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Transcript For: Fulbrighter Elise Garvey to the Ukraine

Current Fulbrighter, Elise Garvey,discusses her Fulbright Experience to the Ukraine

My Fulbright Life - Elise Garvey

Lee:                  Hello and welcome to My Fulbright Life. I’m your host, Lee Rivers, and joining me today is Elise Garvey. Back in 2007-2008, Elise did a Fulbright project in Ukraine and she’s going to talk to us a little bit about that experience today.

                        Thanks for joining us, Elise.

Elise:                Thank you for having me.

Lee:                  So Elise, tell us a little bit about where in Ukraine you were doing your Fulbright project.

Elise:                Well, I was based mostly out of Kiev, which is the capital, but luckily my project involved a lot of travel so I did get to see a lot of the country as well.

Lee:                  Fantastic. And what led you to apply for the Fulbright grant?

Elise:                Honestly, it was something I had thought about very early on in college. My major was international relations, one of my majors was international relations, just the thought of it really… really influenced me to try to work towards it. Because I think the program’s really great, the concept of the program is really great—you know, exchange and understanding, you know, reaching out in these various fields of study, and being able to work with people in other countries as well. And I liked the prospect of what I could be doing after my Fulbright as well.

Lee:                  Great. And so, Elise, tell us a little bit about your actual proposal for the Fulbright grant.

Elise:                Well, it started out, I applied for a grant to study the international governmental and non-governmental response to human trafficking in Ukraine. And so basically, what I was looking at was legislation, comparing it to international norms and trying to figure out what people were doing on the ground working with victims and trying to do prevention work as well.

Lee:                  Fantastic. And so had you done a little bit of work with human trafficking and researching that while you were in the states?

Elise:                I had started looking into the field a little bit probably the summer before I had applied through an internship that I had in Buffalo, but I wouldn’t say that I was an expert on it or that familiar with it before I got started. So really, it was kind of a new area for me to be going into.

Lee:                  And so why did you choose Ukraine for this project?

Elise:                Well, actually I had been a Gilman Scholar in 2006 in Ukraine and the country was a fairly familiar to me, and I had a little bit of an advantage because of the language background and so I decided that because the topic itself was very important in Ukraine and because there was something developing, I wanted to learn more about it, and it just seemed like a very good fit.

Lee:                  You mentioned your language proficiency- how long were you in Ukraine when you studied as Gilman Scholar and what level of proficiency would you say you were when you entered the country as a Fulbrighter?

Elise:                Well, you know, Ukraine is in a situation where there’s one official language which is Ukrainian, and I wouldn’t say that I was really that… I didn’t speak Ukrainian really that well before I went in. But most people can also speak Russian, and depending on where you are in the country, one language might be more useful than the other. So you know, when I got there, I made sure that I jumped back into classes as well to make sure that I shored up grammar. But really practicing with people on the street was great. And, you know as well, studying legislation, the language is very specific. That took a little getting used to, but eventually it worked out.

Lee:                  You mentioned you were taking classes while you were there. Which institution were you studying at?

Elise:                Russian I took privately, and for Ukrainian I went to Kiev  Academy.

Lee:                  OK, great. How was that experience?

Elise:                It was really good. I enjoyed my instructor there very much. And you know, they have a very good relationship with the Fulbright office there so it worked out pretty well.

Lee:                  Elise, so tell us a little bit about what a typical day was like for you, if we were to take a walk around in your shoes for the day. Who would we interact with? What would we be doing? And, I want to know personally a little bit about what sorts of food you’d be eating as well.

Elise:                Well the food is… the food is really great. In the morning, well, I think breakfast food is pretty typical there, especially in Kiev and you know I was, when I’d be in some of the small cities, I’d be getting things like bread and cheese and that would be a typical breakfast. And borscht, you can get that just about anywhere and it’s really good. Some people don’t like it- I love it. I think it’s so great. And then there’s varenyky which are kind of like little dumplings.

Lee:                  What was that called once again?

Elise:                Varenyky.

Lee:                  OK.

Elise:                Yeah, they’re kind of like, if you know Polish pierogis, they’re kind of close to that.

