It Is a Hard, Hot Situation

View this post on the web at [link removed] “It is a hard, hot situation here now,” Vitaly, who leads one of the GEM [ [link removed] ] teams, told me this morning. He is in Zaporizhzhia, where we were delivering aid beside him last month. When Vitaly says hot, he is not talking Bahamas hot; he is talking ballistic missile hot. It has been a particularly long week, he says. Bad weather, he explained, is good weather for delivering aid. When the drones struggle to see their targets, humanitarians have a better chance of reaching the people who need them. It had been bad weather, so he had stayed longer to deliver more aid. Imagine being grateful for poor visibility because it might keep you alive. INDIA HICKS. An Unexpected Journey. is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. For the first time, he was considering whether it was safe to sleep in the city at all. “It tickles my nerves,” he said. Vitaly’s understated way of saying that even he is beginning to feel the strain. When we left Ukraine, he was arranging to move his family west: his wife Olga, their eight-year-old son Daniel, and my two-year-old godson Zakhar. With Kyiv under attack, water and electricity failing, and winter closing in, the thought of keeping two small children warm and safe was becoming unbearable. In the city, children spend the hours that should belong to sunshine and playgrounds in the darkness of basements, waiting for it to be safe to be children again. They had not been able to visit the new place. A recommended realtor found them an apartment: ninth floor, clean, new. In the photographs, it looked like somewhere they might finally breathe. Vitaly paid the deposit and drove his family there. They were unpacking when an enormous, deafening roar rattled the windows. They flung themselves onto the floor… The realtor had failed to mention their new apartment was right beside a military aviation base. Now he doesn’t know which is more dangerous for Olga and the boys: the home they left in Kyiv, or the one they have just arrived in. A few days after the move, Daniel needed hospital treatment for an ear problem. An elderly hospital attendant told Olga that people like her were the reason the region was now coming under fire. Too many families arriving from Kyiv. Too many people fleeing the front lines. “Because of you, we are now under attack,” she said, looking Olga in the eye. On her second night in the apartment, Olga made the journey from the ninth floor down to the basement five times. For safety. The alarms sounded all night. The Telegram channels they once relied on no longer gave them the warning they needed. “Trump has placed us into Putin’s hands,” Vitaly told me. “How to say correct? Shitty surprises,” he said. “We are now all in danger, all over the country.” I asked about Daniel’s new school. Vitaly had worried about how he would fit in, arriving from Kyiv with his fancy city accent. “No, the children are smiley,” he said. “Very smiley. Very shiny.” Shiny. Vitaly’s word for happy and friendly. And Daniel, it turns out, is happy too. “He gets love letters from the girls.” For a moment, we were simply talking about an eight-year-old boy settling into school. I was so glad there was that to talk about. On Thursday, I’ll be in San Francisco signing books and talking about Entertaining with a Side of Chaos. On Saturday, I’ll be doing the same in Greenwich, Connecticut. Both events are hosted by Hudson Grace [ [link removed] ]. If you happen to be passing, please pop in. On Sunday, Amory and I will be at the Ukrainian Institute in New York City, talking about our recent trip to Ukraine. (More info here [ [link removed] ]) It is a strange thing to move between these worlds. To talk about setting a table one day and war the next. I am still trying to make sense of that contrast. But perhaps the thread between them is the need to gather, to welcome people, to care for one another. Sometimes that means making room at your table. Sometimes it means sharing stories that are difficult to hear. Unsubscribe [link removed]?