Alla, Jana, &Vadim

This is his story about helping Alla, Jana & Vadim, several Ukrainian refugees

One of our volunteers, Nacho Ampuero Martinich, was on our last team that went to the Poland-Ukraine border. "I was requested to pick up Tanya and her son Yarik (4), members of the Church of Jesus Christ, in Warsaw to bring them to a little town called Nova Paka in the Czech Republic. In the beginning, due to some miscommunication, I thought there was a group of six people -and I had a nine-seater minivan-, but after realising they were only two, we agreed to the refugee centre in Warsaw and offer a ride to another people.

This is how I got to meet 2 different groups, Olia (30) with her daughter Alisa (6) were going to Chemnitz – Germany. And Alla (42) with her daughter Jana (12) and her son Vadim (7) were going to Graz – Austria. As their destinations were very distant from Warsaw and in different directions, we agreed that the best would be to drive firstly to Nova Paka to leave Tanya and Yarik with the people that would receive them and then continue to Prague.

We would sleep in a hotel in Prague and the next morning go to the train station so they could take their trains to Germany and Austria respectively.

We all agreed on this plan and started our journey. The first part of the ride was very fun and interesting. As 12-year-old Jana would become easily dizzy, she was riding shotgun. At some point, she pulled out her notebook and we started reviewing her German – Ukrainian (with some Russian here and there) vocabulary. She became my trusted Surzhyk teacher, this being a mix between Ukrainian and Russian. After driving for over 4 hours, is when things started becoming complicated. Having passed Wroclaw, since we were heading to Nova Paka and not Prague directly, we had to leave the motorway in favour of smaller roads.

We had was a long drive still, over 2 hours to reach Nova Paka.

Unfortunately, during this time Olia started feeling dubious about her decision of coming with us. Of course, one has to be comprehensive and understanding since these are people who come out of a warzone and put their trust, lives and children’s lives in the hands of complete strangers. I explained more than once the reason why we were on such small roads was that it was the only way to reach the remote Czech town, but by this point, I had lost her trust and she had started to make Alla also nervous.

After a very long and tense drive, we reached Nova Paka and Olia told me that she did not want to stay at the hotel in Prague but that some friends of hers would take over once we reach the hotel. There were no words for me to convince her, also keep in mind that we were communicating with my four words of Russian and a translation app. We did a very brief stop, where Tanya and her son left, and then we embarked on another semi-uncomfortable ride until we reached Prague. This last part of the trip was not as harsh since I had already let Olia know that I completely agreed with the idea of her being picked up by her friends. Letting her go was the best thing to do.

Finally, we reached Prague, we went to the hotel where we were lucky enough to find a receptionist who was not only very polite and welcoming but also Ukrainian. After being given the details about our stay and leaving our things, we decided to go to the supermarket for some supplies for the next day and for dinner. This is the last time I saw Olia as she and her daughter stayed at the reception waiting for her friends.

Alla, her children and I went grocery shopping and for dinner and then we had a great time together. Our dinner was full of laughs and good moments of fun, it was very rewarding to see that by this moment they were more relaxed and felt safer. But also, there were moments of sorrow as she told me more about the situation in Ukraine. She also shared with me that her husband and two eldest sons -in their early 20s- had a very strong sense of patriotism as all three of them were enlisted in the military to defend their country.

As the morning came, we shared breakfast together with a very similar spirit as the one from dinner. Then we decided to walk to the main train station, as it was not too far from the hotel and it made no sense to drive there and then have to deal with parking. To our surprise, the train to Graz that we had seen online was departing from a different train station. So, I rushed to pick up the car that was still at the hotel parking and then drove to pick them up and take them to the other train station. To our luck, we arrived just a few minutes before departure, so they were able to reach the train and go safely to their final destination."