During 6 days of volunteering on the border-crossing in Medyka-Sheginhe, I saw hundreds of people who left their homes and headed towards the unknown. They were not looking for a thrill of adventure. On the contrary, they only wanted safety. The war forced them to leave Ukraine.
Here are some stories I heard on the border.
***
With a blond fringe and big blue eyes, E. looks young and innocent. At first, I think A. is her brother. She seems too young to be a mother of a 24-years-old.
A. is bedridden and anxiously looks at the kids running around rows of bunks.
“During the air raids, they told everyone to run to the shelters. How to run with him?” E. points at her paralysed son. “Luckily, they sent us an ambulance and transported him here, and now they will bring us to Italy.”
I ask if his father stayed in Ukraine.
“Father? There was never a father. He didn’t need a disabled son.”
They are a little family of three. E., A. and a 12-years old cat, that A. is constantly petting. His best friend. A.’s usually serious face lights up when I show him a picture of the 5 kittens born on the way from Khzywyi Rig.
I met them at the refugee centre the day before. Despite everyone telling them the kittens gonna die, the owners didn’t leave the cat mum in the bombarded city.
Spending 3 days in a crowded sports hall is stressful for A. On day 3, he soils the mattress. E. apologetically calls for help.
“Don’t worry, we all gonna be like this at some point”, says P., one of the soldiers, trying to comfort her. It’s the first time he has to wash someone up but he acts professional and tries to make E. feel her son is not a burden to anyone.
The day I leave Medyka, E. hugs me like a child and cries. Going to Italy scares her. New language, new country, nobody she knows there. I tell her they will love the sun and that the people are kind there. But I feel like I am lying. How the hell can I know she’s not gonna feel lonely there?
***
The small talk is weird. Asking ‘how are you’ seems inappropriate. Of course, they are not ok. Although most of them say so.
Asking where they are from is even worse. They say Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, and having seen on the news what’s left of those cities, I can only imagine what they’ve been through. But I don’t want them to feel I pity them or that the happenings of the last three weeks define them.
Nothing feels like the right thing to say. I force myself to go through the first few clumsy lines to find a connection. Often they are happy to talk about all and nothing. I help them waste some time waiting on the next part of their trip. They tell me who they were before the war started, about their loved ones, children, grandchildren, happy summers on a dacha, their work. And about the shock that it all just was taken away from them.
***
With his little mafioso moustache, K. looks funny. The way he walks reminds me of some cartoon character. He lies down on a mattress to his wife and holds her hand. It’s a moving sight. They are not young anymore, but he is very caring and tender.
He tells me he is from Donbas. I don’t ask too much, but he wants to share his story.
“Everything is gone, I’ve got nothing left.”
He imitates the sound of the siren, points at his head and starts making circles with his finger. His eyes fill with tears. He starts shaking and covers his eyes with his hands.
“Forgive me”, he sobs.
His daughter from Germany comes the next day to pick him up. Before leaving, K. hugs me like a friend and thanks me. I don’t really know what for. I only talked to him for 15 minutes and let him cry.
***
After 3 days, I already feel exhausted. Even without sleepless nights hiding in basements for 2 weeks before coming here. Of course, the 9 hours drive to Medyka was exhausting, but it was nothing compared to their journeys. No shellings, no border crossings, no mined roads, no crying children to carry.
***
N. is beautiful. I can see it clearly, even though she has large dark circles all around her eyes. She looks lost.
“I don’t know where to go. We don’t have anyone.”
She comes to me and asks if we can find some accommodation for her and her family. Anywhere. Germany, Italy, Denmark, Poland, wherever.
The next day, a driver from Germany shows up, he offers a place to stay too. He helps them carry the bags and gets them some food.
“It’s gonna be a long ride, 13 hours”, he warns N.
“It’s nothing! The way from Kharkiv took us a week, we can handle 13 hours more.”
***
There is an enormous pile of clothes near the exchange office on the border. They are getting moist, so we rush to pack them in plastic bags. We put them on a track that will go to Ukraine.
Between warm jackets and child sweaters, I occasionally find high heels, shiny blouses and red lace underwear. Not sure if people donating clothes just lack imagination, or maybe they think that hiding in bomb shelters is better if you do it in style.
***
“We have something for you in Southern Germany”, says B., an energetic lady from the migration office to a young woman from Kharkiv.
The woman is hesitant. It’s not an easy decision. She would rather stay in Poland, she says. The language is easier, and everything looks more familiar.
B. doesn’t understand.
“They will give you everything: accommodation, food, work. Don’t overthink, quick decision.”
She mumbles something about being ungrateful and picky.
Imagine having lost almost everything. You arrive in a foreign country, trying to start a new life. A total stranger tells you: go to this other country, doesn’t matter you don’t know anything about it. Your fears don’t matter, no time for questions, you have five minutes, trust us, go!
***
Every day, M. wakes up at 4. After milking 70 cows, she drives 80 kilometres to Medyka. She puts the volunteer vest on, plays with kids, cleans the floor, brings diapers from the storage room, serves food. At 15:00, she goes back as her chores on the farm are waiting.
“I can’t just stand by without helping. But next week I will have to stop coming here. I cannot afford to spend so much on fuel anymore.”
***
“You can say what you want about our football hooligans, but last week they showed they can unite and do the right thing”, says P.
P. is a territorial defence soldier and helps at the refugee reception.
I expect a cute story about football fans helping Ukrainian women carry their bags or something similar. Unfortunately, P. has a very different definition of ‘the right thing’ than me.
“When those Muslim students came here from Ukraine, they chased all of them away right away! I was here when this guy came here to the reception centre. What was he looking for here, where there are only women with kids? A Muslim man!”
It doesn’t occur to P. that if he was in a different country, where the war started, he would have done the same: flee, cross the border and head to a refugee centre to find shelter.
No wonder. P. has been fed anti-muslim propaganda over the last months and probably never even talked to anyone from the Middle East. For him, they were all rapists and criminals.
To consider that he might not know all the facts before judging someone was an unfamiliar concept to him. Also when it comes to other situations.
“This guy”, P. points at a Ukrainian volunteer. “Why is he not defending his country? If he was my son, I would beat him up for being a coward. He was in the military in Donbas for 2 years. Why is he not fighting now?”
***
I can barely see the signs on the sides of the highway. O. nervously tries to see through the fog while her sons are asleep in the backseat of my car.
Her anxiety fills the air when we drive through the darkness.
I am sure in her normal life she was not the spontaneous type, going for adventures with no accommodation booked and no plan ahead. But now she is forced to be. Without any hesitancy, she decides to go with me, a complete stranger, to a place she knows nothing of, in a country she visits for the first time.
Having spent weeks hiding from bombs and strikes in Hostomel, they have no choice but to trust. I tell them we will stay at my grandparents’ house for one night, and then we figure out.
We find them a place in a student dorm. The grey building with old gratings on the staircase looks depressing.
“It’s great”, says O.
She seems genuinely happy.
They get a room with a private bathroom, vouchers for shopping and lunch. The room looks new, and I know they could have gotten something much worse, but I feel they deserve better. For weeks, maybe months, she is going to share 15 square meters with two teenage sons.
Everything they have is in a small backpack and one suitcase.
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