The following things are some cultural observations I’ve recorded during my six months in Ukraine. Some are funny and peculiar while others are extremely important in understanding and acknowledging in order to be accepted into a Ukrainian household.
1) Ukraine is very much a foot culture. People will pass judgment on you based on the cleanliness of your shoes. Remember to take off your shoes once entering a house as most times even guest slippers are available. Many important buildings like schools and administration buildings have small troughs of water to clean the mud from your shoes before walking into the building. Our shoes in America would probably be a lot cleaner if we weren’t able to drive just about everywhere.
2) One of my favorite customs is for family or friends to sit in silence before someone leaves to travel. Long ago, Ukrainians would sit still in belief that demons that would be watching and hoping to upset someone’s travels would become bored and then leave. Today this is done more out of tradition.
3) School is much more strict and less lenient than American schools at the same time. Students are expected to stand up and greet the teachers as well as say goodbye, ask to enter a classroom, and basically plead for forgiveness if they are late. On the other hand, students run through the halls yelling, wrestling, blasting music on the cellphones, and join in mass groups during breaks to smoke outside the building. Similarly, there are two bells for each period – the first for students and the second for teachers who are almost always late. I have walked in on teachers smoking in the men’s room and it is not uncommon for toasts to be made with wine, champagne, and even vodka on holidays at school.
4) Bribes are very common in Ukrainian society, whether to get you out of trouble from the militia, local government, or to boost your grade or get out of a test at the public and university level.
5) The people in my town look at me as a child since I speak Russian like a toddler and believe since I am new to their culture I need to be looked after as much as possible. I am not only thankful for my host families assistance, but also for random strangers who have given me cellphone chargers after losing mine, rides home after getting lost, and free food when they found out I don’t grow potatoes.
6) The discussion of money, how much you make or how much you spend, is very common and to many Americans seems very blunt and rude. However, this is just one more way Ukrainian culture is different in their openness to discuss things we may not like to share, like our pay stubs.
7) Men almost always greet and part by shaking hands and women are never expecting to shake hands. Shaking hands with your gloves on is considered to be very offensive as historically enemies would hide weapons in their gloves. Also, it is bad luck to shake hands, or pass money, through a doorframe.
8) Almost everyone has two jobs, their official work that pays them and their gardens and farms that feed them. Ukrainians are food of practical knowledge and people are expected to know how to farm and raise animals for the products as well as experience.
9) Never whistle indoors. Ukrainians believe you will whistle away all their money.
10) Gossip is pretty popular, just like America. Everyone knows what I buy at the stores, what I receive at the post office, and probably by now how much I receive for my living allowance. Teachers at my school also are very reluctant to share feedback to improve my lessons and often just talk to each other to criticize me rather than telling me directly.
11) Ukrainians are very multitalented, as most students play at least one instrument, sport, and can either paint, draw, dance, sing, or all of the above. The time spent at the School of Music, Sports, or Arts is just as important as the time studying Math or Science at the public school.
12) Family names are not important. Ukrainians like Russians use patronymics. This is when an ending is attached to the end of your father’s name according to your gender. For example if a boy named Sasha’s father’s name is Vasyl, then his patronymic name is Vasylovitch. If a girl named Zhenya’s father’s name is Vasyl then her patronymic name is Vasylivna. I used to introduce myself as Keith Alan Jamesovitch, but people just laugh at me. Most times the family name is not even used, especially in schools. Family names will also end based on gender. For example Dima Fiatov and his sister Tony Filatova – same name different ending. Even with studying famous Russians us Westerners don’t acknowledge the patronymic name, like Vladimir Putin, the former president of Russia. Most people here know him as Vladimir Vladimirovitch. (ps. Russian’s new president’s name translates to “bear”)
13) Ukrainians are very reserved. On buses, subways, and on the sidewalk, you won’t find many people yelling and talking loud unless it is following a football (soccer) match. Even good friends may simply greet each other with the nod of a head or a quick handshake when passing in public. This is one of the more difficult cultural characteristics for Americans to fit into since most times we want to smile at everyone, say hi, and talk to strangers.
14) Russian vs. Ukrainian. Do not make the mistake of calling a Ukrainian person a Russian. Though the cultures and countries have much in common, Ukrainians pride themselves in their own identity and their sovereignty. Even out East where Russian is more commonly spoken than Ukrainian, there is still a mix of the languages. The reliance on Russian is often explained as out of custom and what they are used to speaking and what is most widely understood. Speaking clean Russian in Eastern Ukraine is as strange as speaking clean Ukrainian.
There are many complicated political problems in Ukraine, argued by those who are loyal to Russia and those who want to join NATO and be more like Western European countries. Just as you hear the Democrat vs. Republic debate in America, this is the most common thing you will hear debated in Ukraine.
________
Now what I would like to do is have the readers of this blog share some of their own cultural quirks and the interesting things about daily life in America. Being out of the country has made it difficult to explain the little things about American life as written above about Ukraine so I would greatly appreciate your assistance as to make American culture more vivid for my students. Thanks.
