It's been over twenty years since the world's worst nuclear accident occurred in Chernobyl in northern Ukraine.
The Chernobyl Children's Project International was set up as a response to this and continues to do valuable work in Belarus, the country worst affected by the fallout.
I recently spent two weeks there as part of a building crew, refurbishing the accommodation block of a mental institution. The CCPI doesn't place newspaper adverts for workers, but if they did, it might read something like this:Construction workers required. All trades. Long hours, No pay, Sometimes primitive conditions.
However, this is only part of the story when you give a couple of weeks of your time. As Gerry, a veteran of seven trips to Belarus said to me “ What you get from it money can't buy”.
We fly from Shannon and arrive in Minsk, the capital, at three in the morning. From there a bus takes us to Mogilev, a largish city in the east of the country. The Hotel Mogilev, home for the duration of our stay is fairly basic, but for veterans of previous trips to other places, it’s positively luxurious. “ You mean we have showers? With HOT water? Ah, this job will be too easy altogether.”
We get settled into our rooms and at eleven o clock the bus picks us up again to take us to the Soltanovka Mental Institution. As we travel out, we seem to go back in time. The hustle and bustle of Mogilev is replaced by tree-covered countryside dotted with small wooden houses. Men are working with horses in the fields and a woman herding cows (and a few geese! ) along the road gives us a wave as we pass.
Soltanovka isn't quite as grim as I had expected it to be. It consists of two main buildings and several smaller ones nestling among trees about half a mile from the main road. A number of the residents are out working in the surrounding fields. Our arrival generates a good deal of curiosity and there are smiles and greetings in Russian as we head for the accommodation block to have a look at what we've let ourselves in for. There's a lot of sighing and requests to head straight back to Minsk when we see the amount of work to be done but, unlike most building jobs, where the general trend would be to put off till tomorrow what you can start today, we get stuck in immediately. After an hour or two of organised chaos, everyone is working away and people start getting to know each other.
By day seven the place is beginning to take shape. All the walls and ceilings are done and it looks like we'll be finished with time to spare. We've also been told that we can have a lie-in on Sunday until half eleven. From people's reactions to this, you'd think that we'd been given a week’s holiday. I never thought that being told that I didn't have to turn up for work on a Sunday until 11.30pm could make me so happy.....
Over the next few days there a one or two setbacks that throw our schedule off a bit, but everyone makes a huge effort and by the following Saturday evening we have, somehow, got everything finished. Just as well really. I didn't want to miss that plane the following day.
On Saturday night, we go to a Bulgarian restaurant for a celebratory meal (mad music, strange dishes, belly dancers ) where a lot of us drink too much vodka. I sleep in the following morning and miss the handing-over of the refurbished wing to the residents. I'm a bit disappointed at this, but all in all, its been an amazing two weeks. Roll on the next trip in April.....
