Last week I took a train back to the border possibly for the last time on this trip. Each time I go it’s a different experience. The first time it was fairly busy with Ukrainians crossing over and an incredible number of volunteers. This time it was a little less busy, more volunteers than refugees. I also heard that the busy hours shifted- before it was busy during the day and less so in the middle of the night, but apparently it flip flopped and now the middle of the night saw more activity. There are no real answers about why this happens.
I met Marcel as I was getting off my train and heard English being spoken. Needing a ride the few miles to the actual border, I asked if I could join. It turns out Marcel is a freelance journalist who has been in an out of Ukraine for the past few weeks. Most recently he had to return home to the Netherlands to attend to the matter of picking up his bullet proof vest, which are in high demand and low stock. He was going to be in Lviv for a week to do some photography for a nonprofit and then he planned to head south to Odessa to broadcast the situation down there, if possible. He’s covered wars in the past and said this just feels different, more unstable and unpredictable.
I stood next to this lovely lady at the train station for a bit. Eventually we struck up a conversation. She is from a town near Lviv and is going to visit her daughter in Poland for two weeks. Her husband stayed put. I asked if they had any plans to move to her daughter’s, where it would be more safe. She said no. She wouldn’t leave her home. She now receives retirement and if she moved to her daughter’s she would have nothing to do, she would be living off of another person and that’s no kind of life. She also told me that many women were returning to Ukraine. Women who had been living in limbo for a month, women whose husbands, sons, fathers stayed behind. Their lives were on the other side of the Polish border so they packed their children and the same bags they brought over one month ago and returned. I had noticed this on my train from Krakow, it was full of mothers and their children speaking Ukrainian, they had more bags than would fit in an overhead compartment, and it all looked exactly like the train station in Krakow and Medyka, they were just heading in the opposite direction this time.
A hallway in the Przemysl train station. After crossing the border in Medyka, refugees either come directly here or go to the refugee center in Przemysl. Even after they’ve stayed in the refugee center for a bit, most will eventually make their way here where a train will take them to their new lives.
I noticed this dog lying on the ground, almost catatonic, a demeanor that was deeper than peace, an unusually deep rest (because his eyes weren’t always closed) for a living animal in a very public and busy place. He was surrounded by his people and I asked if I could take a picture. I tried to indicate that he seemed unusually unwilling to stir. In response, his owner showed me a video of her apartment block near Kyiv, in the video it had been recently destroyed by Russians. People were moving around, some were huddled together. She pointed off to the left, out of the frame, and said she found him in a pile of rubble. After she showed me, she pulled his blanket out of her basket, he recognized it and slowly moved himself onto it because he knew it was better on the blanket than on the ground.
I’ve seen so much art work by kids- plastered up like wall paper at the hostel on Pilsudskiego and in train stations at the PKP and Caritas kiosks. This is hanging in the train station in Przemysl where many kids have spent many hours waiting for their parents- but really mostly moms- to work out their next steps. It says “Help save Ukraine”
A couple of nuns were drifting around the train station helping where possible.
The perils of trying to do a ribbon dance with a Ukrainian flag on a windy day.
Linda came with her husband from Kentucky for a week to volunteer and distribute supplies for which they’d raised funds. Here she is volunteering at the women and children’s tent.
A woman and her child who just crossed over.
This mom and her daughter had just crossed the border and I don’t remember her crying, the rubbing of the eyes seemed to be more due to exhaustion. Moments later a volunteer offered her a slice of pizza which she gladly ate.
This man is from Texas, he works in IT and took his annual vacation to help at the border. He was specifically moved to come and help because of the unprovoked nature of the attacks on Ukraine.
A piano player brought his portable grand piano to play for peace.