It's not over (Day 95)
Update from this weekend: visit to Train of Hope at Stadion, many, many Hofer photos, and an extremely busy few hours at Wien HBF today.
This was the line today at Vienna’s main train station for free rail tickets for Ukrainians. It is the last day of a 4-day weekend, both here and in Germany, and there are no more tickets in many directions. This was causing a lot of stress, particularly for those Ukrainians who just arrived in Europe and had no idea today would be different than any other Sunday. I wrote a long thread about everything I saw and heard today at the train station while on my way home. Please have a look here, I unrolled it for you.
TLDR? Just as I was leaving, I decided to walk the line one last time and warn Ukrainians that we don’t have tickets today in many directions. It is then I meet a group of 47 people from Mariupol whom a bus simply dumped in front Wien HBF this afternoon. They needed tickets to Italy. Tonight. By a miracle, we made it happen.
Today I also had the pleasure of meeting many readers in person who brought me Hofer cards directly to the train station. Thank you!!! All of your cards are going out bright and early tomorrow morning to Ukrainian families in need across Austria. I came home and prepared all the envelopes.
Many Ukrainian families also came to meet me today at the train station. They are living in dorms and hotels and are the most vulnerable refugees. I ask them to meet me in person because I am not sure they will get their post and I want to chat for five minutes in the event that I can do something more to help. Usually, I cannot. I bought 15 McDonalds cards on my way in this morning, €10 each, and gave them to the kids. This brought a lot of smiles. I already received photos this afternoon with Ukrainian kids smiling in front of Happy Meals and McFlurries. It is the little things. I cannot do it for everyone all the time, but today is Sunday, which means Hofer is closed, so although moms went home with grocery cards, I wanted the kids to have something tangible today.
Many of the families living in dorms and hotels are nervous about when they will have to move, how one manages to actually get an apartment or more permanent housing in Vienna, how not to get on a bus to a rural hotel where you are then stuck, authorities sending a million different contradictory messages — the entire thing takes on SNL levels of black comedy if it wasn’t true. I also have to put on a filter, to take everything said with a grain of salt. I know when people are trying to play me (for the most part), and I’ve become pretty adept at calling a spade a spade. When I smell bullshit, I say it. You have to. It is my reputation on both ends of the spectrum — those of you kindly donating funds and Hofer cards, and Ukrainians to whom I tell the same thing: one card, one per family, one time. And then sometimes I break my own rules when a family has 4 children, etc, but I really try to stick to this philosophy so that we are fair and we are not accused of favouritism. I always said it is an imperfect science. It remains so.
Yesterday, I spontaneously stopped by the Train of Hope welcome center at Stadion on my way between my kids’ sporting event and a Hofer store. I wrote all about yesterday’s experiences here. I am so grateful to Nina for taking the time to show me around, especially since I just showed up unannounced on a Saturday afternoon, and if you have time to volunteer and/or donate items (clothing, baby food — most recent list here), I would really recommend doing it via Train of Hope. They are still feeding hundreds of Ukrainians in Wien a hot lunch every day. With beautiful fresh salad. The food looked good, the vibe is welcoming, everything is super well organized. Really impressive.
Reader, the tiramisu is boozy and is good but it is not nearly as good as I thought it might be. If you have time, make your own. I am used to making my own and the Hofer one pales in comparison. Also from an economical point of view, eggs + mascarpone + the biscuits + coffee don’t cost that much more and you make one giant tiramisu. My family still ate it but they didn’t love it.
So it was a pretty busy weekend, I spend a lot of time answering messages on my phone. I try to set it aside, but it’s hard. I know not everyone is pleased with my short, brief messages. I feel how everyone is tired: Ukrainians and volunteers alike. Tempers are shorter, frustration builds, there is a lot of uncertainty how the summer will unfold.
Take this, for example:
Or this. It turns out they are in Lower Austria, in a hotel, but it doesn’t change the story much…of course this raises many questions…I will send them Hofer cards tomorrow, but I still wonder, what will we all do in July, in August?
How exactly does the government plan on going on holiday without addressing this first? Just like that. They will do it just like that. But we can call them out on it. And say it’s not ok. It’s not ok that Tanja and Mario try to fill in the gaps of where the state is failing tens of thousands of families. We simply cannot. And neither can the other grassroots organizations trying to help. We need structural solutions for money, housing, jobs, childcare. Not “call me on my mobile I think I have a solution for Oksana and her baby”.
Switching gears, I listened to a few podcasts yesterday I would like to recommend:
An extremely thorough and nuanced interview with Joshua Yaffa from Kyiv:
Non-Ukraine (yes, really) quick catch-up on celeb gossip (my kids all knew this from TikTok but I had no idea) plus fascinating and really scary on how and why the U.S. ran out of baby formula:
Just as I was about to hit publish I received a message about a Ukrainian mother and son aged 14 who have just moved in with an Austrian family in Lower Austria. They were stuck in a Vienna dorm which is supposedly closing in a few days. These incredibly generous Austrian families are the real heroes. Those who open their homes, indefinitely:
Thank you for reading. Thank you for your continued support. Mario has been working so hard but you see the enormous gap here — these are only the requests made via the website. Will be brainstorming this week for more creative means of fundraising. Ultimately, though, we should not have to be doing this. It’s not our job. This remains a government failure. I just want to be clear about that. A €50 Hofer card is a nice surprise and helps put food on a table for a week for a family from Ukraine now in Austria, but it doesn’t solve any of their long-term problems.