#Ukraine#Ukraine – Part 7 – 25th June 2022
My new heroine is Lucy Easthope. Her full title is Professor Lucy Easthope. ‘She is the country’s leading authority on recovering from disaster. For over two decades she has challenged others to think differently about what comes next, after tragic events. She is a passionate and thought-provoking voice in an area that few know about:emergency planning’
Her latest book ‘When the dust settles’, published in March and was book of the week on Radio 4 from Monday 28th March.
So how did I come to meet Lucy Easthope ? She was one of 5 guests speaking on a webinar hosted last Thursday by the Sanctuary Foundation entitled
‘Supporting Ukrainian Refugees – A Marathon not a Sprint’
There were 5 experts speaking
Rachel Poulton - a seasoned host of refugees from many different cultures
Wendy Jackson - a trauma specialist from the USA
Susannah Baker – founder of The Pickwell Foundation
Tania Orlova - A trauma specialist from Ukraine
Lucy Easthope - Senior lecturer at the University of Lincoln - advisor to the cabinet office on emergency planning. As I wrote above, she is widely regarded as the authority on recuperating from a calamity in the UK.
All the speakers had something valuable to say. We learnt about Ukrainian culture from Tania. Wendy Jackson challenged us to ‘own our emotions’ and to work out our personal red lines rather than hide behind ‘on principle’ arguments. Rachel was kindly and practical and talked about the importance of support networks for hosts. Susannah appeared to be organising such a network in the South West. All were impressive. But it was Lucy who leant into the camera and challenged us to stop ‘nannying’ our guests. What did it matter what time our guests put their children to bed ? That was their business unless it actually infringed on us.
‘Wake up’. I heard her say and then something along the lines of
‘You are not the nanny or an auntie or dutch uncle or best friend. You are a hostel; a temporary resting place on your guest’s journey and the sooner you start discussing plans for moving on, the better. Furthermore you cannot expect your guest to move without quite a bit of discussion and planning, so get on with discussing it. This is not unkind - this is helpful.’
Guess who had said this to me, more than once in the last couple of weeks ? James, my husband. And what is James’s experience in disaster relief ? He was Chairman of RedR in the decade before I met him. RedR UK provides training and technical support to NGO’s, aid workers and communities responding to natural and man-made disasters all over the world.
So chivvied by James I had discussed that scary thing ‘what happens at the end of 6 months’ with Anfisa the week before this webinar…..and guess what ? – it was seismic.
‘What is your planning Anfisa ?’ I blurted out in the car taking her down to the job centre in Reading.
‘Your can’t stay here for ever’.
She looked at me and then said with some feeling
‘Jane - I am the single mum of a single mum of a single mum. I have brought up my child single handed. I know how to look after myself. I am not going to end up on the streets and I am leaving after 6 months. Please will you stop worrying about me. I will be ok.’
Once I had digested the fact that I was just providing some accommodation - nothing more - nothing less, I felt a load off my shoulders. It was liberating
‘Ok’. I said ‘I hear you – what is your plan ?’
‘I want to live in Reading. I do not want to live in Henley on Thames. It is a pretty place to visit but too expensive to live in. I want shopping malls and cheap offers and transport links. I just need to find a landlord who will take dogs. So I am networking in Reading with dog lovers who may know someone who has a flat’.
‘Well’ I said in admiration ‘That is a good plan – good for you’. And I felt a surge of affection for this gutsy woman, networking with dog lovers in Reading, not prepared to take a cleaning job because she wanted to work in an office, who, right now, was focused on finding a way to get a free bus pass for Reading buses. That is not as easy as it sounds. We live in South Oxfordshire and the money provided for Ukrainians is filtered through our local council, so Reading Council will not give a bus pass to anyone whose host lives in South Oxon. Has Oxfordshire sorted out bus passes - no of course not. But Reading has…..grrrrrrr!!!
This time Anfisa and I are equally frustrated and bonded over the bus pass question. I think we would have bonded over anything having tackled the thorny issue of ‘what next’, sitting at a red light on our way to the Job Centre.
So thank you James and thank you Lucy Easthope - we are getting though this and it feels manageable.
Now all we need is the bus passes - SODC please take note!!
Endsrt 5
23rd May 2022
In case you have not been sent this newsletter before - it all started when my cousin asked us to pray at 8pm each evening for peace in Ukraine. To be fair it was not her idea - it came from Winston Churchill in WWII.
Certain people have been faithful prayers - not me - I am not so good at reliable on the button repetition of the quieter sort but we have taken part in a remarkable project in my Parish hosting or helping to host Ukrainian refugees. South Oxfordshire is up there with Barnes as one of the most lovely and expensive bits of the UK to live in - and we like so many other comfortably off people in RG4/9 are over housed - so it was a no brainer to offer to host Ukrainians. We have a spare kitchen and bathroom and a spare junk room that was turned into a perfectly respectable sitting room set in 12 acres about 6 miles outside Reading ……….so don’t feel sorry for us ………but all the same this has turned out to be more testing than I had anticipated.
