We accompany the food boxes assembled by Luda and the other volunteers to Starocozache, a little cluster of Ukrainian villages, and support their distribution in the communities.
Before though, we needed to see two other key places.
The first was one of 28 hubs established by the municipality of Chişinău to support the refugee crisis. Long queues are formed outside the centre every day. While inside the hub, hundreds of people, many of whom are students, unload and distribute food, clothes, and hygiene products.
We also stopped at primary school in Slobozia, a Moldovan village 70km from Odessa, where a food distribution point for refugees has been created. “The night the war began, we woke up hearing bombs”, the mayor told us. As the Banca de Alimente truck pulled up mothers and children gathered around to collect a food package, reminding me of the women we had met in Bucharest. Silently, discreetly, every family collected their package.
It took us 4 hours to reach Starocozache after an intense experience with customs.
When we arrived a group of men were waiting to unload the van. Silent and proud they looked at us while we filmed the delivery. I got talking to Tato, a Georgian who grew up in Ukraine, similar in age to me. “Do you have to join the army?” I asked. “Yes sir, we all have to join the army, whenever they call us”, he answered.
I asked about the impact of the donations, and Tato explained just how reliant they were on the food. “We are extremely thankful for this. We need and will continue to need these donations for God knows how much more time.”