Friday, April 4, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The beginning of Spring Break
Saturday March 21st
I was under the impression Friday was my last day teaching before Spring Break, but the Administration decided that morning to have the usual Monday classes on Saturday since we missed two weeks for quarantine and we still haven’t caught up. I finished the Barack Obama book Dreams from my Father book, which I highly recommend, and stayed up late Friday night so I could return it to Marnie when I would see her next in Lugansk.
My classes went rather well Saturday despite feeling a little groggy, but I know the students didn’t want to be there so I tried to be as energetic as possible to motivate them. In Eighth form the students shared their postcards they made about Whitehall and then we began to write our own definitions for the vocabulary words in the next section, an activity that sounds a lot harder than you think for nonnative speakers of any language.
In ninth grade the students we split up in pairs and each group was assigned a region in the US, for example New England or the Midwest, and had to present the states included in the region, history, climate, geography, and economy and teach the rest of the students. It went rather well though in my more advanced class almost eight kids out of fourteen didn’t show up, which made me give everyone who came a perfect score for the day. I later saw some of the absent pupils in the hall and again they used to the trite excuse of going to the doctor, so after break I’m going to explain to them that next time I will get their home phone numbers from the office and then call their parents and explain in Russian that I am concerned for the students’ health considering how often they visit the doctor. If this doesn’t work, I’ll just continue to give them all zeros. Fortunately, I haven’t had a reason to be strict yet with my students as I’ve had no problems, but it won’t take long before they see me switch modes and to understand how serious I am.
In fifth form we continued to learn about animals and though they were very rambunctious, the class was fun and I was able to teach them the famed long named Hawaiin fish nuah-nuah-nuka-nuka-a-poo-a-hah. That was probably the highlight of the week at school though watching children dressed as elves goosestepping during a school concert was both surreal and sublime.
Zarya 0 – Metalurg 1
After teaching, I ran home to grab my bag and then jumped on a bus to Lugansk. While doing so, I realized fifty percent of the time I am a little more than fifty percent certain I am on the right bus to the right town. By the time I got about eighty miles south two hours later, the climate jumped probably fifteen degrees so I decided to walk to the stadium from the bus station which took about a half an hour. It was almost like being back in the states during a football game at IU with tailgating and the likes, though the only food was sunflower seeds. I quickly met up with Seth, Marnie, Olya, and Adam. Marnie and I were not checked for our backpacks which had clothes and toiletries for staying at Seth’s but they everyone who purchased a beer that comes in plastic bottles cut off so the cap could not be screwed back on and the bottle heaved at some poor chap. I thought this was very interesting since I had my Leatherman pocket knife on me and wasn’t frisked luckily.
The weather was fantastic, the beer was good, and since I know very little about football (soccer) I really enjoyed myself while my friends explained the basic rules. We lost one to zero but it was still fun and the ticket cost four dollars, though as Olya explained two years ago they cost ten cents a piece, so imagine how upset the fans would be for the percent increase. Olya meets with the English Club at the Lugansk Library and speaks perfect English. Every time a fan or group of fans started to yell and heckle, she would put her head down and laugh and refused to translate their words saying only that they were stupid and dirty phrases. Whatever it was, I knew it was probably funny by the way it sounded and how the fellow spectators responded.
After the game, al the fans simple storm the street lighting off fireworks and blocking the cars, buses, and trollies, a celebration I thought would be reserved for an actual victory. Once more, we went to the Schwarma stand, which is like a Middle Eastern burrito, and to add to the list of people I’ve met there from Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, we met a couple born in Pakistan but based out of Malaysia studying biology in English at one of the Lugansk Universities.
After the schwarma, we went to the Chelsea Pub restaurant across the street to sit and talk and have a snack, which turned out to be pistachios since they were fresh out of ice cream. While we were there, we heard a man speaking English in a heavy southern drawl and quickly realized he was on a date with a Ukrainian woman with a translator present, which sadly enough probably means he was going through one of many companies that helps Westerners find wives in Ukraine and then obtain the proper documents to take them back to their country. He heard us speak English and had a quick conversation with him though the whole ordeal still seamed very shady and awkward. At least it was reassuring to know that he’s been coming to Ukraine for years yet we speak better Russian after three months of training and six months total in country.
Peace Corps Perception
I often admit in my writing and in my conversation that sometimes my life here is very far from my first expectations of Peace Corps service. Ukraine on one hand looks much like life in America, with fashion, restaurants, designer clothes, and technology; however, this is very deceiving since the everyday customs, rituals, and culture overall is very different which I think tricks people into thinking they are back in the States. This causes them to let down their guard some which can either get them in trouble or put them in danger. I think this deception would make adjusting to a new country more difficult than going to a new country where everything is completely different, like villages in Sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, because there are not fragments of your old life in America tricking you into thinking you are somewhere else.
