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About the Author
Claire St. Amant is a graduate of Baylor University with a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Writing and a minor in Journalism. An avid traveler, Claire has spent two summers in South America and is currently a volunteer for the United States Peace Corps teaching English as a second language in Ukraine. She hopes to write a chronicle about her experience and has already been published in a variety of mediums.
Shalom Claire,
Our son and daughter in law adopted a boy and a girl from the Ukraine 8 years ago. They learned not to dring dark water.
May God our Father send at least 2 big angels to strengthen and protect you.
Bill
oh claire…in so many ways…i am so proud of you. =)
Nice blog. I just finished reading your WSJ article and decided to check out your blog. You write well, but I suppose you already knew that! The WSJ article was well-timed. There is a recuitment effort going on downtown (Portland, ME) tonight that I’m going to, and I’ve been working on my application for about a year. I never quite work up the courage (or is it commitment?) to click “send”, however. Maybe after tonight things will be different.
Let me ask you a question, and I admit I’m hesitant to even let this be said out loud, but is it possible to get a posting where there is good Internet access? Silly, isn’t it? I mean I’m willing to sell my house, give up two years of stateside comfort, ignore the NFL, turn in my iPhone, etc, but the thought of not having regular Internet access and my laptop is a bit intimidating.
By the way, I’m one of those ancient 56-year-old geezers that could pass as your great great grandfather.
Again, nice blog.
George
Hello Claire,
My son Jonathon Campbell was your site mate and he sent me the link to your article in the Wall Street Journal and I came to see your blog as well. I thought it was incredibly well written, expressive and touching. Living in another country isn’t something that I could ever do (health reasons) but I am thankful and appreciative of your efforts. Thank you for sharing with us.
Have a good day
Hi Claire,
I just read your WSJ article and was so glad to see that Peace Corps is still eveloving! I was a volunteer with the Russia 1 group, arriving to Russia way back in 1992 – and I thought that we were the first to be invited in the fomer soviet union. In any case, its great to see that Ukraine is still hosting PC volunteers.
Our group was an unusual experiment run by the Program Director at the time in DC, Elena Chow who wanted to move into business education for entrepreneurs, and we were mostly all experienced business executives making career changes or second careers. I was in fact one of the youngest in the group at 29, and the average of the 100 volunteers was just over 40. In any case, we ended up having the highest drop out rate for PC…as well as the highest retention rate of people staying here and getting married, as I did.
so if you are ever in Russia, or need any contcts here, please feel free to contact me. I now have a successful media and investment consulting business here, and now have over 17 years of private equity and VC experience in this market. The stories I could tell you about the transformation which has happend here and the impact of the PC in Russia – well, I should start my own blog onthat…
I wish you well Claire. Check out our website for anything you would like to know about investment trends in Russia’s regions. http://www.marchmontnews.com
Best regards, Kendrick White
I, too, just read your WSJ article and it was so well written, I immediately logged on to your site. I have made it a favorite so I can enjoy “virtually” your experience. Joining the Peace Corps is on my bucket list when I retire (55 this year!). Your article may just get that 15% of my demographic the Corps is seeking…kudos to you! In the meantime, I’m looking forward to your adventure and journey. Best wishes…
Hi Claire,
I enjoyed your WSJ article and have read various posts on your amazing blog. Your comments about life in the Ukraine are reminiscent of the journals I kept while PCV in Peru and Chile in the 70’s. Hand washing clothes in cold water; no heat; no AC; no phones or TV; public transportation; airmail letters from home; etc became part of daily life. The internet has certainly connected the world and volunteers are less isolated than in the past. Your PC is an invaluable experience that you will carry with you throughout your life. You will also impact the lives of people you meet in ways you’ll never imagine. All the best to you!
Claire, I read your WSJ this morning and had to check out your blog. Very nice! Wish we had the ability to do this when I was in Peace Corps (EC-10) back in 1971-75. I served in Barbados, West Indies, teaching general science, physics, chemistry and biology – as well as acting as head of the science dept. for a remote secondary school.
Incredible how the emphasis for volunteers has changed in 30 years! Your description of the dense and intimate surroundings in many ways reminds me of how it was in the West Indies. (Barbados is the most densely packed nation in the western hemisphere at 1567 per square mile).
I truly enjoyed my time in the Peace Corps, and met my wife the last year serving. I loved the experience so much that, after leaving, I remained for 16 more years to teach at secondary schools there as well as advanced A-level colleges.
