A tale of two realities

More excitement today. When I went down the rickety stairs of our apartment this morning there was a fully armed policeman standing on the first floor landing. He had a bit of English and wanted to know which apartment I lived in and how long I'd lived there. I asked him if there was a problem and he gave a sort of non-commital response. There was another policeman in the garden. They were still there when I came back with my shopping and we could see them hanging around all morning. We speculated whether someone had committed a crime and the Police were waiting for the perpetrator to return.

But it was nothing like that. When I went out later the policeman was still there but, outside, there were Police and military all over the area and the university opposite was cordoned off. We found out that the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, and President Zelensky were in the university building opposite our apartment, talking to students. As well as the war, and Ukraine's EU and NATO membership, they talked about education, echoing some of the themes we are concerned about, according to Zelenskiy's Telegram page:
"Because of the war, Ukraine faced the need to renovate the educational network, primarily in the affected regions. The educational space and educational process in Ukraine should become more modern." There was recognition that the future, including the country's recovery, will depend on the current students.
We contrasted the formality and safety of this meeting with information and photos that we received later in the day from M, who distributed the aid we took to her in Kharkiv to a village within a kilometre of Russian lines, which is subject to regular attacks from helicopters. These are a few of the photos she shared with us of people just surviving. There still, at times, seem to be two completely different realities in this war...

We wish we could include a video of the dogs in the village being fed with the food that we bought, but if anyone would like to see it, please let us know.

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