12 Sep Vyshyvanka, Bread and Books for the Children
‘We have to celebrate, no matter how long the war is going to continue,’ said Tanya, a mother from Ukraine, when she told me about what she had packed at the end of August, when she once again fled the war, this time to a town near Birmingham. She made a point of packing – in one suitcase for her, one for her mother, and one each for her five- and eight-year-old daughters – traditional Ukrainian blouses (vyshyvanka) for all four of them, to wear on the 14th of October for Pokrova – a major Ukrainian holiday – and for Christmas. They will wear them in celebration, because that is what it means to honour your national identity, says Tanya, ‘and to save our national identity is the mission of all Ukrainian women who were forced to leave the country with their children.’
I met Tanya in the first days of March, on the grounds of Mihai Viteazul Highschool in Bucharest, where her daughters were coming for the first Ukrainian schooling programme in Romania, created by teachers from Odessa who found refuge in the Romanian capital. Tanya is 32 and comes from Irpin, where she lived in an apartment with her husband and children. When the war began, she refused to accept that it had happened and it would go on for an indefinite period. When she first heard the sirens, she didn’t start packing bags – she ran the washing machine to cover the noises coming from outside. But when a bomb fell close to their building, they knew they had to go. They spent six months in Romania and made friends; Tanya even found a job with an NGO supporting Ukrainian refugees.
But one hurdle in their attempt to integrate has always been language. The classes in Ukrainian were only held for three hours each day, in the afternoon, when younger children have a hard time focusing. The Romanian school system, which has no solution for Ukrainian pupils who can’t speak Romanian, would not have been an alternative for her daughters’ education. So, after discussing it with her husband who had stayed behind in Ukraine, Tanya decided to move again, to a country where the children could enjoy a solid education in English, a language they will learn anyway, so they can manage anywhere in the world.
For six months, they will be living with an English family who will provide not only shelter, but also support in finding a job and further integrating in the UK. For them, Tanya has packed traditional Ukrainian napkins (which she bought in the last days of summer, when she travelled to Ukraine to visit her husband), bread (because a Ukrainian tradition says you should bring bread when you first enter someone’s home), sweets and herbal tea.
Tanya says this time her luggage was much more organised, precisely because now, unlike when they first fled in March, they really don’t know how long the war will last. She has packed storybooks in Ukrainian, novels and kindergarten activity books for her younger daughter, because the girls must be fluent in Ukrainian and familiar with their country’s literature. She hasn’t forgotten the yellow and blue bead necklaces she and her daughters received as gifts from her work colleagues in Bucharest.
In the UK, they will all make a fresh start now – the girls in new schools, Tanya and her mother in a new country to discover. It will be difficult, but she is happy that she is able to do this, because ‘the only truly important thing we can provide for our children is education’. One guiding thought which Tanya took along on her new journey is: ‘If your family is alive and you are together, you can do anything, no matter where you are. Wherever you end up, you can find a job if you are good at what you do. As long as you are alive and have your knowledge, you will survive. At the same time, always remain humane, be polite and treat everyone respectfully, no matter what you are going through.’
Testimony collected by Oana Sandu for the Musem of Abandonment, as a part of the Abandonment Baggage campaign. This project is financed by CARE through the Sera Foundation, Care France, and FONPC.
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