Week 3 of Helping the Ukrainian refugee devotees and their families
Gaurangi dasi
Warsaw has been busy as always. Every day we have had groups of adults and children, approximately 60 daily transiting or staying in our temple or at the temporary rented house. Devotees who are only transiting through Poland are being supported by Ksenya and her husband, a lovely Ukrainian couple who live in Warsaw. They help them with further connections, checking the best routes, getting tickets as even though the travel is free, you still need to get a free ticket personally, not online and I’m sure you can imagine how long the queues are!
In the middle of the week we had another exchange of guests, so we had to say goodbye to a few of our favourite groups (60 devotees all together) who
travelled on to Germany, Switzerland, Finland and Spain. The house and the temple was filled up again quickly, 36 in the house and 20 in the temple so our Gaura Purnima celebration was very ecstatic and busy.
Unfortunately we also had a Rota virus outbreak, 17 of our little devotees and a few older ones are all unwell, fever and vomiting. One toddler had to go to hospital and was put on a drip and one 14 year old also ended up in intensive care with what we thought was the same issue, but unfortunately it was an inflammation of the bowel and inflamed appendix, he might have to go into surgery this weekend.
Apart from hospital cases, the rest are recovering quickly now they are being nicely looked after by our Warsaw team, Rasikendra, Padma, Mathuranath, Karuna, Ksenya and the Warsaw temple devotees. We were also incredibly blessed by the presence of our dear friend Amara Prabhu, who came over from Germany for 10 days to help. He was an invaluable support, caring for the devotees in our temporary house, picking up families from the border, sorting them out in the house, shopping, doing all what was needed and he even managed to do one of his famous fire yajnas on Gaura Purnima! We are so extremely grateful for his association and will be super sad to see him go, partly because we are so short staffed with so much to do, but mostly because he is such good company.
Rasana in Wroclaw has also been very busy, sorting out documents for all her devotees, managing to find work for some as well, that makes them feel very settled and safe. She spent 3 hours waiting in the office for a National Insurance number, on Gaura Purnima, missing out on all the celebrations but knowing service to the devotees is what we are all about. In Wroclaw two of our new guests got initiated online by Radhanath Swami, it was an amazing experience for all.
We’ve noticed an increase in the number of devotees who want to stay in Poland and wait out the war. We want to keep them in Warsaw and in Walbrzych in our temporary accommodation there. There is a lot to do helping people to settle in a new country; legal documents, CVs, applications, finding work etc. This week for example we have one Pediatrician and a psychologist that we are helping with settling in. The lease on our house in Warsaw will be coming to an end soon, as the owner had an offer on the house, so Rasikendra is looking into other solutions.
In Walbrzych all devotees in our temporary house accommodation have been brought to New Santipur (about 1.5 hours away) for the Gaura Purnima celebrations. One of our Ukrainian devotees, Laksmikantha, was asked to help with the abhkishek for Sri Sri Panca Tattva, that made him extremely joyful, as it did for all of us. The next day the Walbrzych devotees Krsnasambandha, Madhumati and their daughters had a little birthday celebration for a 13 years old guest. She was in tears for ages, happy
tears of course. It takes quite a lot of energy to do these little “normal” things but it is so important for the lovely devotees from Ukraine and makes them feel welcome and they forget, just for those few moments, what the reality of the situation is and what they have been through.
This week we sent more devotees to Germany, it’s been such a pleasure to work with the German yatra, Sadasiva Prabhu and Kanupriya have been incredible. When we lost touch with our group of ten who were on their way to Berlin, when all trains in Poland stopped due to an electrical fault, within minutes Kanupriya arranged transport from the border. Devotees from the Poznan nama hatta — Madhuri and Kamini found this lovely polish driver, Adam, who just wanted to help so he took them to the border (a 4 hours drive) for no charge.
We are getting some help from external organisations, Radek Araszkiewicz and his foundation donated 10,000 vegan bars to our Food for Life project. Rasikendra is working on linking in with a few more, as we need all the help we can get!