I was under the impression Friday was my last day teaching before Spring Break, but the Administration decided that morning to have the usual Monday classes on Saturday since we missed two weeks for quarantine and we still haven’t caught up. I finished the Barack Obama book Dreams from my Father book, which I highly recommend, and stayed up late Friday night so I could return it to Marnie when I would see her next in Lugansk.
My classes went rather well Saturday despite feeling a little groggy, but I know the students didn’t want to be there so I tried to be as energetic as possible to motivate them. In Eighth form the students shared their postcards they made about Whitehall and then we began to write our own definitions for the vocabulary words in the next section, an activity that sounds a lot harder than you think for nonnative speakers of any language.
In ninth grade the students we split up in pairs and each group was assigned a region in the US, for example New England or the Midwest, and had to present the states included in the region, history, climate, geography, and economy and teach the rest of the students. It went rather well though in my more advanced class almost eight kids out of fourteen didn’t show up, which made me give everyone who came a perfect score for the day. I later saw some of the absent pupils in the hall and again they used to the trite excuse of going to the doctor, so after break I’m going to explain to them that next time I will get their home phone numbers from the office and then call their parents and explain in Russian that I am concerned for the students’ health considering how often they visit the doctor. If this doesn’t work, I’ll just continue to give them all zeros. Fortunately, I haven’t had a reason to be strict yet with my students as I’ve had no problems, but it won’t take long before they see me switch modes and to understand how serious I am.
In fifth form we continued to learn about animals and though they were very rambunctious, the class was fun and I was able to teach them the famed long named Hawaiin fish nuah-nuah-nuka-nuka-a-poo-a-hah. That was probably the highlight of the week at school though watching children dressed as elves goosestepping during a school concert was both surreal and sublime.
Zarya 0 – Metalurg 1
After teaching, I ran home to grab my bag and then jumped on a bus to Lugansk. While doing so, I realized fifty percent of the time I am a little more than fifty percent certain I am on the right bus to the right town. By the time I got about eighty miles south two hours later, the climate jumped probably fifteen degrees so I decided to walk to the stadium from the bus station which took about a half an hour. It was almost like being back in the states during a football game at IU with tailgating and the likes, though the only food was sunflower seeds. I quickly met up with Seth, Marnie, Olya, and Adam. Marnie and I were not checked for our backpacks which had clothes and toiletries for staying at Seth’s but they everyone who purchased a beer that comes in plastic bottles cut off so the cap could not be screwed back on and the bottle heaved at some poor chap. I thought this was very interesting since I had my Leatherman pocket knife on me and wasn’t frisked luckily.
The weather was fantastic, the beer was good, and since I know very little about football (soccer) I really enjoyed myself while my friends explained the basic rules. We lost one to zero but it was still fun and the ticket cost four dollars, though as Olya explained two years ago they cost ten cents a piece, so imagine how upset the fans would be for the percent increase. Olya meets with the English Club at the Lugansk Library and speaks perfect English. Every time a fan or group of fans started to yell and heckle, she would put her head down and laugh and refused to translate their words saying only that they were stupid and dirty phrases. Whatever it was, I knew it was probably funny by the way it sounded and how the fellow spectators responded.
After the game, al the fans simple storm the street lighting off fireworks and blocking the cars, buses, and trollies, a celebration I thought would be reserved for an actual victory. Once more, we went to the Schwarma stand, which is like a Middle Eastern burrito, and to add to the list of people I’ve met there from Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, we met a couple born in Pakistan but based out of Malaysia studying biology in English at one of the Lugansk Universities.
After the schwarma, we went to the Chelsea Pub restaurant across the street to sit and talk and have a snack, which turned out to be pistachios since they were fresh out of ice cream. While we were there, we heard a man speaking English in a heavy southern drawl and quickly realized he was on a date with a Ukrainian woman with a translator present, which sadly enough probably means he was going through one of many companies that helps Westerners find wives in Ukraine and then obtain the proper documents to take them back to their country. He heard us speak English and had a quick conversation with him though the whole ordeal still seamed very shady and awkward. At least it was reassuring to know that he’s been coming to Ukraine for years yet we speak better Russian after three months of training and six months total in country.
Peace Corps Perception
I often admit in my writing and in my conversation that sometimes my life here is very far from my first expectations of Peace Corps service. Ukraine on one hand looks much like life in America, with fashion, restaurants, designer clothes, and technology; however, this is very deceiving since the everyday customs, rituals, and culture overall is very different which I think tricks people into thinking they are back in the States. This causes them to let down their guard some which can either get them in trouble or put them in danger. I think this deception would make adjusting to a new country more difficult than going to a new country where everything is completely different, like villages in Sub-Saharan Africa or Southeast Asia, because there are not fragments of your old life in America tricking you into thinking you are somewhere else.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
A story about a goose
Next fall when you see geese heading south for the winter flying along in "V" formation, you might be interested in knowing what science has discovered about why they fly that way. It has been learned that as each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in a "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71% greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own. People who share common direction and a sense of community can get where they are going quicker and easier, because they are traveling on the thrust on one another.
Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front. If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay information with those who are headed the same way we are going.
When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point. It pays to take turns doing hard jobs.
The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. An encouraging work goes a long way.
Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by a gun shot and falls out, two geese fall out of formation, and follow him down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and they launch out on their own or with another formation to catch up with the group. If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
Author Unknown
Whenever a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird immediately in front. If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay information with those who are headed the same way we are going.
When the lead goose gets tired, he rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point. It pays to take turns doing hard jobs.
The geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed. An encouraging work goes a long way.
Finally, when a goose gets sick, or is wounded by a gun shot and falls out, two geese fall out of formation, and follow him down to help and protect him. They stay with him until he is either able to fly or until he is dead, and they launch out on their own or with another formation to catch up with the group. If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
Author Unknown
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Care package info
For people interested in sending a care package or a letter, here is my address in Russian, though I’m not sure if your computer will support the text.
Алан Гоуч
Петровского, 7
Беловодск
92800
Луганская Область
Украина
If this works, you can either copy by hand or print out a label or something by copying and pasting the text into a word document.
For backup, here is my address in English
Alan Gough
Petrovsky, 7
Belovodsk
92800
Lugansk Oblast
Ukraine
My parents tried to send a package via UPS and customs were a big problem. There is a Ukrainian run company called MEEST that has offices all across the States and I believe there website is meest.net. This company has received the best reviews from PCVs here in Ukraine for the quality of care and inexpensiveness (and sending food isn’t a problem unlike UPS). If there isn’t an office near you I believe you can send a package to them and they will forward it. You can contact them to know exactly what and how much to send, how much it will cost, and how long it will take.
As far as letters go, they will arrive here in about a month and I believe you only need a ninety cent stamp.
Ps. Most people know me as Alan since Keith has several problems translating into the Cyrillic alphabet as well as Russian and Ukrainian vocab.
If the text does not show up, email me.
Алан Гоуч
Петровского, 7
Беловодск
92800
Луганская Область
Украина
If this works, you can either copy by hand or print out a label or something by copying and pasting the text into a word document.
For backup, here is my address in English
Alan Gough
Petrovsky, 7
Belovodsk
92800
Lugansk Oblast
Ukraine
My parents tried to send a package via UPS and customs were a big problem. There is a Ukrainian run company called MEEST that has offices all across the States and I believe there website is meest.net. This company has received the best reviews from PCVs here in Ukraine for the quality of care and inexpensiveness (and sending food isn’t a problem unlike UPS). If there isn’t an office near you I believe you can send a package to them and they will forward it. You can contact them to know exactly what and how much to send, how much it will cost, and how long it will take.
As far as letters go, they will arrive here in about a month and I believe you only need a ninety cent stamp.
Ps. Most people know me as Alan since Keith has several problems translating into the Cyrillic alphabet as well as Russian and Ukrainian vocab.
If the text does not show up, email me.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Happy Belated International Women's Day
I was unable to obtain internet access in time to post my blog about IWD, but you can read now if interested on the holiday last Saturday.
______________________________
March 8th is International Women’s Day, a holiday and day of celebration that I was unaware of until I stumbled off an airplane in Kyiv five months ago. Although International Women’s Day is often seen as being rooted in Socialist or Communist societies, Russia and the former Soviet republics are not alone in celebrating this holiday as demonstrations have been held in the United States, India, Austria, China, Cameroon, and nations of every size and culture, from East to West.
Historically, the holiday can be seen as a mass dissent against the social, political, and mostly the economical inequalities of the sexes, which explains the day’s significance in socialist regimes. Women have demonstrated for workers’ rights across the globe for the last ninety nine years to shed light on not only horrid working conditions, but also domestic abuse and maltreatment.
Today in Ukraine, and many other countries where International Women’s Day is an official holiday designated by the government, the holiday has shed its political connotations and can be seen in a similar light as Mother’s Day. Political groups still meet to discuss the advancement of women and history is dictated in schools, administrative meetings - both local and national, and on the television.
Ukrainian society is still seen as patriarchal, though a Ukrainian proverb explains, “The man is a head, but the woman is a neck. The man looks where the neck turns.” Under the Soviet Union, more than ninety percent of households were unable to sustain on a single income, forcing women into the dangerous and unsupportive factories while continuing to maintain house and home.
The most common way to celebrate in Ukraine is the giving of small gifts, such as flowers, chocolate, and small gifts to all women in the family, neighbors, and sometimes coworkers as well. Odd numbers of flowers are presented to women, as even numbers are given only for funerals. The color of the flowers are also very important; yellow signifies a farewell; red indicates a victory and is often used on days of military remembrance; and white is a symbol of innocence.
