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Sunday, March 27th 2022

Ukraine

As you may have noticed on my profile, I recently pledged to donate £10 from each booking and all of my tips to the DEC Ukraine Humanitarian Appeal. A few people have been asking me, why are you doing this? Like everyone else, I have been horrified at the news reports coming from the country, and really just the prospect of having a war so close to home. However for me it has a more personal dimension, as I recently visited Ukraine in November 2021, spending a week between Lviv and Kyiv. It was a rather last minute decision for me to visit that I didn’t put much thought into, the main draw for me was that Ryanair had some very good deals on. I didn’t know much about the place or have any strong preconceptions.

Yet I found it to be a beautiful place steeped in history and full of life, very much Eastern Europe but with a distinct Ukrainian identity. When I was there I would never have imagined that war was only a matter of months away. I didn’t sense any kind of political unrest, the people just wanted to peacefully live their lives in a free and independent nation. When I saw on the news that the war had started, I couldn’t help thinking about the local people I met there - my tour guide and driver at Chernobyl, the lovely woman I met at the hostel, the man in the square with five Bernese Mountain dogs and all the people who were delighted to be in the presence of so many dogs. What can I do to help?

I wouldn’t be much use on the front line, and i’m at the other end of the continent from most refugees. I realised that the main thing I could do to help was to donate money. Whilst I certainly don’t have the means of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, I am able to earn a reasonable living through escorting. Anything I give is a comparatively small sacrifice to help people who have literally lost everything, even their loved ones. So that is what I choose to do. Even if I can only do a tiny amount for a tiny amount of people, I can’t in good conscience sit back and do nothing at all.