Project

The pace of life is different here. Never a morning riser, I find myself struggling to sleep in past 6 am. In fact, like clockwork, I awake every morning with the first peak of the sun and the first croak of the rooster, hovering around the 4:35 am mark. Its amazing the things one can accomplish when given a full day’s light.

The shenanigans of these past 2 plus months are known in Peace Corps terminology as PST, or Pre-Service Training. We are somewhat less than, looked upon as naive by older volunteers and as possibilities and liabilities (I wonder where I fall?) by the Peace Corps Staff. The expectations of Peace Corps Training is to prepare us to be volunteers. We teach classes and learn the language and integrate into our communities under the safe tent of our collective struggle, a group of 5 or 6 Americans equally clueless about the world into which they have been thrust. We are preparing to be volunteers. But what does that really mean?

It reminisce fondly about 6 weeks or so back, when I was preparing to teach my first lesson in Ukranian, a class about stress to a group of 13 year olds. At the time, my Ukranian hovered in the category of somewhat “less than,” a reality that forced me to write out, word for word, what I was going to communicate to these children. That is, of course, compounded upon the fact that for a young man who often would watch in horror as his hair fell onto his keyboard in the midst of a finals crunch, perhaps I was not most aptly suited to teach such a class...

But much of the Peace Corps is about doing things you have never done before, about preparing on the ground. Early on in our training, the other volunteers and I were having a conversation about what experience had led us to this point. My friends had worked at orphanages and juvenile detention centers and inner city schools and other educational organizations. I taught Hebrew School once a week to upper middle class ten year olds. How exactly is it that I belong here? How the hell am I supposed to develop Youth?

Part of this “training” process challenged us to perform a community project. After some investigation, it became clear that this project could become whatever we make of it. We could perform the bare minimum, something small to appease the Peace Corps and fulfill our PST obligation. Or we could aim high, try and actually leave an impact on a community in a short time, and potentially fall well short of our aim.

It should be no surprise to those who know me that I pushed for the latter, and, as I have discussed earlier, not everyone felt the same way. I had a lot of expectations coming into the Peace Corps, of which busting my ass was one of them. But here in Ukraine I confronted a problem I had been confronting my whole life---how do I not push what I expect from myself onto others?

One day, we had a meeting regarding our project with Ludmilla Michailivna, or “Mama Luda,” as she liked to be called, and the coach of the local soccer team. Mama Luda is one of those characters that exists in any community or organization you have ever been involved in. She is the penultimate volunteer, and she wants everyone to know it. During our first meeting with the city administration, she was there, assuring us she was going to call all of our families to set up a time for us to have dinner. This meeting, four weeks later, was the next time we heard from her. Later on, during the lead up to the Victory Day celebration, Mama Luda asked us to clean up the monuments. She then took credit for “organizing” a clean up of the monuments at the towns local ceremony. I was reminded of some of the “over-eager” volunteers of my days at Solomon Schechter High School. Have you seen how much I’ve done/how much money my family has given?

The soccer coach, on the other hand, was of an entirely different breed. Well built with a shaved head, Vitaly Anatolivich runs a small Kiosk near the center of town. In his free time, free of charge, he coaches a group of 11-16 year olds in Soccer, giving his time, his emotions, his all to give these kids another change. He is also a proud Ukranian man, and was less than thrilled about having to “beg” these rich Americans for help. But his team desperately needed some new soccer balls. Could we help?

This all coalesced in a compromise between plausibility and ambition, between what they needed and what we could give. We decided to throw a fundraiser for the community, to attempt to raise money to purchase some new soccer balls. 500 Hriven was our goal, 2 new balls the result.

The plan for our project was simple. We would go around the community with some of the local team members, asking local businesses to donate prize for a raffle. We would then sell tickets for the raffle, with all of our actions culminating in a big afternoon of events at the end of May. We would set up Carnival games in the local park, play a jovial game of soccer pitting overweight Americans against the kids, and finally, at the end, doing the drawings for the raffle. The concept of a fundraiser is so foreign to Ukranians that there really is no word for it in the language. Local officials were skeptical. Ukranian friends rolled their eyes at our naivety. Could we do it?

