This was my attempt at a Christmas pavlova wreath. I had never made a pavlova of any kind before. She wasn’t pretty or perfect but she tasted great, and in the end, that was all that mattered. Much like this year, it was an experiment. I am writing this from the Starbucks I sat in, on February 22, when I realized Putin was deadly serious after his scary televised meetings with national security “advisors” and his evening TV revisionist “history” lecture. I wrote this. Of course, I never could have imagined it would be the end of December and there would be no end of war in sight — but here we are.
The months have dragged on, winter turned into spring, summer, fall, and now winter again, and life for refugees in Europe has taken on some kind of surreal “new normal” in which the conversations in my Telegram chat are about which grocery store is open today (Austria is notorious for taking its holidays religiously when it comes to closing shopping opportunities), which ENT sees children in the 10th district, an unaccompanied seventeen year old boy asking where he can earn some extra money, a Ukrainian man offering his services in light plumping and electric work, moms asking where they can pick up a discount Christmas tree now that the Catholic Christmas is over. It is a new normal but it is anything but.
I expected a few days of calm over the Christmas weekend, hoped I might be left alone, even went so far as to ask to be left alone. Instead, I received dozens of holiday well wishes in the form of GIFs and holiday photos in a range of languages, and also some grocery card requests, because there are still of course Ukrainians who only now heard about our program, and they write to me or apply via our website when they learn about it. So this continues seven days a week, at all hours of the day. I have learned to accept it. I write back short replies — “I’ll add you to the waiting list.” This morning, I went out in search of one of the few grocery stores that is open today. They had Billa gift cards. I bought 13, as miraculously, we continued to receive donations even over the holiday weekend. I really hadn’t expected that! So grateful that kind people all over the world were thinking of refugees here in Europe even while celebrating with their own families. Tomorrow, I will enjoy a treat to self from a kind donor who in addition to sending us dozens of Hofer cards, also sent me a voucher for a spa day at a thermal bath in Vienna. Totally unexpected. I will try to leave my phone at home. A whole day no screen time would be something, indeed.
I have learned this strange balance between worrying about stories I hear, and trying to acknowledge what is and isn’t in my control. I received a phone call this week from a family I have known since late spring. I could tell from the phone call the parent could use psychological support — she said as much. I try to find contacts, and frankly the Ukrainians themselves are the best source of information in this regard. I forwarded some of the contacts I determined to be the most professional/promising, and promised her if it is a matter of money (of course it is), I will help raise funds to pay for the counselling sessions. It was another one of those conversations where I feel like I don’t have the professional qualifications, so you make it up as you go, by trying to be a good listener, by not passing judgment, by trying to make a few constructive suggestions, by trying to highlight the positives even when they are objectively hard to find. When I face challenges in my own life, I think to all the women (and some men, to be fair) I have met this year, the incredible hurdles they are trying to overcome, and yet still smiling, still able to crack a joke, still able to graciously accept and ask for help.
I also have to disappoint some people. Some families try and write me two, three, four times, when they know our program is one card per family, one time, because we have a super long waiting list as it is, and that seems like the only “fair” way of operating. I met a mom of four last Friday, gave her some used clothes from my kids, and she told me how much they want to go home. Wait for spring, I said. Her hometown (Kyiv oblast) currently only has two hours of electricity per day.
I left a message for a psychologist in Kyiv, and she replied by text “I’ll listen to your voice message when the electricity is back on.” You forget so easily how hard daily life is right now for so many who chose to stay in Ukraine. The Ukrainians in Austria know this. They do not take warm housing and being able to turn on the light-switch for granted, even when they are really struggling to survive on an unreasonably low amount of money, restrictions essentially banning them from work if they are in state housing, terrible food in places where they are “fed”, and doctors who give prescriptions for medicines they cannot afford.
Healthcare is precarious now. Austria is in the midst of a healthcare crisis. Many pharmacies have run out of basic medications like antibiotics and painkillers. Things we in the developed world take completely for granted. My personal back-up plan is literally to ask for what we might need to be brought from Ukraine, which is totally insane if you think about it. A developed, rich EU country not being able to fulfil the basic needs of its residents, and you end up importing basic medications from a war zone. So this too, I must explain: keep in mind doctors’ offices are overwhelmed right now as everyone it seems has a cold/cough/flu/covid, do not expect all medications to be readily available, if you do head to hospital expect extremely long waiting times.
It is difficult having to be the bearer of bad or disappointing news. The Ukrainians have more or less stopped asking me when they can expect improvements. They have accepted the current reality for what it is. I would not be at all surprised if many go home this spring, provided they have homes to go back to. Others have embraced their new lives and are making the best of them, graduating from one level of German class to the next, supporting their children in their new school lives, the lucky few have found jobs and are excited about what they are learning and experiencing, even though more often than not it is for minimum wage.
Looking back on this year, unlike any other in recent memory, a few pieces that stuck with me. This thread by BBC correspondent James Waterhouse (unrolled here)
This is a thought-provoking essay, which as Sergey rightly points out, totally ignores the economic disaster that is and will be Ukraine’s economy in the near term, highlights how Europe is forever changed. Ukraine is Europe. Poland and the Baltics and Scandinavia have played a huge role and have been the moral leaders in this regard, while France and Germany have struggled to come to terms with where they should stand, given the “let’s be friends with Putin it’s good for business” attitude which prevailed and governed much of Europe’s Russia-policy for the past two decades. Then you have subversive elements, like Austria, who Cleary still wish it was all just a bad dream from which we will wake up quickly and life will go back to 2019. As I walked the streets of Vienna this morning, I still saw many Ukrainian cars. The Ukraine story is now part of our collective European story, no matter how many politicians and business leaders wish the whole nightmare would just disappear.
