Perpetual Change

International Youth Municipal Hearings

I was very impressed by this conference which was being conducted for the second year. It is a very young town, created by the Soviet Union 40 years ago, but the town has incredible youth programming. The city and donors pay for the conference and it was very well organized. They had logo’s and billboards, even goodie bags like an American conference. The hotel was quite nice and this was all what I had expected last year when I started going to Ukrainian events, but I had been very disappointed then.
The experience started when I was called the NIGHT BEFORE by my program manager and asked to do a speech at the opening ceremony. The conversation went something like this:
-John, we’d like you to speak at the opening ceremony about what is like to work with youth in Ukraine, what are their strengths and why is empowering them important.
+Ok, how long do I have?
-Three minutes?
+ Wow, that is a lot to cover in a short time! I will need to work with the translator for a few minutes before the ceremony starts.
-Well, actually, we feel that your language is so good, that we want you to do it in Ukrainian.
+ (long, disbelieving pause) Uh…This is for tomorrow right? I am not even at home where I could work with my tutor on this?!
-Well, give it a try.
+ uh,…ok…
-(click)
[We get 130 Ukrainian Hryven a month from Peace Corps to work with a tutor. That is equal to $26 or about 13 1-hour sessions]
Needless to say, I was a bit nervous. So the next morning, off go the folks to the airport and I meet my Ukrainian counterpart, Roman- a friend who works with the Ukrainian Scouts, at the train station to take a bus 4 hours to the conference town. On the way, there was a movie, “Failure to Launch.” It caught my attention because of its antithetic Ukrainian themes (not a big deal to live at home with your mother caring for you; BIG deal if she should think of getting rid of you), so I asked Roman his opinion. That really hadn’t got his attention at all; he was more surprised by amount of sports in the main character’s life than by anything else. He asked if we really spend so much time playing. I honestly don’t know about the average guy, but it looked a lot like my life in college, and what I hear from you young professionals without families, so I said yeah. How do you all feel? Did anyone see it?
Also, on the ride, we stopped at a café for a break, and I sought out the shade nearby. Roman was surprised that I wouldn’t want to stand in the sun, being from Florida and all. It was a hot day and a hot ride, so I was enjoying the shade, thinking that most people from Florida would probably do exactly the same. This reminded me of the time that Liam (from Florida) and Jon (from Michigan) came to visit one winter in Philadelphia and we spent all day walking around the very cold city. Jon finally asked if we could go in somewhere, and we were so surprised at his lack of endurance to the winters we thought him accustomed to. He replied, “Yeah, but we don’t spend all day walking around, OUTSIDE. We stay in where it’s warm.”
At the conference site, on the banks of the Dnepr River, we found a Barbara Bay, a monument to construction workers, and a huge statue of Stalin. Roman is a die hard nationalist and an instigator. I thought he would be a bit better in this professional atmosphere, but I could see already at registration (a thing unique in itself here) that I was to be disappointed. There was a student camera crew interviewing in coming participants. The mike was stuck in my face almost as soon as I walked in the door, and I tried to get out of it, but after Roman’s rant about the Stalin statue, I thought I should try to redeem our town. I ended by saying my favorite thing in Ukraine (a question invariably asked) is the national potato dumping dish (a response that invariably gets a laugh and approval – though what they really want me to say is the women)
When we get to the hall for the opening ceremony, there are like 300 people there, plus ministers from the national government and the Ambassador from Indonesia. I was more nervous, nor was I even really sure what I was going to say that was both meaningful, short and in coherent Ukrainian. I pulled it off. They seemed very satisfied. I was less so. The worst part was that when I heard the mayor making comments to the ambassador who were seated on the stage nearby I lost my train of thought completely. I think he was commenting on my language skills, but it ruined me. I wrapped up clumsily, but was able to bring my point home when they put me on the spot to speak at the closing ceremony. It got a good laugh at of the conference organizer. She had quite a strong personality.
That night there were fireworks for Ivana Kupala, a big religious holiday for John the Baptist that was thrown over the pagan summer solstice. For me it was like the 4th of July. The weather was beautiful and there was a disco with a good DJ. We danced and had a great time.
The kids of this town, as was made apparent through presentations, dance numbers, videos and just talking with them, are so well adjusted kids; there are so many activities to encourage them to develop and excel, from breakdance to student parliament. The president of Ukraine will be from there one day, I’m sure. There programs might be better than the States because they has such focus and support from in the community; if they could train and finance volunteers, Ukraine wouldn’t need me or my youth development program.
The next day, we continued the sessions. We had been divided by choice into committees of different themes whose goal for the conference was to discuss Ukraine’s current situation, possible projects to get youth involved and policy suggestions to the government which would then be compiled by the volunteer moderators and really sent to a special council of the government that was also over looking our Peace Corps project. I was on the economic development and entrepreneurship committee. It was very interesting to discuss economics in a former socialist republic. As Americans, we try to raise money like a business for NGO’s. They wanted to establish rules for business to give to NGO’s.
That night was the last game of the World Cup. Ukrainians bill themselves as great soccer fans, and they do like to play, but they are not fantastic and as fans there are more like front runners. The Ukrainians had been knocked out 2 rounds earlier, so everyone else was at another disco, while all the Americans, who have a worldwide reputation of not liking soccer, were watching the soccer game. Then, just in the very exciting last minutes, the TV crew from the fist day came in to my room. They let themselves in on account of us not hearing them over our screaming at the last second, for the goal. They still didn’t get it, and wanted to interview us some more and question why we weren’t at the disco.
Even though we looked out at the river the whole time, it was only after the conference ended that I got to enjoy the real beauty of the water. There was a small community center yacht club (ie.free) but they were done for the day when I got there. I probably could have pushed with money but I had 15-year-old Dima, a member of the local youth administration, in tow, and I thought it a bad example. He wanted to take me on a tour around town, which ended up meaning clear across town (2 hours walk) in Kino’s (after I had said I didn’t want to go far) to see a mining operation (ie. building complex). But he was so excited that I couldn’t stop him. And in the evening I did get to swim (finally).

I felt a real connection to the whole experience, but more importantly, I felt the future and possibility of Ukraine.

posted by jjs @ 10:49 AM