Vitaly the buff soccer coach was none to found of me after our first meeting. I took on my usual role of devils advocate, and even through the translator he could read the skepticism on my face as easily as I could read his distaste on his. But I started attending the soccer practices with some of the other volunteers, in the hope of getting to know the kids, and in the hope of getting to know him.

At about my third practice with the team, I went up to the coach to shake his hand. He had a shit eating grin on his face that was infectious, a Ukranian version of Mr. Clean. Three practices, jsut watching kids play soccer? maybe these Americans are serious, after all.

Somewhere around this time, I asked the Coach if he would be willing, assuming we were able to purchase some new balls, to donate some of the teams old balls to the local orphanage. He readily agreed---some of their balls were well beyond the shape where they were useful to the team.

A week before the event, we asked members of the soccer team to meet us at the Park to help us go around to local businesses. They all said they would come. Five showed up. While at first we were despondent, we rolled with the punches. For many Ukranians, to ask for help was akin to begging. Lets work with what we have. Be flexible. Play on the fly. We are training for the Peace Corps.

Peace Corps is a collection of small victories. So even though only 5 kids showed up, and even though only 2 or 3 really seemed to care, those few really got into it. At the first few stores, we had to show them the way, push them as to what to say. By the end, they were cajoling local stores, pushing our project, promoting the idea of helping one’s community.

A few days later we went to the local bazaars to start asking for prizes. For many of the stores, the owner was often not present, and the workers could not simply hand out presents at a whim. At the bazaar, things are different. The bazaar is the essence of the community, a bunch of lower middle class people, mainly women, primarily single mothers, trying to make ends meet. 90% of the sellers in the bazaar gave us prizes. By the end, we didnt even have to ask. They were there, ready to give. Ready to help.

When we showed up in the town center to start selling raffle tickets that week, the first hour was...awkward, to say the least. I tried approaching a few random Ukranians, but they were unresponsive. But then we wrote “Loteria”, Raffle, in giant black letters on a piece of poster board and before we knew it one person and then two people and then a dozen people were buying tickets. Others were handing us money and walking away. The money we were raising was climbing before our very eyes. Could we really do this?

By the day of the event, we had already raised 400 hriven, of which was included one local businessman who simply handed us a 100 hriven bills and wished us luck. And although we had scheduled our event to begin at 1230, unsure anyone would come, by 1145 the park was packed with children and their parents and random communal stragglers, wanting to see what this whole thing was about.

We had face painting and relay races and fortune telling and guessing games. And of course we had the raffle. One of the most popular tables was a group of 11 jars, with people encouraged to put money into the jar of the American they would most like to see receive a pie in the face. Suffice it to say I raised 50 hriven on my own, as apparently many members of the community were hoping to see me get a little dirty. Video is soon to follow.

At 3pm, we closed down the games to play a game against a group of Ukranian “tweens and teens.” We lost 11-2. As goalie, I gave up about four of those goals. Attending Jewish high school, however, prepared me well for the perils of getting creamed. After the game, Vitaly, the burly soccer coach, approached me with a plastic bag. Inside were two relatively inexpensive but brand new soccer balls. For the orphanage, he said, that shit eating grin saying more than I can understand in Ukranian. I can’t beleive you guys pulled this off.

After the game, we were announcing the winners to the lottery as I sat off to the side with two eighth grade girls. One of the girls remarked to me that she couldn’t believe this worked, that she didn’t know such an event could work in their community.

Now that you know, you can do it yourselves.

Mi Znaemo. We know.

In the end, we raised 1,200 hriven, enough for four new balls and some school supplies for the the orphanage. Expectations to the win, small victories set aside, this was an invasion of ideals that were swept on shore, embraced as their own. There were too many victors to enumerate here, the soccer team with their new balls and the coach with his smile and the eighth grade girls who would repeat the project and even Mama Luda, who go to tell the whole community that this was her idea.

And then, of course, there was us, the lowly Peace Corps volunteers. We aimed high and we hit the mark. What did we learn? Maybe its too early to tell. But I guarantee that once we all get to our sites, none of us will fear taking risks. Because now that we know what we’re capable of, how can we not?