So for those who were unaware of the holiday, like me, surprise your mother, sister, daughter, or coworker with a small gift this year. They’ll greatly appreciate the gesture and you can share a very important part of Ukrainian culture with those in America.
Quotes I enjoy:
"When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman ?"
- Oliver Wendell Holmes .
“I’m just a person trapped inside a woman's body."
- Elaine Boosler .
Further Reading (educate yourself, find more information!)
Fanny Wright – Scottish American activist who attacked the clergy believing organized religion to be the basis for inequality of the sexes. Most known for her “utopian” plantations in which the owners and slaves practiced miscegenation, the solution Wright believed would bring an end to chattel slavery.
Sojourner Truth – Born into slavery before the turn of the 19th Century, Truth fought to give herself a voice in a world where all women were white and all blacks were male. As she did not fit into the standard mold of 19th Century Femininity, Truth once publicly bared her breasts when a man questioned her womanliness. She strongly opposed the 14th Amendment, demanding the word “man” be removed and opposed Frederick Douglas who argued black men should vote even if black women could not.
Abbey Kelley – A Massachusetts born Quaker, Kelley dedicated her life to changing the way white society treated blacks. However, her white skin did not protect her from phrases such as “nigger bitch” which were heaved often by the very people she tried to educate. Inspired by William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society, Kelley was banished by her church for her independent travels through New England where she spoke to the commoner about the immorality of slavery.
The Anti Slavery Convention of American, where Kelley presented her ideals, was the first ever female organized political meeting in America, more than a decade before Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the famous meeting in Seneca Falls. Believing white women should vote before black men, both Stanton and Susan B Anthony prioritized women’s suffrage over abolition and greatly opposed Kelley’s commentary on abolition at any means.
______________________________
March 8th is International Women’s Day, a holiday and day of celebration that I was unaware of until I stumbled off an airplane in Kyiv five months ago. Although International Women’s Day is often seen as being rooted in Socialist or Communist societies, Russia and the former Soviet republics are not alone in celebrating this holiday as demonstrations have been held in the United States, India, Austria, China, Cameroon, and nations of every size and culture, from East to West.
Historically, the holiday can be seen as a mass dissent against the social, political, and mostly the economical inequalities of the sexes, which explains the day’s significance in socialist regimes. Women have demonstrated for workers’ rights across the globe for the last ninety nine years to shed light on not only horrid working conditions, but also domestic abuse and maltreatment.
Today in Ukraine, and many other countries where International Women’s Day is an official holiday designated by the government, the holiday has shed its political connotations and can be seen in a similar light as Mother’s Day. Political groups still meet to discuss the advancement of women and history is dictated in schools, administrative meetings - both local and national, and on the television.
Ukrainian society is still seen as patriarchal, though a Ukrainian proverb explains, “The man is a head, but the woman is a neck. The man looks where the neck turns.” Under the Soviet Union, more than ninety percent of households were unable to sustain on a single income, forcing women into the dangerous and unsupportive factories while continuing to maintain house and home.
The most common way to celebrate in Ukraine is the giving of small gifts, such as flowers, chocolate, and small gifts to all women in the family, neighbors, and sometimes coworkers as well. Odd numbers of flowers are presented to women, as even numbers are given only for funerals. The color of the flowers are also very important; yellow signifies a farewell; red indicates a victory and is often used on days of military remembrance; and white is a symbol of innocence.
So for those who were unaware of the holiday, like me, surprise your mother, sister, daughter, or coworker with a small gift this year. They’ll greatly appreciate the gesture and you can share a very important part of Ukrainian culture with those in America.
Quotes I enjoy:
"When I think of talking, it is of course with a woman. For talking at its best being an inspiration, it wants a corresponding divine quality of receptiveness, and where will you find this but in a woman ?"
- Oliver Wendell Holmes .
“I’m just a person trapped inside a woman's body."
- Elaine Boosler .
Further Reading (educate yourself, find more information!)
Fanny Wright – Scottish American activist who attacked the clergy believing organized religion to be the basis for inequality of the sexes. Most known for her “utopian” plantations in which the owners and slaves practiced miscegenation, the solution Wright believed would bring an end to chattel slavery.
Sojourner Truth – Born into slavery before the turn of the 19th Century, Truth fought to give herself a voice in a world where all women were white and all blacks were male. As she did not fit into the standard mold of 19th Century Femininity, Truth once publicly bared her breasts when a man questioned her womanliness. She strongly opposed the 14th Amendment, demanding the word “man” be removed and opposed Frederick Douglas who argued black men should vote even if black women could not.
Abbey Kelley – A Massachusetts born Quaker, Kelley dedicated her life to changing the way white society treated blacks. However, her white skin did not protect her from phrases such as “nigger bitch” which were heaved often by the very people she tried to educate. Inspired by William Lloyd Garrison and the American Anti-Slavery Society, Kelley was banished by her church for her independent travels through New England where she spoke to the commoner about the immorality of slavery.