There is a Rwandan proverb
‘If you can tell the story then you have survived’
No doubt this applies to our Ukrainian guests - but - it applies to me too
On the one hand it is a bit like ‘freshers week ‘as guests and hosts get to know each other and each other’s households. There are quite a few people hosting in Oxfordshire and so coffee mornings and tea parties and other informal get togethers are happening all over the county - many within a couple of miles.
So many new relationships between survivors and those hosting the survivors and it has been intense.
I have realised something interesting. Where there is no known route or clear parameters we humans work out how we are doing by comparing ourselves to whatever we can.
So the guests compare themselves to each other and the hosts do the same.
Typical guest question - “Have I got as many toiletries as the next household ?”
Typical host question - “Have I missed any handouts ?”- emergency first payment, free mobile sim, red cross payment, etc etc
“And if I haven’t does that mean I am failing as a host ?”
It is surprisingly stressful - like having a newborn adult & needing to do everything for them in the first 72hrs.
But we are lucky - really lucky. There are 62 households in Kidmore End helping with Ukrainian guests of which 7 are hosts. So that leaves 55 households not hosting, to help give lifts, organise a clothing exchange, host coffee mornings & source everything from dog beds to standard lamps.
I don’t believe we could have managed on our own.
Even so, after 5 days I had to admit, I was struggling - luckily one of the upsides of retraining or ‘studying psychobabble’ as my husband puts it, is that I get ‘supervision’. I have a personal tutor who gets paid to listen to whatever I choose to say for 50minutes. Last Tuesday, he listened to my confusion and disappointment as I felt I had joined a managed State somewhere a long way east of South Oxfordshire that did not exist.
Anfisa’s expectations and my expectations were miles apart. She had come from a centrally organised system ( born in Russia, Kaliningrad) where everyone got the same. So to her, it was fundamentally askew that her friends down the road, hosted by my parents, had twice as many toiletries as she had. Of course I had to explain there was no system handing out toiletries it was just me who had not checked carefully enough that the bags of toiletries given by different people at different times for different guests where not identical.
In the end, Anfisa, Alona and Alina sorted it all out between them, while I kicked myself for not having taken more care.
When well-meaning visitors from Kidmore End and Oxfordshire Council asked Anfisa if she had everything she wanted she told them the bike was the wrong size. It sounded as if she thought the bike came from a central warehouse and someone had not measured it up properly. Actually the bike came from James and it was a man’s bike and yes I could ride it ok but I ride a bike all the time………thanks to Caroline in the village, we found another smaller bike and credit to Anfisa and Rachel, she mastered it in three days - having given it a good clean.
It’s not that I wanted to be thanked - tho’ I have found out that I do like being thanked - more than I like to admit.
But fundamentally, I don’t want to be treated as if I am the housemistress at a girl’s boarding school setting boundaries and being generally protective of my space. ….which is exactly what I was being.
The Yorkshire terrier puppies are not house trained. So we have erected a cardboard Berlin Wall in the library to protect the blue carpet. It’s not elegant, but it works.
So to get back to the supervision - Nigel ( tutor/psychotherapist and general wizard) listened to my distress, put it in context, and made me realise that I had to explain to myself and to Anfisa that I was upset and no doubt she was too. It wasn’t an easy conversation but credit to A, she really listened and I felt such a load off my shoulders and now I take more care to explain what is and is not possible and she says thank you - a lot!! Well done A.
A and I have had a couple of substantial victories. 4 dogs is a lot in terms of vet bills. After our fist visit with a suspected eye infection, the vet took 48hrs to agree no fees except for the medicines and Pet Plan insurance is FOC for the first year. After 15mins of Anfisa explaining living with bombs in Kharkiv they didn’t have a hope at Oakley Road Vets. Free insurance is only for one year they warned me. In our Ukrainian world, a year is a life time. We are working in hours, days and possibly weeks.
Joe and Ryan who have a small wedding events catering company, which rents one of our buildings wants to give Anfisa work - what could be better ? That will help pay for meds.
Meanwhile James and I have retreated to our Box cottage in Scotland and Rachel, Teresa and Christine are are holding the fort for us this week. We will do the same next week when Rachel has a well earned holiday.
And James’s project Ukraine Chain has a website and a bank account - hurrah hurrah hurrah !!!
For those who don’t know James well, he does not believe in helping just one or two people - he works in hundreds - congregations - communities - camps. So his plan is to form an evacuation route from Ukraine through Romania where he has almost 20yrs experience working with a charity supporting orphans ‘Ceausescu’s Children’ in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Here is the link if you would like to know more -
What an adventure !!
Lv Jane
Friday evening in the library
Saturday tea time after the English lesson
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