”It's nice here, but they'd go back home tomorrow”
Refugees are missing their homes every day, keeping their hope of returning to their home
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I ask her to tell me one story that has made an impression on her, that has stayed with her all this time. "I remember taking the children to the Olari church in District 2, and there was someone there, a gentleman, who spoke Ukrainian. He spoke to the children, especially an eight-year-old boy. He asked him how he felt, if he was doing well, if he liked it in Romania. He answered that he was fine and that he liked it here, but he answered, with sadness in his voice, that he would go back home to Ukraine tomorrow if he could. He was very homesick, he was sad when he talked about home and that moved me. No matter how much he liked it here, he was not at home. He would have gone home the next day if he could. This, I think, is important for absolutely everyone to understand, but especially those who are wondering why we are still helping them, how much longer are we going to help them - I would like them to understand that for them it is not a choice, they are not staying here because they choose to receive our help. No, they cannot go back home. They would go back tomorrow, as our 8-year old friend said. It's nice here, it's all right, but they would go back tomorrow."
"I have never met a Ukrainian so far who has not said that they would go back, or that this war would end with Ukraine's victory, so that they can return home. Everyone, absolutely everyone I have interacted with is waiting to go back. They're waiting from one day to the next. In October, when we took in Tatiana [Hodină] and her children, she was making plans about the Christmas she said she was going to spend in Ukraine, at home, with her children. She didn't think for a moment that she was going to have Christmas here alone. Here we are now at the end of February and she is still here and now she hopes that by Easter she will be back. In fact, now the situation has changed a bit: she hopes that her husband will be able to come here," she relates.
I ask her if she has ever been reproached or accused for choosing to help refugees. At first she firmly denies it - she usually sees the positive side of things: the good, not the bad. Then she concludes: "I've also heard things like: 'So, have we solved all problems with our own children, so that you've moved on to the Ukrainians?' But, frankly, I don't even listen. I think those who ask that question don't understand the need for help and what it means to help. You don't help by ranking or judging. I've heard another one, "Sure, you collect packages, while those people are driving around town in Lexus cars." But that person is also a refugee, he fled the war, he couldn't stay in his country. I don't think anyone would want to be in this position," says Anca Mușat.
