Empathy shining through
It's more important to be kind than to have more.
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I asked her what was going through her mind at that moment, when all TV channels were showing images of people fleeing the war with nothing more than what they could carry, their lives turned upside down overnight. "That these people need our help. And that we have to share our resources with them, that it's more important to be good than to have more. That they need those things more than I do. And we do have resources, we really do. I think we've somehow got into the habit of complaining and wanting more, but we really do have resources, we have plenty to give." That's been her philosophy and mantra from the beginning.
"I'm also a mother of three and I really can't imagine what it would be like to leave with a suitcase, with three children in tow, to leave my husband, everything...my whole life behind and to go somewhere where I don't know the language and where I don't know anyone".
Her words are charged with emotion, and her empathy shines through. Anca Mușat is just one of thousands of Romanians who have decided to get involved by supporting and hosting Ukrainian refugee families who have arrived in Romania. The life stories, the war-torn destinies of the families she has interacted with and of those she has helped have stayed with her and have guided her actions, her steps, many of the decisions she has taken over the past year.
"I do my best to help. I'm putting all my resources on the table, putting it all on the line [...]But I literally cannot not do that. I’ve got emotionally involved, I’ve got caught up in this story and I can't distance myself, I can't take it easy. When they ask me for help, I do the same thing I would do for my own friends or family, I try to find a solution."
"We cannot even begin to understand!"
"I know a family who have already lost their home, it was bombed. And the question [people] are asking now is: if the war ends tomorrow, what are we going to go back to? We are going to go back to the same place, but how are we supposed to build a house? How long will it take? Who is going to help us? And how are we supposed to live in the meantime? What are we going to live on? That's a challenge in itself." The situations she is describing are both familiar and very foreign. We hear news and stories on a daily basis about the horrors of war in a foreign land, yet we believe ourselves protected from a similar fate.
I first met Anca Mușat on a cold Monday at a café near her workplace. We talk about feelings, about decisions, about the help given and received this year. She says she was deeply touched by the refugee crisis from the very beginning, by those fleeing to other countries and leaving everything behind to escape the war. She got involved from the outset by collecting food parcels and donations, with her family and friends helping out.
"We cannot even begin to understand. That was one of the reasons that pushed me from day one to try to help. In the beginning, I was collecting packages for people who came to the North Rail Station. My children were also collecting parcels at school," she tells me.