Alas, I have lost touch with nearly all the volunteers who served in my group.
Take care and thanks again for sharing your thoughts, experiences.
Make sure your hanging party includes Barney Frank and others in Congress who happily perpetuated the state of affairs you condemn. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Who do you think made all that money so available and cheap for those unscrupulous lenders to exploit?
Good post. Hard to beat that kind of compensation.
Hi Claire, It was fantastic stumbling upon your blog this afternoon as I enjoyed one of my treasured alone time activities – baking and trying out new recipes. This September, I leave with the Peace Corps for none other than Ukraine.
At this point, time both flies and sneaks away. Yesterday I met some fellow group 37ers in Chicago for the Ukrainian Independence Celebration. Though we only spent a couple hours enjoying the sun and open air, just a few of the many culture differences with which we’re soon going to come to terms became apparent to the entire group. After an ample amount of talking and pointing in our direction, I pulled our group of girls away from the extremely masculine soccer game audience. Two and a half hours of waiting after the announced welcome time was not enough to allow us even a glimpse of the day’s scheduled performances. I know you must understand the unique mixture of jittery excitement and straight terror I’m feeling these days. It’s encouraging to read that though differences abound, you’re able to cherish them.
In weeks packed with goodbye parties, “last dinners,” and frantic visits, reading this post was a welcome part of my one day of “sweet solitude.” Thank you!!!
Claire –
Dick Wall told me about your article in the WSJ, and I just wanted to congratulate you on its publication. God bless you in your travels and work in the Ukraine, and give my best to your family.
Warmest regards,
Bret Hern
How is the English Club doing now? You reported on the Club in March; how is it doing now?
Hi Claire,
My uncle sent me your article. It brought back so many memories! It seems that some things have not changed much, but I feel very fortunate to have had a real rural experience in Ukraine. I believe I was the only Volunteer with no running water either year. My first year I nearly froze in a summer kitchen with a broken window, but I got a great little Ukrainian cottage my second year, and used a neighbors well, and had a little plastic bucket for a toilet. I also had no internet access and had to go into Lviv to use the phone at the local post office. The Business Volunteers all had little laptops and apartments, but those of us that ended up in villages were able to stretch our stipend much further. We were also still being paid in dollars as they were in the midst of changing currencies.
Please check out (and feel free to post to) the Peace Corps Ukraine flickr group.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/peacecorpsukraine/
There is going to be a reunion of all Volunteers that served in PC Ukraine in Yalta in June, 2010. Info can be found on Peace Corps Connect:
http://community.peacecorpsconnect.org/
and a contact there for info is Chandler Harrison Stevens
Peace,
Eugenia
RPCV Ukraine 95-97
can’t stand higher cab fares for Americans. in Brazil my friends made me stay silent as we stepped in the cab so the driver wouldn’t jack up the price, but I don’t know how well it worked. the good thing about Brazil is that it’s so racially diverse that some people actually thought I was Brazilian at first glance, until I started speaking.
love your writing Claire! I know this comment is late in the game but i’m still reading. don’t worry. also, can you email me your mailing address so i can send you a little doodad? love you
It went fairly well for the rest of the semester, but there wasn’t much time until summer. I am looking to revamp it for the new year and will keep you posted.
Hello, Claire,
Although I have taught English to teenagers, and some adults, my main “thing” is music. I have taken 38 musical instruments to Odessa, Ukraine to an internat and a music school where they are used to teach children. The children at the internat, orphans, had not previously had an opportunity to learn on a musical instrument.
What you are doing is personally rewarding and a great blessing for the children with whom you are associated. By the way, I am one of those old enough to be your grandfather and I have made more than a dozen trips to Ukraine, staying several months each trip. Also, I live in Bryan which as you know is 90 miles down the road from Baylor, where you went to college. “Good Luck”, and keep up the good work. George Stuart
Hello Claire, What wonderful memories of Ukraine came flooding over me as I read of your experiences as a PCV there. I was a 62 year old volunteer in 1999-2001, TEFL in Kiev at school 157. I am now 73 and part of me is still there. I also loved Ukraine in spring, but also in winter and fall. Not so much in hot summer, Ha! I could relate to all your adventures. I still have friends there and correspond with them. I know now, more than then, what a difference those 2 years made for me and for teachers and students. Enjoy every moment and stay as long as you can. Margie Shuler
Claire, I hope you will put all of your adventures into a book. You are a gifted writer.
