Responsibility (Day 62)
The grocery card project continues to take shape. Helping at Wien HBF. Giving press interviews. Addressing many envelopes, answering many messages. Trying to prioritise. Breathe. Grateful.
My phone is at the moment and explosion of unanswered messages, and as a “zero inbox” person (the only way I know how to manage my own sanity) I am finding this very stressful. I have a system in which I write down the name, then address and envelope, then mark when it goes out. I use little symbols like messages to myself to prioritise (lots of children, pensioners, living in a refugee hotel), pulling some people out and placing them on the top of a pile. But it is an imperfect science of a sole practitioner who has not yet learned how to share her work. So in the context of a sea of unanswered messages, the most pleasurable ones to open are those with photos and words of thanks, of gratitude, to all of you, in Russian, Ukrainian, English, German.
The women write me to tell me their gift cards arrived in the mail. They send me photos of their grocery shopping.
They ask if they can “stretch” the cards over a few trips to the store, or do they have to spend them all at once? They are very, very grateful. THANK YOU. Thank you for making this little idea of mine very much a reality and a help for many families.
Today I was back on the train station to help with the lunchtime rush, but today it wasn’t that much of a rush. I met three families trying to get tickets back to Ukraine. Two women and two kids going to Lviv (we got them tickets to the Polish border), an older man trying to get back to Kyiv (not sure which route he ended up with), and a woman, Olya from Mykolaiv, trying to get back to western Ukraine where her kids are with her grandmother. She will be on the train to Zahony, Hungary now as I type this. With a connection, arrival in Chop, Ukraine at 2am. A relative will pick her up. She cannot wait to get home. She came to Austria to help other Ukrainians leave the country who she thought would not manage on their own. She is now going back to her own kids, in the relatively safe (for now) west of Ukraine. Only possible because they have relatives there. Olya’s husband is a volunteer in Mykolaiv, delivering humanitarian aid. Both she and her husband’s parents are all in Mykolaiv, and all refuse to leave. “It is our home and we aren’t going anywhere”.
A lot of Mykolaiv and Odesa again today, but fewer people than before. One group was so tired they asked about first class (bed) tickets on the night train to Belgium, but when they heard how much it would cost (€507 for 3 tickets), they agreed to the second class free tickets. They were lucky. They got seats for tonight. Another mom and daughter with epilepsy only got tickets for tomorrow, but a hotel for tonight from the charity, thankfully. I gave them some McDonalds vouchers. They will be ok. Mom is upbeat and knows how to ask for the help she needs. This is so important.
I met two older men from Kharkiv. They had been driven by car through much of Ukraine. Someone is waiting for them in Western Europe. Night train tickets tonight. One has a cane and can barely walk. From their internal Ukraine IDs, I see they were both born in what is now Russia. And now in their golden years they had to flee. It leaves you speechless. I help them with their bags to other volunteers and I lose my temper only slightly when I heard mumbling about being not sure if bags can be lifted or not. Surprised we haven’t sent groups of teenagers (at least on weekends, for example) to do nothing else than help carry luggage. Eight weeks in and even the most basic solutions are still not in place. I was told a luggage cart might be found. Never saw one of those either before, but I left in hope that maybe it just might materialise.
After a few hours on the train ticket desk, a photographer came to take my photo with a Hofer card. But I didn’t have any Hofer cards left. I had given them away, and the two women who met me at the station didn’t want to be photographed, which I completely understand. I also HATE being photographed, but I know publicity means more interest, more cards, more Ukrainian families I can help. So without even brushing my hair or putting on lip gloss, I stood there like an idiot holding four newly bought Hofer gift cards posing in front of the train station.
I woman just wrote me she is crying she cannot believe a card came in the post from strangers who want to help them. That is what this is all about. It is hard for me to focus sometimes and also not start crying. But I know a lot of people are depending on me to be the “link” between Austrians who care and want to help (and not just Austrians, thank you to all those overseas donations!), and Ukrainians living here and in need of help to buy groceries. I hope that by writing about all this I can illustrate the challenges many Ukrainian women, children and pensioners are experiencing right now. Some sent me refugee hotel addresses; I tell them to meet me in person, I worry the cards won’t reach them. Four such deliveries scheduled for tomorrow. Drive home from my kids’ sports (I am literally typing this from the golf course which feels RIDICULOUS but that is my life of contradictions right now), check the post, transfer those cards to pre-addressed envelopes, stamp, mailbox, repeat.
I haven’t read any news today. I am sorry. But I did listen to this and so should you:
I want to tell the Russians that if they were fleeing war, if they were the ones being bombed, we, Europe, would have fed them too. We have not lost our humanity even if many of them have drunken the Kool-aid and consumed Putin’s Russian fascist nightmare propaganda. I was too old to believe Russians would be capable of killing Ukrainians. I was very wrong on that. I should have thought back to the former Yugoslavia. Neighbours also turned on neighbours.
May 9 is less than two weeks away. No way in hell this is over by May 9. A pipe dream.
If you are in Austria, they say they will show their interview with two Ukrainian moms from the Kyiv suburbs and with me tonight at 7pm on Wien Heute (ORF). I’ll share a link tomorrow. I will keep doing press as long as I can highlight the gaps (failures) in the official response. The idea isn’t that Tanja hands out gift cards forever. The idea is that official organisations and the government do their jobs properly and to the full extent possible.
This photo just rolled in from a Hofer shop. I love that she also bought junk food. Everyone buys something different. That is the point. We are giving people a tiny piece of their dignity back. Freedom of choice. Freedom of not having to worry about where those particular €50 of groceries are going to come from.
Thank you for reading and for your continued, invaluable support.
"They will be ok. Mom is upbeat and knows how to ask for the help she needs. This is so important. " Certainly is. Glad to read this installment, Tanja. I, too, become emotional when connections click, people are generous, and the small system you have of trying to mitigate food insecurity for the Ukrainian refugees works. --christopher