This weekend, Pasha came to stay with us on Saturday night because the train route connecting his town to Vienna is under repair all summer, and there would be no transportation available on Sunday morning to get him to the bus for volleyball training camp on time. I made the mistake of not reminding Pasha and his mom that even Saturday public transport schedules differ from work days. As a result, Pasha couldn’t find his bus, and there was great panic on Saturday afternoon as I tried, from Vienna, to explain where the bus stop was in this provincial town and how to get to Vienna with a change from bus to train somewhere he had never been before. He managed. All alone. He arrived with a bag full of vegetables “Mama grew these in her garden; they are for you.” They were delicious. On Sunday, I drove a very nervous Pasha to the volleyball bus. He was massively relieved when we discovered one of the other boys speaks Russian, as well as one of the coaches. I called his mom now, who said everything is fine. I hope he has fun and will hear more when he return this weekend.
If you didn’t read my post on Friday, please read it first. It continues, as does our work and coordination behind the scenes. A bus was organized (not by me, thankfully), the Ukrainians who wanted to leave were brought to Vienna, are now in a dorm, there were panicked calls this morning when someone mistakenly told them they need to leave again (never, ever do this to refugees), the situation has since been calmed down. I am speaking with more people. I am trying to help with Hofer cards, which of course aren’t a real solution for anything but a window for conversation and learning more, and a financial band-aid of sorts. I met a mom and her teen yesterday at a train station, handed over three cards for three adult sisters and their kids, wished them good luck. Hope some alternative housing arrangements might work out. Put them in touch with someone who might be able to help. But you never know. The unknown is always scary.
Yesterday I also went to take a wheelchair on loan from a colleague to a hearing-impaired Ukrainian man who lives in a dorm in Vienna. His wheelchair broke, he asked the staff in his dorm to help repair it, they couldn’t or wouldn’t — not exactly clear. I brought him a new wheelchair, on loan. That way, I said, even if you have to leave this address, you can take it with you. We then found out the name of a workshop that might be able to repair his own wheelchair. I sent it. He replies: I have no insurance number, I have no blue card, I have no registration at this address. I cannot repair it on insurance. So I am just spinning in circles, making phone call after phone call, getting absolutely nowhere. I keep saying: this hearing-impaired refugee from Ukraine in a wheelchair has been in Austria’s capital since April (!) and no one is helping him. Yes, he is fed three meals a day and a has a roof over his head. But that’s it. This morning I write him to say, I am working on it, but it may take time. He replies: I will go back to Ukraine on Saturday. His nephew died. He wants to support his mom. I am not surprised. A dead end is a dead end. I can tweet until I am blue in the face but it doesn’t fix anything. There are so many situations and so many people who need help and if no one takes ultimate responsibility…
A panic phone call from a doctor’s office. A woman about to have surgery and the doctor doesn’t understand her. I translate over speaker phone.
Dozens of new requests for Hofer cards. Write down names and addresses. Tell them they will have to wait. 17 cards went out this morning, thanks to cards which bounced back to us from folks who had already moved. Two more will be delivered by hand tomorrow to residents from the saga I wrote about on Friday. I am trying to prioritise them so we can help and hear and understand how we can best help. Side conversations with residents, past and present. Listen, ask questions, show sympathy.
A family from Mariupol writes me late last night, asking for help. Just arrived a week ago. Heard I can help with supermarket cards. They would like to buy the kids fruit and ice cream. They are a family of six. Grandma is 85. Husband and son have wounds from the war. They each took bullets. I will see them later today. In this case I think I will give cash and not cards. Feels like they might need it more. My husband insists we help, but says this is the last time this month. I know I cannot give what I do not have. But also feels like I cannot do nothing.
Am alerted to a domestic abuse (not physical) situation by two administrators of Telegram groups. Get in contact with the victim, get in contact with two organizations, hope they find each other.
Give a brief interview to a journalist. Text with a few others. Remind Ukrainians to send photos if they received laptops from the wonderful team at PCs für Alle. Answer a few questions in my group chat.
And so it goes. And the best part, when I make a few phone calls in German (which I loathe as I am terrible at this), people ask me on the other end of landlines in offices at jobs for which they get paid real money, who are you? What organization are you with? And why do you know or ask about Ukrainians? And then I say, I am Tanja Maier, I am no one, I am just handing out Hofer cards to Ukrainians who ask for our help. It’s a private project, I say. I have no title. I am irrelevant to the person on the other end of the phone. And yet I have access to a hell of a lot of information.
If this all continues, one day soon, I will just publish a list of the most problematic addresses in Austria. Without further comment. My phone knows them.
The Ukrainian grapevine is incredibly fast. They find each other and they find me, and through that, you all. You all are helping them directly because of this internet link. Many of them cannot even make a phone call in Austria. They have no money and no local SIM card. Everything needs to be internet-based to reach them. I said that to a crisis response agency today — they opened a Telegram account specifically to talk with one woman in need of help. I wish everyone else would learn and act so quickly.
What to read? The news, which is all just so grim, I won’t rehash to you, but this is just so beautiful, written by a Ukrainian soldier: Is There Happiness in War? Where.
This is also a very detailed look at life in Mykolaiv Blast Effects.
And Ukrainians Brace for the Worst around Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine braces its big cities and other potential targets for 24th of August (independence day). Moscow is surely plotting revenge for the raging nationalist daughter car bomb this weekend, the targeted attacks in Crimea. Do I know who blew up the car? No. Does it matter? Dugin was not so well known like the western media like to portray, but surely such an act of violence on Rublevka will lead to the kind of retaliation Russia is waiting for an excuse to engage in. Back to the Russia of the 1990s jokes abound online.
There are fears over the nukes near Zaporizhzhia. The ammunition depo “blogger” violent drama in Albania, Serbia stirring up new problems with tales as tall as they are, Austria starting to actually publicly question the point of sanctioning Russia (no surprise but still massively frustrating).
My phone is pinging non-stop. Do I know of housing, a doctor, a school, a job, money, food cards, the list is endless. It makes me so sad because I understand, in my rational brain, that not everyone who needs help will get it. My heart wants to help everyone. But I also want to manage expectations. I had to tell another volunteer today: I cannot help you with that. I do not have a free minute. I am so sorry. I do not have any extra capacity.
The worst part of this whole humanitarian crisis, in my humble opinion as of early Monday afternoon, is how easy it is for most people and institutions to simply ignore it. Out of sight, out of mind.
I forgot about the stage IV cancer story. She contacted me, from a dorm in Vienna, a whole decade younger than me…I asked you all, we found urgent translation contacts and some money, and I will help her in person at the hospital next week for her appointment. My car needed service at that exact time, but husband says he can take it in.
Tomorrow I will meet an Ukrainian artist who has been asking me for coffee for months. I so look forward to seeing her work. We met in the spring, at ACV, before she found a fellowship, before she landed on the ground. I booked and paid her a manicure. She teared up. It will be nice to see her and hopefully share some of her artwork with you all!
As always, to help us distribute €50 supermarket gift cards to Ukrainian families in need in Austria, please donate here or here. Thank you so much.
I am off to see the family from Mariupol. One family at a time. We are not solving anything huge, but we are helping one family at a time, and I think that is beautiful.