What Does The Future Hold For Them? Refugee Life

It's been more than a month since the war in Ukraine started and even though most of us has been hoping to see it over by now, it's still ongoing. A lot of countries have been accepting refugees, including mine. Poland has gotten the most I believe as all the trains have been heading to the Polish border.

At the moment I don't have any official data regarding the number of refugees in my country, but I know they are distributed now all over the country as the settlement near the borders can't handle so many. My county has been acting as support county at the beginning, but not anymore. When I took my aid package to the collection center, I learnt that there will be refugees hosted in my city as well.

There's a hotel that has been sitting empty for years because it hasn't been updated to 2022's standards. The building is still good, but tourists have expectations. The municipality has thought a little bit of cleaning and fixing will help to make the place livable and use it to accommodate refugees. As far as I know there are around 70 families in this building. There's the kitchen of the hotel that is functioning, so they are fed as well.

Knowing these things you may think they are the lucky ones. It may look like that as they are alive, safe and taken care of for now, but is that all?

This morning on my way to my destination I passed through a parking lot and spotted some cars that looked odd. Odd in the sens of I usually don't see cars like these in my city. The car on the photo is an old model that is not used around here anymore. The EU has set some standards that must be respected. Packing the roof rack of the car like this is also odd. Those who do it, usually have a fancy Thule set up.

When I looked at the plates, I saw these were Ukrainian cars, which explained all my questions and doubts, but also made me stop for a minute and think of what I was seeing.

What you see on the first photo is someone's life, or should I say what's left of it? Their whole wealth or poverty may be a more suitable word to describe it. This may be all they have as no one knows if they have a home to go home to.

These people fled Ukraine sometime in the past month, got here, got a roof over their heads, are fed now and taken care of. All is good but now what? They sit and wait. For what? For the war to be over? When will the war be over? How will the war end? Who knows. And if the war is over, then what? Many have said they will go back home. What is home to them? I suppose each of them had their homes but how many of those homes have been destroyed? And how many will be destroyed in the upcoming future?

Some of the refugees have applied for asylum as they entered the country. Others have said they will be pondering the possibilities to decide later. It's not an easy decision, no matter how you look at it. Those who have decided to stay, need to be integrated.

Because Ukraine has only allowed women, children and old men out, most of the refugees are mothers with kids. Education has been disrupted, these kids are now missing a year (best case scenario one year). They need to be schooled sooner or later, but how? Romania has always had a small Ukrainian community in the country, but has not been prepared to handle this amount of people.

There are also approximately 50,000 native speakers of Ukrainian (concentrated in some compact regions near the border, where they form local majorities) source

Kids need proper schooling, of which Romania is not prepared at the moment. Ukrainian teachers would be lacking. I suppose some of the refugees are teachers, so they could get to work right away, but ensuring continuity in teaching to cover all levels will not be easy.

Adults must also be taught Romanian language, at least the basics to be able to to cope in everyday life and get a job. Romania is not alone in this situation, other countries must be facing the same difficulties.

After the war ends, I suppose a good part of the refugees would want to go back, but what are they going back to? What are they going to find in Ukraine? Debris? Kids will have no school to go to, there will be no hospitals, no factories, no nothing. Rebuilding the country will take decades.

Some of the refugees are in a better position at the moment as they have a car at least, but if I'm looking at the one in the first photo, that will bring more headache than joy because if it breaks down, there will be no way to fix it, or it will cost them a fortune that they most likely don't have. I'm not sure what's the situation in Romania, but refugees in Poland have not been able to access their Ukrainian funds when they arrived in Poland. Weeks later the Polish government issued a statement that it will make it possible to cash out their funds but I don't know if the option is available yet or not and at what rate will the exchange happen.

Non Ukrainian citizens are in an even worse situation. They don't benefit of the same treatment Ukrainians do, so life for them it is even harder.

There's no winning side in this story, no matter how you look at it.