Transfer to Peace Corps Guyana

Kathrina and I were evacuated out of Ukraine on Monday, February 24th. We have subsequently been transferred to Guyana, where we will begin a new Peace Corps assignment on April 28th.

On Thursday, February 20th we received an email from Peace Corps telling us to consolidate with the other volunteers in our region on Friday. This was the same week that the hundred-plus protesters were killed by snipers in Kyiv. In western Ukraine, where we were serving, there was never any danger, and we never felt threatened or insecure about our safety. However, the dramatic images coming out of Kyiv felt simultaneously distant and immediate. The emotional impact on our community was palpable.

Upon arriving at our consolidation site, we were told that Peace Corps would be leaving the country for the time being. We spent three days in consolidation with our fellow Volunteers before flying home (with an overnight layover in Vienna) on Monday the 24th. Kathrina and I were in the final group of Volunteers to leave the country.

When we arrived back in DC we were shuttled to a "transition conference" in Maryland, where Peace Corps explained our options going forward. We were told that we would be placed on "administrative hold" for 45 days, running from March 1st until April 14th. If the situation in Ukraine had cleared up within the 45-day hold period, we would be allowed back to continue our service; if the 45 days had passed without us receiving the all-clear to return to Ukraine, our Peace Corps service would have automatically ended. Other options they told us about included requesting a transfer to another country or applying for Peace Corps Response positions.

Although in the days immediately following the massacre in Kyiv things looked like they were improving rapidly (big changes in government and the passage of many of the laws the protesters had been demanding for months), returning to Ukraine within 45 days seemed unlikely. Of the past ten evacuations of Peace Corps countries, only one group of Volunteers has returned to their sites within the administrative hold period. The country where Volunteers were able to return after a brief interruption of service was the Philippines, which only had a partial evacuation due to a natural disaster. All political evacuations took longer to return, if they returned at all.

We ended up being offered a transfer to Guyana departing in April, which we accepted on Friday, April 4th as the administrative hold period was drawing rapidly to a close. On Monday the 7th we were informed that Peace Corps would not be returning to Ukraine within the hold period and that unless Volunteers had already accepted a transfer to another country, they were to begin close-of-service procedures.

We're excited about our new assignment, but sad to leave behind friends in Ukraine. We only spent a very short time at our site, but we had already made strong connections in our communities. Our counterparts, Khrystyna and Lesya, are amazing, talented, hard-working people; the students were welcoming and bright; and the people of Ukraine opened their homes and their hearts to us. As we begin a new service in Guyana, we will be looking to the people of Ukraine for inspiration in our new home...