Chernobyl Children's Lifeline - Mid Surrey Link

We spent this Easter driving 4500 miles across Europe to visit Belarus. It was an amazing adventure, and a wonderful window into the lives of some of the children who visit us. Last time I was there, two years ago, I was struck by the poverty and by how basic many of the people’s lives are. I had seen villagers working together to plough narrow strips of sandy earth, using a single bladed horse-drawn plough prior to planting their staple food, potatoes. We were too early for the ploughing this time, but we met the pigs, chickens and cows living in back yards which provide a major part of the population’s diet.

We visited Dasha, one of the girls who came over with the Reigate Link and stayed with us in 2001, providing the impetus for the start of the Mid Surrey Link in 2002. We were offered a form of salami and assured it was home made – then shown the photo of the pig-butchering to prove it!

In Druzhnuy we visited the family of Ksenia (Kshusha), the 14 year old who will be visiting Mid Surrey this summer. There her mother was proud to tell us that everything on the table was home-produced – gherkins, potatoes, pickled mushrooms and more. Everywhere we went we drank compote: summer fruits are preserved by bottling them in large quantities of water and sugar, then throughout the year people drink the juice (compote) and eat the fruit at the bottom. We met “wood juice,” a delicate, clear drink which turned out to be the sap of the silver birch: “Very good for you, very healthy.” We saw salted fish being sold from strings at the side of the road, and old ladies with prams full of apples for sale. We saw people sitting on stools in the middle of frozen lakes fishing through holes in the ice: “It is very dangerous, every year many people are killed.” We saw the River Pripyat in flood from the winter melt water, with the water lapping at the walls of log cabins, and haystacks surrounded by water.

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We visited log cabins – small, single-storey, square buildings built of timber with a Russian stove at the heart for warmth, cooking and rubbish disposal. They were open to all, with neighbours popping in freely – no ringing a doorbell! I was touched to see how often old friends were visiting Ivan’s grandmother, now bed-bound with arthritis. Several times a day a short, stout, well wrapped, wrinkle-faced old woman would appear – a different one each time, but all looking the same - and amble in to see Babushka with a nod to the family in passing.

We visited dilapidated tower blocks with sulky lifts, and squat blocks of flats with no lifts. It was unusual to see a child with a room of their own; they shared with siblings, parents, grandparents. Beds were unusual too – everything multifunctional, they slept on sofa beds, the bedding cleared away during the day. We coped with earth closets in falling down wooden shacks (and were grateful that the weather was dry!) and “conveniences” that were dignified with the name of lavatory, with a bin by the side. I drew the line at the public convenience in Stolin – a hut in the middle of some waste land with two doors and two holes at ground level.

We spent time with Larissa in Zhlobin, and with nine of the twelve children who visited in 2003. We spoke to mothers worried for their children’s health: thyroid problems, no energy, anaemia. We saw Inna’s grandmother, bent over with arthritis, supported on a staff. She needs a pacemaker and a hip replacement, but cannot afford either. She lives alone on a smallholding, and I watched her raking the winter debris off the strawberry patch in the company of a cat and a couple of chickens. Her food is kept in the winter cellar under the house, accessed via a homemade ladder through a trapdoor. We met Lana from 2004, and were sorry that we did not have time to travel down and visit the children who came over last year.

We visited the Sanatorium that CCLL proposes to support just outside Minsk, and were impressed with its facilities and the way the country is trying to improve the lives of the children.

Most of all we saw a genuine, warm welcome. We met people we did not know and were welcomed by them. We ate too many times a day – nobody would let us leave without feeding us. We were shown around schools, the teachers dropping everything to escort us round and show us every detail. We were inundated with gifts.

It wasn’t easy to reach Belarus, or to get into the country. The officialdom doesn’t make life easy for visitors – but then it doesn’t for the citizens either! Nonetheless, the question to be answered is not whether we return, but when!