The Anti Slavery Convention of American, where Kelley presented her ideals, was the first ever female organized political meeting in America, more than a decade before Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the famous meeting in Seneca Falls. Believing white women should vote before black men, both Stanton and Susan B Anthony prioritized women’s suffrage over abolition and greatly opposed Kelley’s commentary on abolition at any means.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Article in the New York Times criticizing the Peace Corps
The following article was written by a former volunteer, recruiter, and country director for Cameroon. I'm interested to hear your responses regarding his stance on the immaturity and lacking skills of Peace Corps Volunteers.
______________________________________________
January 9, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Too Many Innocents Abroad
By ROBERT L. STRAUSS Antananarivo, Madagascar
THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.
However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.
This wasn’t the case in 1961 when the Peace Corps sent its first volunteers overseas. Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates. But today, those same nations have millions of well-educated citizens of their own desperately in need of work. So it’s much less clear what inexperienced Americans have to offer.
The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma. What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do — and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country.
The Peace Corps has resisted doing this for fear that it would cause the number of volunteers to plummet. The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not.
In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.
For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.
Every few years, the agency polls its volunteers, but in my experience it does not systematically ask the people it is supposedly helping what they think the volunteers have achieved. This is a clear indication of how the Peace Corps neglects its customers; as long as the volunteers are enjoying themselves, it doesn’t matter whether they improve the quality of life in the host countries. Any well-run organization must know what its customers want and then deliver the goods, but this is something the Peace Corps has never learned.
This lack of organizational introspection allows the agency to continue sending, for example, unqualified volunteers to teach English when nearly every developing country could easily find high-caliber English teachers among its own population. Even after Cameroonian teachers and education officials ranked English instruction as their lowest priority (after help with computer literacy, math and science, for example), headquarters in Washington continued to send trainees with little or no classroom experience to teach English in Cameroonian schools. One volunteer told me that the only possible reason he could think of for having been selected was that he was a native English speaker.
The Peace Corps was born during the glory days of the early Kennedy administration. Since then, its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need — at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will.
Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He now heads a management consulting company.
______________________________________________
January 9, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor Too Many Innocents Abroad
By ROBERT L. STRAUSS Antananarivo, Madagascar
THE Peace Corps recently began a laudable initiative to increase the number of volunteers who are 50 and older. As the Peace Corps’ country director in Cameroon from 2002 until last February, I observed how many older volunteers brought something to their service that most young volunteers could not: extensive professional and life experience and the ability to mentor younger volunteers.
However, even if the Peace Corps reaches its goal of having 15 percent of its volunteers over 50, the overwhelming majority will remain recently minted college graduates. And too often these young volunteers lack the maturity and professional experience to be effective development workers in the 21st century.
This wasn’t the case in 1961 when the Peace Corps sent its first volunteers overseas. Back then, enthusiastic young Americans offered something that many newly independent nations counted in double and even single digits: college graduates. But today, those same nations have millions of well-educated citizens of their own desperately in need of work. So it’s much less clear what inexperienced Americans have to offer.
The Peace Corps has long shipped out well-meaning young people possessing little more than good intentions and a college diploma. What the agency should begin doing is recruiting only the best of recent graduates — as the top professional schools do — and only those older people whose skills and personal characteristics are a solid fit for the needs of the host country.
The Peace Corps has resisted doing this for fear that it would cause the number of volunteers to plummet. The name of the game has been getting volunteers into the field, qualified or not.
In Cameroon, we had many volunteers sent to serve in the agriculture program whose only experience was puttering around in their mom and dad’s backyard during high school. I wrote to our headquarters in Washington to ask if anyone had considered how an American farmer would feel if a fresh-out-of-college Cameroonian with a liberal arts degree who had occasionally visited Grandma’s cassava plot were sent to Iowa to consult on pig-raising techniques learned in a three-month crash course. I’m pretty sure the American farmer would see it as a publicity stunt and a bunch of hooey, but I never heard back from headquarters.
For the Peace Corps, the number of volunteers has always trumped the quality of their work, perhaps because the agency fears that an objective assessment of its impact would reveal that while volunteers generate good will for the United States, they do little or nothing to actually aid development in poor countries. The agency has no comprehensive system for self-evaluation, but rather relies heavily on personal anecdote to demonstrate its worth.
Every few years, the agency polls its volunteers, but in my experience it does not systematically ask the people it is supposedly helping what they think the volunteers have achieved. This is a clear indication of how the Peace Corps neglects its customers; as long as the volunteers are enjoying themselves, it doesn’t matter whether they improve the quality of life in the host countries. Any well-run organization must know what its customers want and then deliver the goods, but this is something the Peace Corps has never learned.
