16/03/2022
Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is time for a long overdue update...
We are back since Sunday. First thing we did was sleep a lot... We were mentally and physically exhausted. We had 16 hours of sleep combined between the two of us since Wednesday morning.
So the trip...
First day on the ground was very productive... We registered as volunteers, visited the border crossing, train station and a refugee centre to gather all the necessary information. The next morning we went to look for families in need to bring them home to Ireland. Try to imagine a big shopping centre where each retail shop is emptied and converted to accommodate people, each shop assigned to a European country. Oddly enough there was no shop for Ireland... We found out why very soon...
Number 13 (coincidentally) was assigned to all the families who had not expressed any preference for destination at the time of their registration. Meaning they have no family or friends anywhere that are willing to help. So we were told to go to Nr13 to look for people willing to go to Ireland with us. After talking to many families there we finally got the full picture.
Understandably people where scared and lonely. Families torn apart, lost, killed... But most prevalently, everyone was uncertain and hopeful... Hope is usually a great thing, but in this case it is a biggest obstacle... People hope that the war be over soon and they can all go back to their loved ones and their homeland... And that is why they are trying to stay as close to Ukraine as possible. If there is no bus or train to take them home through the mainland, its not an option....Ireland is as far as the U.S or China....or the moon for that matter. Ordinary mom's don't understand that Poland is at full capacity, they are trying their best to accommodate people, but also trying to direct the masses further into Europe in desperate necessity to free some space for new incoming families crossing the border every minute... Here I want to say that Poland and all the international volunteers are doing an AMAZING job in handling this non-textbook crisis unbelievable well. Yes there is millions of people, YES there is fear, tears, horrors and confusion, but if you look past that you see compassion, care and willingness to help whatever it takes...
So in all this chaos we found two kids... a 17yr old boy and a 16yr old girl, who's parents unfortunately couldn't escape Kharkiv. They were trapped with their 7 year old child in the city which is under heavy bombardment and is surrounded.
The kids agreed to come to Ireland cause no one else offered any alternatives. So we took them to our hostel where we had booked 2 rooms and 8 beds in advance just in case someone needed a place to stay. Then we tried to book flight tickets for them and this is where the problems started. We couldn't find any plane that had 2 tickets available. Every plane within 500km of the border was booked solid so we had to split them and take the only available single seat from Lublin and the other one from Katowice. Both at similar times and same day arriving into Dublin. The airports were about 400 km apart in opposite directions and a further 200 km to our airport we had to fly home from. The boy was obviously very protective of the girl and there was no chance he would allow us to bring them in two separate cars to two different airports... he wanted to stay with her until she arrived at her airport. So we agreed to make the 10 hour long drive, first dropping her in Lublin and then U-turn to go to Katowice... in order to make it happen.
We left at 3am after just a 2hr nap. We were in Lublin Airport just after 6am. They shared their combined money of €16 TOTAL... 'Traveling light' just got a new perception to me. We gave her €100 to buy food or whatever she might need cause her plane was not due to leave until 9PM.
She was to meet other Ukrainian people we knew of, a mother and daughter in the same flight who could be with her to help her as she had never been on a plane before.
They said their teary goodbyes and we embarked to our next stop 5 hours away.
All was going good, we were making time until about 3 hours later the girl rang the boy in a panic and suddenly the trip was over...
She decided she wasn't going anymore, therefore he was not either.
I was internally FURIOUS and biting my tongue... Not because we wasted your money, not because we hadn't eaten or slept for days. I was upset that they robbed someone else's chance.... Obviously I couldn't lay the burden of this thought on them, but believe me I so wanted to.
So we had to come back with no result...
We left a big poster on the wall in the registration "office" and then the things started...
*On the first night I had 2 calls from people wanting to go to Ireland, but we had taken the kids already so we had to say No... Not an easy word to say these days... But calls kept coming the next day and the day after. With all sorts of questions and worries... A lot of people were looking for advice and guidance.
So a long story and a sad story... REALITY...
But there is a bright side... We have two girls coming to Ireland as you read this. We booked flights on 25 of March and a simple hotel room for them to stay until then. All the earlier flights are sold out and this is a flights from Poznan which is on the other side of Poland. Their siblings: 2 young girls are trying to reach Poland now and hopefully we can help them reunite and reach Irelands safety. Families from all over Ireland have contacted me and offered their homes - Thank you.
These two girls and siblings will stay with a family in Carlow. Another family with 4 little children just arrived to Poznan right now and I have to finish this post to help them with their journey.
We have still plenty of money left to help more people, I haven't even transferred any funds from the Gofundme page, everything goes from our own pocket and cash donations so far.
So that's what we are going to do.
Thank you all for following the progress.
And now, there is another phone call coming in....