I’m a Ukraine RPCV – Sosnivka, Lviv (group 27 2004-06) and I loved quarantine. I would find out when the counts were coming and tell my students which week I wanted off. We’d coordinate so that we were guaranteed a whole week and not 3 days. Great blog by the way.
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
Great post, as always. Your neighbor is precious.
This made me laugh. Great title. That’s so cute about the older men worrying about your perspiration patters, ha. And I love how y’all used sprite bottles with sand as weights.
I’ve been warned that NO ONE goes jogging in Yerevan. In fact, it might actually do more harm than good, since the air is so polluted. Thank goodness for Yoga DVDs!
Зачитался… Спать уже пора идти, не знаю сколько там у вас, но у нас уже за полночь
If I had any money (and sense, perhaps) I’d throw you some cash to help with your impending book. We gotta stick together, us nuclear, non-threatening white suburban writer kids desperately searching for angst and conflict. There was once Hemingway-Fitzgerald-Joyce-Stein… we will somehow recreate that generation in our own way. I contend that we lead the way, young Gertrude.
More to the point, I am writing a short story on the perils and horrors of a VH1 music cruise replete with the likes of Nickelback and am in desperate need of a muse. That means, of course, that you must write constantly. Expect the Ukrainian gestapo at your door in a few days. You might want to plan on a longer bed-stay and a few more story opportunities.
THANK YOU, CLAIRE! …for a wonderful Friday afternoon read. =) I miss you.
always a great read
you are my hero.
Great blog, as always! I still think about how you mentioned in one blog that a person who wears tennis shoes with jeans is definitely an American. I laughed and laughed because I do that almost every day, and it seems so normal! Anyway, thanks for the read.
Congratulations. Good read. …And it’s always potatoes.
Love it. Congrats on your one year, Claire, I can’t believe you’re already halfway done. miss you, love you, and i’m toasting you next time i have a fat margarita…
Dre
p.s. your memoir is going to be amazing.
Take photos. Take photos. Take photos. You’ll be glad you did. Love you!
I don’t know that I’ve ever commented on one of your posts, but I love reading your blog. Your stories are not only enjoyable, but the details you weave in make it apparent the thought and work put in to each post for an excellent finish. I always end up sharing the stories later with others, sending the link to people who would appreciate a particular incident or literally reading out loud to captive audiences. Thanks for sharing your slice of life with those of us that are excited for 60 degree weather and rarely use the delicate cycle.
I agree. Your memoir will be amazing. Congratulations on your one year! I have several comments.
1) I’ve become friends with some PCVs here, and I was thinking the exact same thing yesterday morning about the way they talk about their time. They speak in “months,” much like mothers speak about their newborns. “Oh, he’s seven months now!” But it makes perfect sense, because in both situations, it’s an exciting and important growth period.
2) I totally agree about the food. When I think about the chemically-laced produce in America and the bread that lasts for weeks, it makes me feel sick. I remember how shocked I felt when I asked someone how often she buys bread, and she said everyday. And I’m still trying not to feel self-conscious going to the market nearly every other day. I have to constantly remind myself that it’s normal.
3)I really liked your last section on individualism. It was honest and truthful and also shed great insight as to why the Ukrainian society is the way it is (same thing in Armenia, too).
Anyway, I love reading your stuff. You’re so talented and inspiring, and I brag about you always
Three cheers to everlasting memories of the Ukrainian party! A.K.A. craziest moments (or hours strung together) of life. The next time I dance around a homework-fed bonfire, I will stop for a minute, close my eyes, and raise a single hand in salute to the eastern European masterpiece that we call home.
That is an absolutely breath-taking rattie you have there. How appropriate that a true American breed of canine is reacclimating you to the US.
…did you eat a lot of cabbage while in the Ukraine? I imagine that is a place where you would eat a lot of cabbage.
Sidenote….Ukraine is one of my favorite territories to occupy in a good ol’ game of RISK!!
I’m so glad that I got to see you in the office before you headed back! I’ve been thinking of you – keep me updated on your plans. Looking forward to more culture shock posts in the future. Good luck with everything, we miss you over here!
Our conference hall. Good photos. ^_^
Isn’t it funny how it was so difficult to get past the Ukrainian indirectness, but it’s the same back home?
Miss you Claire!