In a recent interview, Olena Zelenska told an FT journalist she understands the west is suffering from “Ukraine fatigue” and of course this is true. But Ukraine has done an absolutely phenomenal job of continuing to keep the pressure on the west not to lose interest, so show what they are fighting for, to explain that if Ukraine falls, Russia will not stop there. And when I say Russia I should say Putin, because personally I think no one actually knows what will happen in Russia the moment Putin’s heart stops beating. Until then, I am skeptical about any chance for a real, lasting peace. Everything Putin did this year was at the expense of Russia, too. He doesn’t care about Russia. There is no logic to his genocidal behaviour. He has dug himself a huge hole and will continue to dig rather than admit he made a mistake. A colossal mistake.
A wonderful Christmas and Hanukkah thread from Kyiv by Tim Mak of NPR:
As I was driving home last night, I saw a convoy of such cars each with a menorah lit up on top driving around Vienna’s second district led by a police escort. Ukraine, like Vienna, is very much a multi-ethnic place. I have met many different ethnicities of Ukrainians this year. I have only once in my thousands of interactions been chastised for not being able to speak Ukrainian. Only one old woman at the train station, one time, early on in the war, refused to speak to me and another volunteer in Russian. We then told her if she doesn’t want to speak Russian, she will have to buy the tickets herself — in German.
I think back to all the wonderful fellow volunteers I met this year. We never asked each other, where are you from? It didn’t matter. We were American, Austrian, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Chechen, Kazakh, Georgian…the list is endless. And of course, Russian is more often the common language. And it was never an issue. Just like many Ukrainians speak Russian at home. And so many Russians have gone above and beyond to help this year, like my fellow volunteer Anastasia in Budapest, herself a Moscow native, whose efforts make me look downright lazy. She singlehandedly initiated a grocery card program, a huge Secret Santa program using an Amazon wish-list (ingenious!), delivered aid to dorms across Hungary when authorities did not want to let volunteers in. She, like me, has no background in social work. She just jumped in when she saw a need from the first days of the war, at first housing families, meeting them directly at the train station, renting short-term apartments to let them sleep and eat and shower. Totally grassroots. Totally incredible.
I got a phone call on Christmas Day from Vladimir. He and Galina are now in Tirol. It’s not great but it’s not terrible. They are grateful for what they have. He spoke fondly of remembering how I met them in the train station, and put them in a hotel for a night. That was only possible because of all of you, my readers, who have followed these events together with me, and helped me from the very beginning to be a volunteer with a budget. I did not have to haggle with the NGO on site to beg for housing to decide who could or could not sleep in a hotel room, because I researched which local hotels near the train station would offer good rates, and I had a few funds, was able to pay for rooms here and there. Certainly it was not comparable to the mass effort the NGOs had to install to try and help everyone, but it meant a few families got more than a cot in a dark room which only opened at 10pm. A few families got a proper bed and a warm shower and a hot breakfast. The little things you suddenly appreciate so much when your whole world gets turned upside down and you have to flee in the cold with only what you can carry with you.
If you read German, I recommend this text written by a seventeen year-old Ukrainian now living in Austria. She writes, “Ich wünsche niemandem das Gefühl, vor einem Krieg weglaufen zu müssen.” “I don’t wish on anyone the feeling that you have to flee a war.” It is true. There are things we who have only experienced peace in our daily lives simply cannot imagine. I do not know what it is like to calm my kids down when air raid sirens go off. I do not know what it is like to comfort children in a cold dark basement. I do not know what it is like to bury loved ones, innocent victims of Putin’s genocidal war. I do not know what it is like to pack in a hurry, your life changing forever in an instant. To make agonising decisions none of us should ever have to make. To go. To stay. Who to take with you. Who to leave behind.
The Ukrainians I have met this year have given me renewed faith in the incredible strength of the human spirit. I wish those who meet them would take the time to ask a few questions, to ask how they are doing, to ask about what they have been through, because to ask and to listen is to begin to try to understand, to show empathy, to understand that they didn’t choose any of this — it happened to them. Just like this year of volunteering happened to me. I didn’t choose it. It happened. Looking towards 2023, I need to find a balance between the time I put into all this and my own life, namely, finding a paid job. I am working on that, and think with a bit of boundaries and structure I should be able to manage both. We are making a real difference in people’s lives even if a €50 gift card one time doesn’t sound like much.
We are raising key issues in the public dialogue. I take very seriously the role I have ended up with of voicing the concerns of those who have no public voice. Particularly with the end of free public transport (and no solution in sight), many Ukrainian refugees have become invisible to the Austrian public, mostly because they cannot afford to leave their places of residence. This is a worrying development, but we still have the internet. This year I have received Telegram messages from Ukrainians older than my own parents. Such a “digital” nation. It’s truly amazing.
Thank you all for reading all year, for your continued support, both as subscribers and your generous donations towards supermarket gift cards. A huge, immeasurable thanks to Mario, without whom our website and the mass distribution of cards would never have been possible. He took over all the headaches and admin to free me up to do what I do best, and for that I am eternally grateful. Thank you for always giving me the feeling, even in the darkest, most frustrating moments, that I am not doing this alone.