Lee:                  OK.

Elise:                But a little bit smaller. And potato pancakes, that sort of thing, were all pretty typical for you to find. And they’re national dishes, they’re available just about anywhere. And people love eating it.

Lee:                  Very nice.

Elise:                And then, you know, a typical day… I was lucky that I got a great apartment on a street that’s also… if I were to take a walk to one of my internships, which I did quite often cause it wasn’t that far, I’d walk past the Ukrainian parliament, Verkhovna Rada it’s called, and then also the Cabinet of Ministers building and I would come though the main square which is Independence Square  and I would get to my office. I was lucky, I actually had two internships so I was pretty busy.

Lee:                  Go ahead and talk about both of those Elise.

Elise:                One was the International Organization for Migration Mission in Ukraine, they had a trafficking unit there which I, from what I understand, you know, when I first got there I jumped into doing interviews with people in international organizations because they were fairly easy for me to get a hold of and really it led me back to the International Organization for Migration. And so, when I interviewed with them, they offered me the internship and that’s where my bigger project came out of. I ended up doing an extension project which was different than my first one. And I did them both under their direction. But I also worked with La Strada Ukraine, which is an international women’s rights organization. And they do a lot with counter trafficking as well. But my focus there was more on child trafficking.

Lee:                  OK, great. And so, what about your down time. What did you do when you weren’t at one of your internships or taking classes?

Elise:                Well, you know, depending on what time of year it was there are a lot of great places to just kind of go and hang out in Kiev and a lot of great local pubs, movie theatres, and plays. I got to see a jazz band from Odessa that was really interesting and fun—

Lee:                  Nice.

Elise:                And then during the summertime, it’s the beautiful parks. It’s surprisingly a very green city. There’s a lot of beautiful places to go and sit and people would be out.

Lee:                  You mentioned that you traveled a little bit. Maybe tell us a little bit about some of those experiences.

Elise:                The project I did for the counter trafficking project that I was working on, part of it was to go and do case studies of some of the IOM’s organization partners. So these are organizations that deal directly with victims. So I went to 11 of them and they were all over the country. And part of it was to kind of key the geographical distribution on organizations in different parts of the country.  So I got to go to the east, where there’s you know a lot of industrial cities. These are the cities where you’ll normally find more Russian speaking Ukrainians and there’s some remnants of the Soviet Union that are still up, Lenin statues and that sort of thing and it’s just really interesting and the people that I met there are great. They’re so friendly and open and really, there wasn’t a city that I went to that I was like, “oh god, I don’t think I ever want to come back here it’s so miserable.” It was never like that and that was really great. And then I got to go to the south, the beautiful beaches, the warmer weather. And then the west, which is the cultural hub of Ukraine. People who are very adamant about speaking Ukrainian, and they’re closer to the Polish border. So, it was really interesting.

Lee:                  That’s awesome. And so, Elise, when you think back on your Fulbright experience, what’s maybe a first image or event or thought that comes to mind? What’s something that really sticks out to you as a highlight from that experience?

Elise:                There was actually one experience that always sticks out for me in my year of the Fulbright that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with my project, but was set up by the Fulbright office there. We actually got to take a trip to Chernobyl. I think most people are familiar with it, but just in case, this is where the nuclear reactor…. There was an accident.

Lee:                  Yes.

Elise:                And all the fallout and everything and now there are very specialized groups that do… I guess you would call it a tour, but like an educational tour. They would take you up to Pripyat, which was the town where the workers in the factory were, and it’s completely abandoned. I mean, the building, it looks like a bomb went off and nobody every came back to clean it up. Because it’s just empty, it’s been looted, things all over the place. There’re newspapers in the ground from before the reactor erupted. It’s intense. And then you get to see the reactor itself, too. It was so interesting and it was so surreal.

Lee:                  Pretty sobering as well.

Elise:                Yeah, yeah. Very much so. It was actually set up by the Fulbright office. They have very good relations with this man who was part of the clean up crew.

Lee:                  Unbelievable. Elise tell me a little bit about the challenges that you faced as you were in Ukraine and how did you address those challenges.

