An opportunity to help volunteers in Ukraine

The following introduction and article was written by PCV Amber Webb who shared a training site near Kyiv with me and currently lives in my neighboring oblast. She's spearheading a project with PC Ukraine's Environmental working group, which I take part in, and together we will implement this project if we receive the required funding. Enjoy. Keith
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Hello Friends and Family of Keith! For the past year and a half, I've been a Peace Corps volunteer with Keith here in eastern Ukraine. I'm writing today to tell you about an exciting project you can get involved with! I'm sure Keith has written often of the circumstances we live in, yet wonderful people we have the brilliant opportunity to work with! As a member of the Environmental Working Group, our current project is to increase environmental awareness across Ukraine. The Project is called 'Eco Meters Across Ukraine' and can be viewed more on the Peace Corps website. I'd really appreciate if you could take the time to read a quick article about our lives here in the East, and go onto the PC website to donate to the project if its within your means. Thanks for you time! Email me with any questions or comments you may have! To donate: Go to www.peacecorps.gov, Click Donate, Click Current Volunteer Projects, wait for the entire screen to pop up and scroll to the very bottom. You'll find our project title 'Eco Meters' A.Webb KS Peace, Love, and Smiles,Amber WebbPCV Yasinavataya, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine

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Babas, Bucket Baths, and Lynch Mobs - Amber Webb

Yesterday a baba asked me why I chose to come to Ukraine. What’s a baba, you may wonder? Baba is the affectionate term for ‘grandmother’ in Russian. They are the hardened post-soviet women, draped in head scarves and thick stockings, pedaling their pickles and beets on every street corner, and absolutely the purest representation of Ukrainian culture. They’ve endured famines and wars, don’t even flinch at sub-zero temperatures, and can drink vodka like its water. Don’t you know in Ukraine, a shot a day keeps the doctor away? So when one of these stoic daughters of Lenin asks you a question, you’d better be prepared to answer.

Seventeen months ago, I arrived in Ukraine as a Peace Corps volunteer. Ukraine is not a country that you’ll often see in the media for such horrors as the kidnapping drug cartels of South America or the child soldiers and spreading AIDS epidemic in Africa, but it is a country of many problems that simmer just below the surface of the world’s attention.

My assignment is in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. It is the most industrialized and polluted area in Europe. I’m sure after two years in the Donbas, my daily runs will result in Black Lung and the occasional dip I take in the river will produce a second belly-button or 3-eyed offspring, but this is my life as a Peace Corps volunteer. I wake every morning hoping for running water, sometimes arrive to work dazed and slightly euphoric from the exhaust-filled buses, and have on occasion, slept in a parka and snow boots on the bitterest of winter nights. But for all its hardships, Ukraine has also given me moments of confused but well-intentioned oddity.

On a Peace Corps budget, my washing machine is actually a bucket which doubles as my bathtub. Hence, I hand-wash my clothes… and apparently not very well. One day, after returning from work, I went to collect my drying garments from the line. Under the watchful eyes of collecting babas, I took my clothes only to find that they were a little cleaner than when I’d first left. Wondering how this was possible, I looked around until the herd of babas that had secretly re-washed my clothes, tried to hide the evidence by scattering to the wind and avoiding eye contact. I didn’t pursue any accusations in hopes that the practice would continue.

On another occasion, it was yet one more evening of the frequent power-outages in my town. On the assumption that the clumsy American girl probably didn’t think to have candles, the neighborhood kids came to bring me some. When they found I wasn’t at home, worry set in. Armed with flashlights and candles, babas and parents in tow, they marched through the streets to find me. After buying a phone card from a man on the street, I glanced up to see what looked to be a lynch mob coming my way. My initial reaction was to run. I do only live a few hundred short miles from Transylvania and visions of Frankenstein and burning at the stake were running through my mind. However, in a brief and rare moment of rational thought, I realized that Ukrainians are generally a kind and giving people. They returned me home safely, stocked with candles and matches and I have since wondered why they take such care of me and have such respect for what I do?

One explanation is that many Ukrainians wonder why I would leave the comfort and affluence of the US to be a volunteer in Ukraine. For them, this is a county that was dealt a bad hand. The constant political instability and on-going corruption has only lead to a public acceptance of stagnant development. The economy is failing, public welfare is neglected, and the environment becomes more and more detrimental to health everyday. Even now in the second decade of post-soviet development, mentalities have been slow to change, activists are few and far between, and for many it is a waiting game of unlikely government support. Yet, Ukraine is a country with much potential for development. For years now they’ve teetered on the edge of success and efficiency, yet never quite crossed the finish line. My job and the job of Peace Corps volunteers worldwide is to help facilitate this process.

So why did I come to Ukraine? Why do I live in darkness 16 hours a day and survive on a diet of cabbage and potatoes? I’d like to say it’s the exotic local and easy life, but this is the Donbas. The kid I see recycling his trash, the students I see collecting clothes for orphans, and the activism of my blind friends here to make a better life for all minority and repressed groups, that’s the reason I came. The Ukrainians I work with may lack funds, but they definitely don’t lack spirit. Introducing these ideas of sustainable development and volunteerism to such people is what makes me smile, even on the darkest days here in Ukraine. It is for this reason I write. Currently, many of my students have embarked on a project to increase environmental awareness. The project is call Eco Meters Across Ukraine and the idea is to start mass clean-ups in urban areas and to paint environmental murals in the most dirty and polluted regions. Because the economic crisis is hitting worst abroad in the developing world, our ability to fundraise is limited. Hence, we write to you in hopes that you can spare a little extra money to make a difference not only to my hard-working students, but also to the thousands of Ukrainians that will see our murals on a daily basis.

If you would like to contribute to this project donations are tax-deductible. Please visit the website:

www.peacecorps.gov, click on donors and donate to a volunteer project. For region, type Europe and Central Asia. You can also type that my home state is Kansas. Submit and scroll to the bottom of the page. The project is called “Eco Meters Across Ukraine”.