Crossing the border into Poland, I turned off my air raid app. A small gesture, yet it brought relief after weeks in Ukraine, where tension lives in the air. I am glad to not hear air raids or warning pings on my phone. This trip, I found myself saying mantras, in cars, beside memorials to fallen [...]
Catching up again.Another glaring impact of war is the number of amputees. You see people with artificial limbs everywhere.We had an amazing visit with the PROTEZ FOUNDATION in Kyiv, This organization provides prosthetics for lost limbs. We visited the first clinic in Mukachavo two years ago. It is run by two brothers, one in Ukraine and [...]
Last evening we had dinner with a young couple, maybe in their thirties, dear friends of Anastasia, our Ukrainian friend from Helena. They are both artists, graphic designers, creative souls. Their normal is quite different. They live in a Kyiv neighborhood that is hit frequently. From their apartment on the 13th floor of a 25-story building, [...]
Thinking about the peace plan proposals, how will this end? How can it end? I went down to the square this morning and walked among the memorial flags and photos of these defenders. It is gut wrenching seeing their photos, their once smiling faces, their ages. How does one surrender in any way with so much [...]
Our Ukrainian colleague Max met us in Kyiv, and together we began the long drive east to Kharkiv. Five hours on foggy winter roads, passing through multiple checkpoints. Some manned by soldiers scanning for weapons, others by military officials checking phones for digital IDs. Every Ukrainian carries their documents on their phone now, and somewhere, a [...]
Our last day in Zhytomyr was unexpectedly uplifting, the kind of day that settles deep in your heart. We visited the Babushka Battalion, a circle of senior women who have taken the rhythm of a sewing machine and turned it into an act of devotion. Tama and Cathy, our HOG colleagues, found them last year, and I’m so [...]
Trying to catch up on sharing our experiences in Ukraine … Our friend Oksana, once a well-known television host and now a professor of Journalism at Zhytomyr University invited us to speak with her class. It was especially meaningful for our IR journalist, Sonny Tapia. We had barely begun when the air-raid siren sounded. Without panic, [...]
Yesterday we spent the day at the Zhytomyr Regional Hospital, delivering the critically needed orthopedic equipment and other essential surgical supplies we brought. From the moment we arrived, we were welcomed so warmly by Dr. Vitali Khomencho and Dr. Victor, two extraordinary surgeons who work with a level of dedication that feels almost superhuman. I met [...]
One of the most important things we do as human beings, as witnesses, as people who care, is to ask questions and to bear witness. Being in a country at war requires a kind of seeing that is deeper than observation. You see the surface of life, but you also feel the layers, beneath it layers of fear, resilience, [...]
Today we went to the defenders cemetery. We brought flowers to lay on some of the graves. There were 1000s! It is impossible to put into words the heartbreak of standing among those 1000s of graves, row after row of Ukraine’s defenders. So many were young men, barely adults, some only eighteen. Others in their 20’s, [...]