Elise:                You know, like I had mentioned before, I’d been to Ukraine before so linguistically and culturally it didn’t take a lot for me to get settled back into the swing of things there. Now what was challenging about my research—I don’t think I actually explained it before, but my second project also dealt with an immigration issue, but it was more of an issue of people not leaving Ukraine but of coming to Ukraine. With human trafficking, Ukraine is more of the source country so it’s sending people out of Ukraine, at least the majority of the cases. My second project was actually on xenophobia in Ukraine and looking into the experience of foreign students who were studying in Ukraine and how the process of rising xenophobia was affecting them. And the biggest challenge with that, there were definitely language issues. You know a lot of the students didn’t necessarily speak Russian very well, or English or Ukrainian and so it was kind of trying to get around that and also finding them. You know, some of them were very hesitant to talk to me about what was going on and so it was challenging both in terms of  and logistically, trying to get people together and overcome the language barriers.

Lee:                  And so what did you do to combat those challenges Elise?

Elise:                I had a contact at each university where I was trying to interview students, and you know, because there was a notice that it was a fellow foreign student, it kind of helped, you know, because they trusted them a little bit more. Because I wasn’t part of the university, part of the government organization or anything, you know I think I was able to kind of gain their trust a little bit. The language issue, you know that was a little bit difficult. But in some cases, you know, for example, I interviewed a group of Chinese students and one of their fellow church members actually helped me out, he spoke English fairly well and translated for me. So I relied a lot on volunteers and people because they were passionate about the issue were willing to help me.

Lee:                  That’s great and I mean that’s what the Fulbright’s all about, fostering that mutual understanding between, you know, people of the United States and people of different countries.

Elise:                Absolutely.

Lee:                  And so, back up a little bit for us and talk about preparing for the Fulbright. Speak a little bit about maybe some advice that you could give to students and young professionals who are looking into applying for the Fulbright program.

Elise:                I think that preparation is definitely a very good idea, you know, just kind of starting and doing whatever you can by the internet. You know, if you know what field you’re going into, maybe try and see if there’s already anybody in the country that is doing what you do in your field or does something similar. And definitely things like, if… mine was fairly specific but I’m sure there are other Fulbrighters who are doing something similar. If you’re going to be applying for something that is going to involve these international protocols, you know looking at international norms first and comparing it to whatever is going on in your specific country, definitely be familiar with those first. It sounds kind of logical but you know sometimes you get caught up in preparing to leave, you know logistically, trying to get everything packed, making sure that you have your student loans taken care of, you forget about stuff. You think you’ll just do it when you get there. But it just makes things easier if you have the ball rolling already before you go.

Lee:                  Well, Elise, what about prep time. How much time would you recommend giving yourself? How much time did you give yourself. After doing that, what would you recommend?

Elise:                It’s difficult sometimes because, really, with the Fulbright you don’t really find out you’re going to get it until April or May, I found out in late April. So, some people have a little more time. Depending on what you’re going to do afterwards it can be difficult. But I think really the minute you find out, you’ve got some time to at least start getting yourself together over the summer and take the time to really get into it. And you know, if you’re doing a Fulbright where you’re going to be looking at another language, you know, even before then, it’s not a bad idea to take the time and prep and keep up on it. That’s why I ended up taking some language classes my last semester of college, because I went right from college to the Fulbright.

Lee:                  So, Elise, is there anything else you would like to share with our listening audience, any last minute advice that you would like to share about your Fulbright experience?

Elise:                Well, you know, I think what I learned from my experience and what I would like to encourage others to do is definitely to find innovations in your field that really need to be explored, you know, find new areas that could use somebody who has the time and the resources to look into. And I think that’s the advantage a Fulbrighter has. And so, once you’re getting your project together and if you’re already a Fulbrighter, you’re already out in the field, you know think about that and utilize that.

Lee:                  Excellent. Well, Elise, I just want to thank you once again for taking time out of your day to join us.

Elise:                Oh thank you so much I really enjoyed it.

Lee:                  Well that concludes this episode of My Fulbright Life. Hope you guys tune in next time as we catch up with another Fulbrighter. Have a good day.