This lack of organizational introspection allows the agency to continue sending, for example, unqualified volunteers to teach English when nearly every developing country could easily find high-caliber English teachers among its own population. Even after Cameroonian teachers and education officials ranked English instruction as their lowest priority (after help with computer literacy, math and science, for example), headquarters in Washington continued to send trainees with little or no classroom experience to teach English in Cameroonian schools. One volunteer told me that the only possible reason he could think of for having been selected was that he was a native English speaker.
The Peace Corps was born during the glory days of the early Kennedy administration. Since then, its leaders and many of the more than 190,000 volunteers who have served have mythologized the agency into something that can never be questioned or improved. The result is an organization that finds itself less and less able to provide what the people of developing countries need — at a time when the United States has never had a greater need for their good will.
Robert L. Strauss has been a Peace Corps volunteer, recruiter and country director. He now heads a management consulting company.
A Day in the Life of a Ukraine PCV
The most important thing to remember is service for every volunteer is very different, due to schools, communities, housing; therefore, I can only shed light on my experiences.
On any given school day, my routine can more or less be summed up by the following:
I am pretty lucky since my earliest classes start at eight o’clock and I live only a five minute walk from my school, the Belovodsk Gymnasium. I admit the first thing I do when I wake up is check the e-mails on my cell phone; reading messages from friends and family is the greatest motivation to remember what I am doing and why I am here and provides the motivation I need.
Although cooking is one of my hobbies, breakfast is usually simple, consisting of, in any combination, eggs, bread, pourage, fruit, yogurt, or muesli. I don’t eat lunch at school so I have to make sure I have enough fuel to teach anywhere from two to five lessons on given days.
Showering is a hassle since I do not have a short, rather my bathtub and a large yogurt cup I use rinse. Filling the bathtub would be a very long, expensive, and ultimately wasteful process, so I full out shower about two days a week (a number that would have frightened me in America, but here I don’t mind).
I teach at the Gymnasium in my town, which is the larger of the two public schools. There are almost eight hundred students from grades first through eleventh and over seventy teachers, six of which instruct English.
I teach 5th through 9th grade, though Ukrainians say form. Each class begins with the students standing to welcome the teacher and in the younger form students often sing melodies, such as “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, good morning, good morning, we are glad to see you.” Teaching English as a foreign language is a challenge, but I try to think what interested me in Russian class and what helps me best to study and absorb new words and grammar, which works sometimes.
As I walk through the hallways, the students always yell, “Good morning, Mr. Alan,” even if it is two o’clock in the afternoon. I use my middle name Alan, because Keith is difficult to pronounce since the Cyrillic alphabet has no “TH” sound – they would say Keet, which in Russian is whale. The students are easily motivated by competition so I often try to think of activities that involve points and teams. They have fifteen seconds to think of a team name, some of the highlights so far have included Manchester United vs. Chelsea, Four Guys and a Girl vs Team Forever, and Team Smile vs Team Sad Face.
On Mondays and Fridays I have Russian tutoring with the school’s veteran Russian teacher who does not know one word of English. Often times I think, “If I understand what she was saying to me during tutoring, I wouldn’t need it.” Learning Russian is very difficult and continuing to study without explanations in English is even more of a challenge but I try!
Often times if I didn’t hear Ukrainian or Russian being spoken in the halls, I would think it to be a hallway in America when I walk past students. Their clothes appear as though they were just ordered out of a Gap or Hot Topic catalog, they play with the cellphones, and the younger students play tag and other games.
I have English club twice a week with the students who are not in my classes, because I want to give them all a chance to practice the language in a free and open way with a native speaker. We have played and sang “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley, done mock interviews, and played Scattergories. UNO is also a very good game to practice with younger students because you can practice numbers, colors, verbs of motion like to go and to go back, and extra things like skip, take, and draw (I say this because it helped me with my Russian when I taught it to my host family with no English used).
My time after school is spent divided doing several things. I often watch one or two programs on the British Travel Channel, play my guitar, study Russian, and then I lesson plan. The text books in Ukraine are often out of date, therefore I make extra resources in hopes to make the content and activities more interesting. Making the materials takes the majority of my time and I draw pictures and write texts on the clean side of inexpensive wall paper quite often. I also have internet access at my school, which is slow and often unreliable, but I am very lucky to be able to research content and lesson ideas to make class more fun and effective.
After school, students participate in a variety of activities that take place at the sport school, music school, house of creativity, and house of culture. Most students can play an instrument or sing and football (soccer) is the most popular sport here (Almost nobody watches American Football). School is over by two o’clock, but students often have three to four extra hours of activities after school in addition to their homework and as you can see they have many responsibilities. After that, there is a computer game club in my town called Victory where students play Medal of Honor and Counterstrike.
After four months total of living with two different Ukrainian families, I now live in my own apartment fit with gas heat, a refrigerator, running water, and an indoor toilet. Compared to Peace Corps in more remote locations like villages in Africa and Southeast Asia, I am living the life!
There are no supermarkets or large stores in my town, only small stores that resemble convenient stores; however, customers have to point and ask for all the things they wish to purchase which are located behind the counter. This makes shopping somewhat difficult and it takes quite some time, so usually I go several times a week to buy only a few things at once.
