Korczowa is located by the highway between Krakow and Lviv. I guess this is the biggest border crossing - and the refugee reception centre is huge. The main mission was to pick up six specific persons that were coming by bus through almost all of Ukraine, since we were coming with two cars the secondary mission was to pick up as many random people as possible and bring them to Lublin. This was sort of the continuation of the previous day, when we bought a slightly better minibus. Those six people were probably not on the same bus from Ukraine - two of them had already been picked up by a friend of JJ, so four could fit into the smaller car.
I tried to charge my devices and actually do work for my employer, though it wasn't very easy. They had an inadequate number of power sockets for everyone that wanted to charge their devices - but most of all, there were too many impressions to digest. I probably should have asked around if there were anything I could contribute with - but it seemed to me they had enough volunteers. JJ told that he found a major choke point, one lady working at a "coordinator office" and a long queue of people wanting to ask her questions - but then again, I wouldn't be able to help there. Still, people came and asked me questions as I was trying to work. I know about enough Russian to buy a glass of beer ... or perhaps a bit more, I was surprised to be able to understand quite many of the questions I got while hanging around with the laptop. I did help some people to charge their mobile phones, my charger have three outputs. However, I had only USB-C cables while most of the people needed USB-micro. JJ arranged that someone would bring more power strips to the place, I also encouraged him to ensure some few chargers and different USB-cables to be shipped. In the end I felt a bit bad for coming to this place, hanging around there for several hours doing nothing but being in the way and eating some free food.
Impressions yes ... I already mentioned the crying child and the weeping mother unable to give the child any comfort. It was heartbreaking. A photo would say more than a thousand words - but of course, taking a photo of such a thing is totally out of the question - and publishing it even more so. The place was huge, chaotic and beds everywhere. Quite many of the volunteers working at this border station seemed to be foreigners.
JJ was high and low as always, while I was trying to work he talked with an Ukrainian going the opposite way, into Ukraine to fight for the army. He ensured the man got a sleeping bag, and he also donated his own private sleeping mat. One of the kitchens there had problems that they were running out of food. When the dutch called to order resupplies, they got a totally overpriced offer, so JJ helped a bit calling around for better offers. But eventually he disappeared - I found him in the car, either sleeping or relaxing.
I got told that there was to be a course in "psycological first aid" for volunteers. I wanted to join - while it's not really my cup of tea, it could prove to be very useful (as I wrote in my previous post, the biggest value of the work we do while driving people from the border may not be the actual transportation itself. However, I was absolutely unable to find the place where the course was to be held, the whole place was too big and too chaotic.
For several hours I had no luck finding people that wanted to be driven to Lublin, so I sent JJ. He spent some few minutes and came back with five persons. As told, it was needed to identify and register with the police before taking out refugees - possibly to prevent sexual predators from abusing the situation. JJ doesn't have the driving license, and I was parked at the other side of the complex, somehow he managed to skip this registration process.
A mother and teenager were going for Warszawa, JJ had told them it would be better to join us for Lublin and take the train from there rather than wait for a direct bus transport. However, they changed their minds ... perhaps they were uncertain that they could trust us, so in the end we left with four free seats. I had a wish to be efficient and do the communication while driving - but again, the transportation itself is maybe not the most important, the people need to feel safe and comfortable before the departure. Communication while driving also seemed rather difficult, they sat all the way behind in the car and we sat all the way in the front. I'm not sure they felt comfortable and safe. When we stopped at a petrol station they just remained sitting rather than stretching their legs and seeing the toilet. We were allowed to bring coffee to the mother, but that was all. It felt rather rewarding when we arrived, we could understand that our efforts was appreciated - the mother seemed really happy and grateful. It was a two-room apartment, the bigger room already filled up by a bigger Ukrainian family. It was like she couldn't believe they were lucky enough to have a whole private room for themselves, in a comfortable apartment, shared with people she could easily communicate with.
We took the caravelle to the service place, got a lift home and went to sleep.
Our first batch of sleeping bags is going to Kiev tomorrow, the second batch has already been delivered to some other town in Ukraine.
Some photos from the day:
This is the border crossing point. Not much visible on the picture, but the border is semi-closed. There is a police car with blue light on each and every border crossing, to make sure that nobody enters Ukraine by accident. We were not allowed to wait by the border crossing, we were sent to the reception point (and the government has buses and sends everyone passing the border by feet to this point)
They have regular WCs on the inside of the building, but also lots of portable toilets on the outside. The portable toilets were generally better as they weren't clogged - but they lacked basic things like running water for washing hands ...
... as well as waste-bins. It was really needed to search for one with a working pissoar - which again is important for keeping the toilet seat clean. While the refugees are mostly women (as well as their children), I think a majority of the volunteers are men.
Food stalls on the outside of the building.
Press photographing a child that gets candies.
This is a part of the "transportation office". There were sections were people could wait for transportation for certain destinations. In the middle there is a small space for people wanting to go to the "Nordic/Baltic", apparently those destinations aren't much popular. So for people wanting a car lift to the rest of Europe, this border passing is probably the best.