Arkansan finds life dry in Ukraine
Posted on Sunday, August 24, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/235172/
BATESVILLE — Culture shock slapped Peace Corps volunteer Cameron Highsmith in the face when he reached Vysokopilla, a small town in Ukraine.
What didn’t slap him in the face was hot water. There wasn’t any for showers.
“Most people didn’t have running water — especially running hot water,” Highsmith said. “There’s little or no Internet access. In my apartment, I didn’t even have heat.
“ Everyone had a cell phone because the land lines were so bad,” the Batesville native recalled in a recent interview. “Third World countries are not investing in land lines; they’re putting up [cell phone ] towers.”
Ukraine may technically be classified as a Second World country, but Highsmith, the son of Sam and Beth Highsmith of Little Rock and Sandra and John Malin of Batesville, said it’s more like a “borderline Third World country.”
The town’s hospital resembled something out of 1950 s America, and except for the school, which was built five years ago, even the newest structures date to the 1970 s.
“They’re old, dilapidated Soviet buildings.... There are lots of abandoned factories. In the Soviet days, when there was something of an economy, the factories were working. You could tell the town used to be a lot bigger.”
That was before 1991, when the Soviet Union broke up and Ukraine became independent.
While there were some downsides to the trip, Highsmith found excitement and adventure.
He joined the Peace Corps in 2005 after graduating from college.
“After I graduated college, I didn’t feel like I had enough experience with a political science degree to really use it,” he said. Joining the Peace Corps seemed like the best way to get out and help people, the 2001 graduate of Batesville High School said.
Peace Corps volunteers serve in some 74 countries, working with governments, schools and others in education, health and HIV-AIDS, business, information technology, agriculture and the environment.
Highsmith, who now lives in Little Rock, said his relatives were “a little surprised” by his decision but also supportive. They understood because Highsmith has participated in numerous community-service projects since he was 16.
Before leaving for Ukraine, he was a youth director at First Presbyterian Church and volunteered at Batesville Help and Hope.
But this was different — a two-year commitment. And he would be staying with two different host families who spoke no English — one during his threemonth training period and the other in Vysokopilla.
“It was a culture shock, yeah, but I easily adjust to any situation I’m put in,” he said. “There were some volunteers in our group that would have a fit over just about anything.”
His initial training, took place over three days in Washington. On March 2, 2006, he flew to Frankfurt, Germany, and on to Kiev.
From there, it was nearly 400 miles to Vysokopilla, where he worked with a new youth-development program, taught basic computer and healthy-living skills, and oversaw a basketball club.
He also taught HIV-AIDS awareness.
“It’s a very big problem,” Highsmith said. “Russia and Ukraine, respectively, have the highest infection rates of HIV.”
That does not mean those countries have the highest rates of people living with the disease, but they have the highest rates of people becoming infected with it. Ten years ago in Ukraine, 183 cases of HIV were reported; by the end of 2007, the figure had jumped to more than 440, 000.
“Both governments have known about the problem for years but have done little to confront it. Most transmissions are through intravenous drug use instead of sexual activity,” Highsmith said.
Where Highsmith was based, the drug of choice was heroin.
Situated across the Black Sea from Turkey, Ukraine is a conduit for heroin traffic moving in from Turkey and Afghanistan. The purer heroin is smuggled to Europe, while Ukraine gets the less-expensive “bad stuff.”
At times, he questioned his decision to join the Peace Corps.
“I think every Peace Corps volunteer thinks that every single day at one point — what am I doing here ?” Highsmith said.
Sometimes he’d think, “I’ve got to get out of here,” but he went on about his business.
Besides family and friends, one thing he missed the most was “good beer,” but also, “the little things you take for granted, like not being able to get on the Internet, or running water.”
Or driving. The Peace Corps couldn’t afford the insurance. However, Ukraine has public transportation — buses and railroads — even if the roads are poor and the stops frequent, thus stretching a 70-mile trip into three hours.
“But it’s always there,” Highsmith said.
A typical school day wasn’t unlike one in America. But there wasn’t a lunch break; instead, students could jog over to a cafeteria to get something to eat during two 20-minute breaks.
Schools did have some afterschool extracurriculars, like athletic programs.
“Soccer is huge, of course,” Highsmith said. “Basketball is very popular, volleyball is popular.”
The country has some professional athletic teams, but nothing like the U. S. There’s “not as much money running through them,” Highsmith said.
He tried to teach his students American football. “They thought it was rugby at first and tried to play that,” he said with a laugh.
“It was hard to find the vocabulary in English or Ukrainian to explain what a quarterback or a down is.”
Both of his host families were very hospitable, Highsmith said, and he learned to cook a few Ukrainian dishes, like plov [a rice and meat dish ] and pelmeni [pasta filled with meat ].
The school had two English teachers, but Highsmith said it was very hard to communicate with them because of their accent, and they had learned British English so they didn’t understand his American slang and idioms.
In his spare time, Highsmith read books and watched movies, visited friends or hung out at the local cafes. He also got to visit other volunteers in the region and went camping and hiking.
He even got to travel around Europe. The Peace Corps gave him 48 days of vacation, and he had the opportunity to return home but never did.
“I didn’t feel like I wanted to. I was too afraid I’d stay,” Highsmith said.