The Voices of Ukrainians

Written April 2022 Just a few weeks after our group fled to the Czech Republic, I went to visit Anya’s apartment.  I found a bag sitting in the hallway in front of their door.  It had a globe and some drinking glasses in it.  I assumed that some one had just left a small a gift for the family, so I took it in.   The next day, Anya had me look more closely at the globe.  Most of Europe was smudged out and a smiley face was drawn there.  There were little arrows drawn to different parts of the world.   My first thought was that a kid had made marks to places that he had heard about or wanted to travel to.         Anya saw a more sinister message.  A message to the refugees that they should go home.  Europe was a happy place where they were not welcome.         I’ve been around enough marginalized people to understand that while every perceived discrimination may not be real, only fools don’t listen.        Just the day before, Anya had two encounters.        The

At the end of 2022, Lena and I tried to cross the border from Ukraine on our way back to the Czech Republic and Lena was rejected at the Polish border in spite of having done everything right.   When our group fled to the Czech Republic, they were granted refugee status immediately.  This originally came with some restrictions: namely, they wouldn’t be allowed to return to Ukraine without forfeiting their refugee visas and getting themselves restricted from returning to the Czech Republic.  Since none of us had ever been refugees before, we had no idea that this is standard procedure in most countries for people who are fleeing violence in their home countries.  When, two days after fleeing Ukraine, our group went and registered, none of us had a full appreciation of these restrictions. We were just grateful that for the moment, we didn’t have to worry about whether we would be able to stay or not until we figured out what to do next.   Our group had fled Ukraine in the first w