Ukraine turns westward. Somehow, I feel that turning politically east will endanger the Ukrainian identity, even though it has withstood centuries of subjegation.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Packing is Painful

Well. Packing my apartment was difficult. Moving Day was stressful, although I had the help of lots of friends. (Thank you!) Driving the U-Haul was easier than I expected, and returning it wasn't too bad either; even though I was over the allowed mileage, they didn't charge me for it.

Packing for the Peace Corps was tough.

So some of you saw my two huge (and heavy) boxes, plus several bags of stuff I wanted to take with me. There were lots of books--no surprise to anyone who knows me--and things I'd been told would be useful, like a can opener and an oven thermometer. I had gifts to give to my host families, and clothes and shoes and blank journals and hundreds of other things I wanted to take "if there was room."

There was no room.

I'm glad my mom has a pretty accurate scale for her business. I packed up each of my two allowed bags, set them in turn on the scale, and then made the tough decisions about what had to come out to push the weight a smidge under 50 pounds. I packed up my backpack until I was afraid the straps would give out, loaded my purse until it was about bursting, and surveyed the carnage of my parents' living room.

There was stuff everywhere. Books and gifts and lotions and miscellaneous odds and ends (such as a can opener and an oven thermometer), plus trash and clothes that are not coming with me and empty boxes that need to be packed away. It was really quite stunningly messy, and I actually left it that way for my parents to deal with because we had to leave early to get to Phoenix by 4:00 on Friday, when the luggage store closed for the weekend. Why was that so important, you ask? Because somehow I'd managed to lose the shoulder strap for my giant black duffel bag, and that bag is next to impossible to manage without the strap.

I meant to make a nice list of everything I'm taking with me, but to be honest I don't have any idea what finally made the cut and what didn't. I guess it will be a bit of a surprise. I'll let you all know when I get there, because there is no way I'm going to unpack these bags before I get to Ukraine.

I am right now sitting in my hotel room in Washington, DC. Registration starts at 1:00 today, so I have a few hours to write this up and find a computer where I can upload it. Someone told me the hotel has a couple of computers--they charge $0.25 a minute to use them. They also charge to make phone calls to 1-800 numbers. Not a small charge, either. It's $1.00 for the first 30 minutes, and then $0.10 a minute after that. So if I don't call you even though I said I would, it's not because I don't love you. It's just because I haven't figured out where the pay phones are yet.

Last night about 10 of the volunteers (the Early Arrivals, or those of us flying in from the West coast, who couldn't get early enough flights to fly in by 1:00 tomorrow) met up in the lounge. This is a good group of people--no surprise there. We were all glad to find out we've been going through the same things. Of course the email list was great, but there's nothing like face-to-face.

So...I'm doing good, and looking forward to everything that's coming in the next week. And in the next two years. It's going to be grand!