A fresh start
I'm back after a looonnng break. I dragged my laptop all the way to Montenegro and back, but my brain and fingers needed a break. Apologies. I'll try to summarise briefly the last few weeks here.
I left with good intentions. I did what I never do, I even tossed my laptop into my very full car for the 1000km drive south across the Balkans, but, in less surprising news, once I got there, I melted into the hot southern sun, gorgeous turquoise sea, and routine of simple daily seaside life, and could not bring myself to unlock it and write a post longer than a tweet. So apologies for disappearing, and thank you for your patience.
First, a few very brief Balkan observations. Let me caveat by saying I have been travelling to the region ever since it was still communist Yugoslavia. My dad could not go back (he left in 1970 as a political asylum seeker to Canada), but he sent my Canadian mother, my sister and me in 1985 for six weeks of being passed from relative to relative all over the country. And back then it was all one big country. We flew in to Belgrade and flew out of Dubrovnik, I think even on PanAm. So when I return to the part of the world that begins when you cross Austria’s southern border and German suddenly turns into Slavic languages, I start to feel nostalgic about a home that was never mine, in the same way you might reminisce about summers spent at a grandparent’s cottage.
We always make a stop in Brela, on the Makarska Riviera, south of Split, because it is a sold eight hour drive if you are lucky from Vienna, and by then I start to lose confidence in my own ability to drive further. We book the same seaside hotel which was once three star but now claims four, and the prices have reached the point that I think a night in St. Tropez might be cheaper. It’s funny because nothing actually got significantly better. The food is worse, it is crowded, they upgraded the room decor slightly but the A/C does not crank out like you want it to when it is nearly 100F outside. I made the mistake on the way back of booking an emergency manicure and let me just say: once you have had a Ukrainian manicure, you don’t want any other. My nails now lay in ruin and it is my own fault. I have booked an emergency repair with the Ukrainians, but only in early August. The Viennese discovered their talents, and now you have to book nail appointments as far in advance as Austrian ski holidays, but I digress.
In short — Croatia is utterly gorgeous, the motorways are great, the infrastructure is good, clean, but it is expensive. Like, really expensive. On the last night we bought one flat peach, and she was charging €7 per kilo. That’s like south of France pricing. The same mother and daughter were selling homemade palačinke in the evenings by the pier. They are delicious, but €3 a pop. Which, by local standards, is kind of a lot. We stood in line to place our order and I watched in shock as an Austrian family (with those rather painful Lower Austria accents) placed their entire order in German. I naively expect the universal language of tourists to be English. But in Croatia it is not the case, and those who want to make money off of German and Austrian tourists have learned at least basic Deutsch.
You keep driving south, through deserts that remind me of Arizona, then a gorgeous agricultural river valley a stone’s throw from Bosnia, where watermelons are sold by the side of the road, attracting your attention with homemade water fountains pouring over the pyramids of fruit, until you reach the sapphire Dalmatian coast, and then it’s a a hop over a new bridge, financed by China, to circumvent Bosnia-Herzegovina’s only town with sea access, to continue south towards Dubrovnik, past some of the most gorgeous beaches I have ever seen, climb the huge mountain which sits above Dubrovnik (I always loathe that part of the drive as I am afraid of heights and hold onto the steering wheel for dear life, not daring to look to my right and down), and then before you know it you are at the “secret” border that separates the EU from the non-EU. It was the first time we showed our passports since leaving Vienna.
And, welcome to Montenegro.
I don’t have the words to describe a place I love so much for no reasons I can explain with pure logic. But you definitely see you have left the EU the minute you cross over. The first township you drive through is what it looks like when everyone builds whatever you want to build and there is no coordination. It is geographically cut off from the rest of the country (you have either a long drive around the bay of Kotor or the ferry to Tivat), and feels that way. We continued to the ferry, through stop and go local traffic (roads in Montenegro are almost entirely single lane each direction), past Tivat, which looks better every time we return (unlike Budva, which unfortunately looks nothing like its former self, and a testament to the harms of unlimited use of concrete and building permits being given out on a friends and family basis), to our rental home for the next few weeks on the bay of Tivat.
The cat from last year did not come back (there were nearly tears about this), but the neighbour’s dog — think corgi mutt — was waiting, knowing he would get double meals with my kids around. A few days later a scrawny black female cat appeared, likely pregnant, and we began feeding her too. On first drive into the local village to buy groceries I encountered all the local characters: an abandoned huge male yellow lab who now seems to live by the grocery store, in the field next to the post office that looks abandoned but isn’t, despite the faded Western Union sign. There is a very kind local man of about 30 with Down syndrome who sits in front of the grocery store and talks to everyone. On my first morning, he saw me manoeuvring a watermelon, 6L jug of water, and a few bags of groceries, and lifted his arm, made a bicep curl, told me he was strong, and I should ask him if I need help. I smiled, thanked him, and kept going. Stairs up and down and lugging of groceries part of the exercise of holiday-making.
There are about equal number of Russian and Ukrainian cars, and the Russians don’t seem to be hiding their identities anymore. There are far fewer of them than in the past, when the local airport fielded daily flights from Siberia and all over Russia. The local radio announced an increase this year in tourists from Israel and Turkey, and that too was visible.
All in all, things went smoothly. The power only went out once, and my husband fixed it with the flick of a switch (miracle). We only visited local doctors three times (twice with one kid, once me, always post-virus ear infections). The “check engine” light only went on once, and luckily a local body shop had a replacement part and fixed it in lightening speed. I wrote a whole thread both experiences here. I don’t know if it is luck, or my personal attitude, but I seem to find all of these things easier to navigate outside of Austria. I just adore countries where some kind of negotiation is possible. It gives me optimism, perhaps irrationally.