If you have any questions, comments, or want to know more about a certain topic or theme I discussed, please just ask and I will tell you more!
______________________________
The ideas and opinions expressed in this journal belong solely to its writer and do not in any way represent the beliefs of Peace Corps or Peace Corps Ukraine.
On any given school day, my routine can more or less be summed up by the following:
I am pretty lucky since my earliest classes start at eight o’clock and I live only a five minute walk from my school, the Belovodsk Gymnasium. I admit the first thing I do when I wake up is check the e-mails on my cell phone; reading messages from friends and family is the greatest motivation to remember what I am doing and why I am here and provides the motivation I need.
Although cooking is one of my hobbies, breakfast is usually simple, consisting of, in any combination, eggs, bread, pourage, fruit, yogurt, or muesli. I don’t eat lunch at school so I have to make sure I have enough fuel to teach anywhere from two to five lessons on given days.
Showering is a hassle since I do not have a short, rather my bathtub and a large yogurt cup I use rinse. Filling the bathtub would be a very long, expensive, and ultimately wasteful process, so I full out shower about two days a week (a number that would have frightened me in America, but here I don’t mind).
I teach at the Gymnasium in my town, which is the larger of the two public schools. There are almost eight hundred students from grades first through eleventh and over seventy teachers, six of which instruct English.
I teach 5th through 9th grade, though Ukrainians say form. Each class begins with the students standing to welcome the teacher and in the younger form students often sing melodies, such as “Good morning, good morning, good morning to you, good morning, good morning, we are glad to see you.” Teaching English as a foreign language is a challenge, but I try to think what interested me in Russian class and what helps me best to study and absorb new words and grammar, which works sometimes.
As I walk through the hallways, the students always yell, “Good morning, Mr. Alan,” even if it is two o’clock in the afternoon. I use my middle name Alan, because Keith is difficult to pronounce since the Cyrillic alphabet has no “TH” sound – they would say Keet, which in Russian is whale. The students are easily motivated by competition so I often try to think of activities that involve points and teams. They have fifteen seconds to think of a team name, some of the highlights so far have included Manchester United vs. Chelsea, Four Guys and a Girl vs Team Forever, and Team Smile vs Team Sad Face.
On Mondays and Fridays I have Russian tutoring with the school’s veteran Russian teacher who does not know one word of English. Often times I think, “If I understand what she was saying to me during tutoring, I wouldn’t need it.” Learning Russian is very difficult and continuing to study without explanations in English is even more of a challenge but I try!
Often times if I didn’t hear Ukrainian or Russian being spoken in the halls, I would think it to be a hallway in America when I walk past students. Their clothes appear as though they were just ordered out of a Gap or Hot Topic catalog, they play with the cellphones, and the younger students play tag and other games.
I have English club twice a week with the students who are not in my classes, because I want to give them all a chance to practice the language in a free and open way with a native speaker. We have played and sang “No Woman, No Cry” by Bob Marley, done mock interviews, and played Scattergories. UNO is also a very good game to practice with younger students because you can practice numbers, colors, verbs of motion like to go and to go back, and extra things like skip, take, and draw (I say this because it helped me with my Russian when I taught it to my host family with no English used).
My time after school is spent divided doing several things. I often watch one or two programs on the British Travel Channel, play my guitar, study Russian, and then I lesson plan. The text books in Ukraine are often out of date, therefore I make extra resources in hopes to make the content and activities more interesting. Making the materials takes the majority of my time and I draw pictures and write texts on the clean side of inexpensive wall paper quite often. I also have internet access at my school, which is slow and often unreliable, but I am very lucky to be able to research content and lesson ideas to make class more fun and effective.
After school, students participate in a variety of activities that take place at the sport school, music school, house of creativity, and house of culture. Most students can play an instrument or sing and football (soccer) is the most popular sport here (Almost nobody watches American Football). School is over by two o’clock, but students often have three to four extra hours of activities after school in addition to their homework and as you can see they have many responsibilities. After that, there is a computer game club in my town called Victory where students play Medal of Honor and Counterstrike.
After four months total of living with two different Ukrainian families, I now live in my own apartment fit with gas heat, a refrigerator, running water, and an indoor toilet. Compared to Peace Corps in more remote locations like villages in Africa and Southeast Asia, I am living the life!
There are no supermarkets or large stores in my town, only small stores that resemble convenient stores; however, customers have to point and ask for all the things they wish to purchase which are located behind the counter. This makes shopping somewhat difficult and it takes quite some time, so usually I go several times a week to buy only a few things at once.
If you have any questions, comments, or want to know more about a certain topic or theme I discussed, please just ask and I will tell you more!
______________________________
The ideas and opinions expressed in this journal belong solely to its writer and do not in any way represent the beliefs of Peace Corps or Peace Corps Ukraine.
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