A Peace Corps Volunteer’s Perspective—

Working In The Ukraine, Where Life Is Difficult And Opportunities Are Great

(Editor’s note: Newtown resident Gregory Higgins, 25, has been serving in the Peace Corps in the Ukraine after graduating from Connecticut State University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in MIS/Business. Son of Bill and Antoinette Higgins of Sugar Lane, he has been in contact with The Bee through emails describing his experiences there and his plans to travel throughout the world now that his tour of service is ending.)

 

Gregory Higgins was still in college when he decided that he wanted to live and work abroad after he graduated, to learn about another culture while using the skills he had developed at Central Connecticut State University.

He applied to the Peace Corps, completed a competitive application process that emphasized professional skills, cultural “sensitivity,” adaptability, and medical fitness, and was given the choice of serving as a business development volunteer in West Africa or Ukraine.

“I decided to go to Ukraine because I would get a chance to use what I had studied in college. I was told that I could use my MIS [management information services] background and possibly do some IT [information technology] development work from the ground up,” he said in a recent email. “Ukraine gained its independence not too long ago from Russia so I thought that it would be a good place to live. [Besides] I heard that the food was hearty and the climate was similar to Connecticut.”

Greg left Newtown on February 8, 2002.

“It seems just like yesterday that I was making all the final arrangements, selling all my personal possessions on eBay and saying goodbye to my friends,” he said. “I arrived in Washington, D.C., for staging on February 7, 2002, with all of the other volunteers that would be in my training group in Ukraine. There were 33 of us, and now it is down to 27.”

He completed an intensive 11-week training program at the Peace Corps Training Center in Zhytomry, Ukraine, which included 150 hours of technical training on business in Ukraine, 200 hours of Russian language training, 100 hours cross-cultural studies, and six weeks of work at a nongovernmental organization, the Zhytomyr Oblast Foundation of Comprehensive Rehabilitation for Children and Youth. He was then sworn in as a Peace Corps volunteer by US Ambassador Carlos Pascual in Kyiv, Ukraine, and assigned to the Russian-speaking city of Donetsk.

“I have spent the past two years as a business facilitator at an organization called the ‘Donetsk City Charity Foundation Dobrota’ in Donetsk, Ukraine,” Greg said. “It is a city of 1.4 million people. I live in a small one-room flat and do have hot water, most of the time, using a gas heater called a ‘kolonka’ five out of the seven days of the week. I live on the fifth floor of a five-story building so on the weekends when everyone is home, they tend to take showers and do their wash so that by the time the water gets up to my floor it is a little more than a trickle.

“Ukrainian life is much harder than it is in America,” he said. “There are frequently tons of potholes in the streets, and sidewalks. I always wondered why people who typically lived in Eastern Europe always looked down when they walked. In America looking down when you walk is a sign of insecurity, but here looking down while walking is a sign of intelligence. I say this because if you do not look down, you will trip in potholes and open manholes.

“The slabs of concrete that they sometimes use as sidewalks tends to age and shift to one side so there are gigantic steps that you need to navigate while walking. At night there are no lights on the streets to either save electricity or for lack of funds, or just a lack of light bulbs,” he said.

But Greg found the people in Ukraine to be very warm and friendly once they got to know him..

“From the outside, and even to this day they are not friendly at first, but they are once I make them laugh with my Russian language abilities; no matter how hard I try I cannot get rid of my Yankee accent,” he said. “If you go to their home, they will have a gigantic spread of food and something called ‘samagon’ which is a homebrew of vodka, but with twice the alcohol. Ukraine is full of wonderful people.

“I live right next door to a wonderful outdoor market that in the summer has the freshest vegetables that I have ever tasted,” he said. “I walk the 20 minutes to work where there are many computers and even a cable modem. That is the difference in culture here. There may be many people without food and clothing, but if you have money you can get whatever you want. I can walk the 20 minutes to work and see babushkas (grandmothers) with 20-year-old clothing waiting for a bus, and then see a BMW SUV booming down the street with a ‘Novy Ruskie’ or new Russian behind the wheel.

“The cultural and class differences that I have seen while working in Ukraine are much different than New England. There is almost no middle class, although in the past two years there has been exponential growth with a middle class getting bigger and bigger,” he added.

According to the Peace Corps, Greg not only provided business-consulting services in fundraising to the charitable foundation in Donetsk, but also help teach business skills to his colleagues and provided them with a Western outlook on conducting business. His outlook developed a “win/win” philosophy there, the Peace Corps said.

Working with his colleagues and the employees of Dobrota, Greg Higgins applied for, and received, several grants to help fund the work at the charity foundation. He also was the emergency action plan coordinator for his Peace Corps area and was responsible for all volunteers in the region. He was the team leader for PC Ukraine’s Techonology Group and was responsible for the development of volunteer technology resources and support, as well as for the development of PC Ukraine’s website, www.pcukraine.org. He was also the business development editor for PC Ukraine’s volunteer newsletter, NuScho?!

“I have been wrapping things up here in Ukraine, and I only have three weeks left and then my contract ends as a Peace Corps volunteer, and I am out on my own,” Greg said. “This is both scary and exciting. It is scary because Peace Corps has really supported me during the past two years. If I ever had a medical problem whether it was a tooth ache or a fever that was over 104 I could always call their 24-hour medical support line in Kiev and they would be there to help me and offer assistance.

“I know that I will miss the comfort that Peace Corps Ukraine has provided me and will miss all the wonderful Ukrainian staff and American staff that has made the last two years of my life in Ukraine one of the best experiences that I have ever had. I have learned so much about myself and about other people, even more than my personal and professional development while in college at Central Connecticut State University just two and a half years ago,” Greg said.

“I wish I could convey my appreciation for the US Peace Corps Program. In Ukraine every man has to serve two years in the military after he graduates from High School. I wish that in America everyone had to serve in the US Peace Corps to help other countries citizens as well as gain an understanding of the world while living like someone in another culture, in my case Ukraine.

“I am not sure what I want to do when I return to the United States so I have decided to take all of my readjustment allowance and travel for eight months. I have sold off all my possessions that I had acquired in Ukraine such as my laundry machine, television, laptop computer, speakers, and other small things, to help me fund this trip. I will be traveling through the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, and then back to Connecticut, USA.”

 (To follow Greg’s journey, readers can visit his online bulletin board at www.angelfire.com/folk/higginsg/blog.)