End First Visit

The day of the first hospital visit arrived and I set off with Anatoli and his friend Grigori to collect his minibus from the lockup. Two hours later we arrived at the lockups after a tram and Metro journey, magnificent metro stations deep underground with three long escalators, and marble halls. We headed North West from Kiev through a mixture of houses, factories, and farmlands. Travelling along the edges of long fast stretches of roads were traditional horse and carts, bicycles, people. The weather was cold but dry. We turned off the major road onto smaller roads
passing through small towns with strange sounding names, like Baradanka, where I watched a woman buying a large live fish from a water filled basin. The fish jumped off the weighing scales onto the street but was lifted and put into her shopping bag.
Stopping the minibus my friends pointed to an old wooden sign at the roadside, that’s
the original sign for Malin in Russian, now we just need to find the hospital. We drove past picturesque houses with gardens, larger buildings including the local newspaper offices and into the town centre. I was able to read a some Cyrillic names
one for shop, one for hotel, one for bank, as for me to try to ask where hospital was impossible. I listened as Anatoli and Grigori asked where the hospital was understanding not a word.
We arrived at the hospital, a large white tiled building looking more like an abandoned factory than a hospital, poorly dressed people outside the entrance, and really old ambulances in the yard. I followed my friends through the entrance where they asked how to get to the children’s Department. As we walked up broken uneven stairs, with loose banisters, broken light fittings, and draughty windows It was not just the outside that looked like an abandoned factory. When we went into the children’s Department introducing ourselves to the Doctors and Nurses they were so happy to see us. Anatoli explained to them about who I was, and why I wanted to help the children in their care, they invited us to a meal in their office.
I had taken £100 of my own money with me and I went with a Dr. Victoria to the
local bank to change into Ukrainian money then to the chemist to buy medicines
and baby milk powder for the children. As I watched a baby being given milk bought with some of the money I had brought, it was a humbling experience.
When we left waving goodbye to Doctors, Nurses, Mothers and children, I knew
that I would return.