While we were on holiday, I warned Ukrainians texting me that I was out of grocery cards and would build a waiting list. Thank you to several of you who stepped in to deliver cards in my absence, sending them directly to names and addresses I provided. By my count an additional 14 cards were sent that way in July. I was also in touch with Ukrainians who unfortunately had their cars vandalised with “Z” red spray paint in Vienna’s 22nd district near Seestadt. I put them in touch with local press, after tweeting about the incidents, and a long interview article including video report (do watch the emotional video!) ran last Sunday. I was also in contact with a woman who had her car glass broke in Vienna’s 12th district, and a woman who had her license plate stolen in Vienna’s 21st district. All Ukrainian-plated cars. All within the span of a week. I hope that continued media attention may help the police find whoever organized these crimes. Very similar attacks have happened in Germany, but in parts of Germany the “Z” symbol is a criminal offence. It is not, yet, banned in Austria, a fact the Ukrainian ambassador has been correct to highlight. Those committing these hate crimes feel emboldened here while so far, at least, no one has been arrested.
I returned home to a waiting list of several dozen cards, and thanks to a few angel donors who replenished me with several €50 e-gift cards to Hofer and Spar, I have been able to send out 39 cards this week already (!). Mario and team also sent out a whopping 217 cards earlier this month, thanks to all of your generosity.
The war still rages, refugees are still living in Europe, and many are still struggling to even buy basic items like a variety of foods and medicine. These facts no longer make headlines, but they also have not changed. So I have loosened our criteria - if a Ukrainian family asks for help, I try to send it, even if they have received a card before, and I am trying to prioritise families with kids, the elderly, and handicapped. I am trying to focus on those who cannot earn to provide for themselves, but nothing is a perfect science, and when in doubt, I give the benefit of the doubt. Thankfully I have a small surplus of cards now, and that means, for the moment, I am able to respond in real time. I came back refreshed and recharged, which is great. I needed the mental break, too.
A woman called me last night and talked to me for an hour about her woes. Teenage kids. Aging mother. Life in a refugee hotel. Very limited budget. It’s hard because you cannot change any of these global facts, and she had a very positive attitude, trying to make the best of a very challenging situation. But not everyone is mentally that strong. Not everyone has the support of family and friends.
I have also been helping Natasha and Pasha, whom many of you may remember. Without revealing too much personal information, I will simply say there were serious struggles and challenges this winter, a group of us helped with all the professional resources we could find, and things did improve. Then, while I was away, I received a message from the adult big sister in Kyiv: mom had fallen off her bike and was in the ICU. Natasha is now at home, but she sustained serious injuries and will have surgery next week. Big sister has had to come to Austria and formally take custody of her brother, which means applying for refugee status here, too. It is complicated, and I need to see it all firsthand, which I will do, tomorrow.
For now, financial help was arranged (thank you to those of who who helped me send grocery cards and a Ukrainian who brought cash to them in person), a little bit of grocery aid for to the neighbor who had to watch Pasha while his mother was in hospital until his sister arrived. He is 16 but legally was not allowed to be left entirely on his own. In short, and I don’t have an answer to this, I ask myself this every day — those who have been to hell and back keep being handed new trauma to deal with and I cannot understand why this happens and when it will end. When will there be light at the end of their tunnels? I am also in close contact with the psychologist who lived in Lower Austria with them until the end of last summer, but returned to Kyiv. She and I are like two peas in a pod, and I discuss everything with her and vice versa. I trust her judgment and her instincts, and this helps us to help the family. I hope. So more on that when I know more, and when I know what more we as outsiders can do, if anything, to help them get through this.
Too much time has passed to recommend everything I have been reading, but I would recommend this lovely story from Chernivtsi with stunning photography, and this very sober (very sober) update on the progress of the war itself with Julia Ioffe. I admire Julia for putting on paper what others probably knew earlier but were afraid to write. Paywall, sorry, I was sent a gift article. If you would like me to email it to you, please send me a DM: Ukraine’s Summer War of Attrition.
Last night I received a request for a grocery card from a family in Baden who managed to bring over their 72 year old mother and 99 year old (yes, really) grandmother from Ukraine. This morning, a woman wrote me from Vienna. Her husband was wounded and is here for medical treatment. She is pregnant, and has two children with her, aged 3 and 14. For each card we send out there is a family behind it, an individual story of what this horrific war has done to them.
My eldest is offering online conversation practice in German and English to Ukrainian teens over the summer. We were flooded with requests. The kids want to learn. They want to improve. He will try to help who he can, particularly now before his summer job starts in August. If any of you know young native speakers of German or English who want to offer conversation practice to peers from Ukraine of a similar age, online over Zoom, please let me know, I’ll try to help facilitate matching up volunteers with Ukrainians. My focus now has been on older kids given the ages I have access to at home, and I was also contacted today by a retired German teacher, who offered his services to schoolchildren. Happy to facilitate that too. Many parents are struggling what to do with their kids this summer with limited income and options to travel anywhere. For refugees living in organized accommodation, they are not allowed to leave for more than 3 nights. If they go away for longer, they immediately lose their housing. No trips home to Ukraine to see friends and family for them.
A special thanks to all of your who helped send cards while I was away and filled my inbox with e-gift cards upon my return. It is such a relief to be able to work in real time responding to requests. It really does take a village. A global village. Thank you.
I promise to write more regularly now that I am back in the un-airconditioned heat of Vienna with the choice of write my Substack or tackle the laundry and ironing pile. The choice is, obviously, easy. Much easier than when the Adriatic is calling you to jump in. Alas…