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Oleksandra’s Story
This is the third in a series of brief profiles of some of the internally displaced people (“IDP”s) who have sheltered at the assisted living home where I am volunteering as a nursing aid. Every morning beginning in early spring, Oleksandra Ivanovna goes out to pick a small bouquet of fresh flowers for the dormitory…
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In Memory of Leonid D.
This is the second in a series of brief profiles of some of the internally displaced people (“IDP”s) who have sheltered at the nursing home where I am volunteering as a nursing aid. Sadly, we lost a friend today. Leonid Dmitrievich Tkachev was 82 years old. He was born in the peaceful town of Chasiv…
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Galina T. – Warmly Welcome
This is the first in a series of brief profiles of some of the internally displaced people (“IDP”s) currently sheltering at the nursing home where I am volunteering as a nursing aid. Galina T. was born in 1939 in the city of Toretsk, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. At the age of 16, she began training…
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Dressing Room Redux
As I described in my post “Bottlenecked in the Bathroom,” we are hoping to upgrade washing, bathing, laundry and general sanitation facilities at the nursing home for elderly and disabled IDPs (internally displaced people) where I am volunteering here in Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine. We would like to have hot running water available for the residents at…
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Evac Team Visit
Yesterday our shelter for elderly and disabled IDPs (internally displaced people) in Ukraine enjoyed a visit from Ignatius Ivlev-Yorke and one of his partners. Ignatius runs a civilian evacuation team in eastern Ukraine. The members of the team are all volunteers. Some of them are Ukrainians, others are foreigners. Ignatius himself holds a UK passport. …
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Nursing Home Diary – Grandma Lena was Lost
I was sitting in the canteen with Ludmila just before lunchtime today when Grandmother Lena shuffled in, all by herself. I was surprised to see her, because the elderly residents usually do not come up the stairs to the second floor. Also, Grandmother Lena usually stays together with her close friend (who occupies the bed…
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What a Wonderful World this Would Be
If purely naive good intentions could resolve human conflicts . . . what a wonderful world this would be! Today I helped the August Mission team unload a NuDay container filled chock-a-block with humanitarian aid materiel. Everything was donated by American families, and shipped across the ocean to Poland, shipping also paid for with donated…
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Love & Hope
I recently volunteered to help the August Mission team deliver humanitarian aid materials to a Roman Catholic church in a smaller town called Starokostyantyniv, located about 50 kilometers north of Khmelnytskyi on the main highway towards Kyiv. The trip today was actually my third visit to Starokostyantyniv since I arrived in Khmelnytskyi a month ago.…
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Chasiv Yar Diary – Nov. 11, 2022
A couple of weeks ago I wrote this blog post about the Chasiv Yar assisted living home for the elderly relocated to a mothballed school building in a remote rural village outside Khmelnytskyi. After I wrote it, I asked the director of the home, Gennadiy, if he would take a look at it and give…
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Elderly in Exile
Today I helped August Mission‘s team in Khmelnytskyi deliver humanitarian aid materials to a nursing home located in the hinterlands of Khmelnytskyi Oblast. To reach the nursing home, we drove about 90 minutes on smooth highway and then exited onto a small country road. We drove another 30 minutes at low speed on very rough…
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