Why Moncton Ukrainians Struggle To Answer The Question, ‘Are You Okay?’
MONCTON—Natalia Haidash has a hard time answering the question, “are you okay?” these days.
It’s usually a well-meaning inquiry, but when your family is stuck in a warzone even the most benign questions become impossible to answer.
“We are never okay since this started,” Haidash told Huddle late last week. At the time, her family was alive and uninjured but Haidash said they were “in danger constantly.”
“I think it’s okay when your family is alive and you can connect with them. So you can say yes, they are okay. They are not okay under normal circumstances, of course, but we say they’re okay because they’re alive.”
Haidash and her partner Andrii Gaidash are among the hundreds of Ukrainians living in New Brunswick watching from half a globe away as the Russian army invades their home country.
Since Russia’s unprovoked invasion began, the owners of Dodo Leather can hardly focus on anything but the situation back home.
“I look at the pictures of Kyiv, where I spent my five years at university, and I can’t look for more than a few seconds—it’s just too emotional,” Haidash said. “To look at the streets where you were before and to see them in the ruins—that seems unimaginable.”
Oksana Seniv, another Ukrainian who has lived in New Brunswick for years, has similar feelings.
“It’s really tough. It’s really tough because we’re starting our morning not with coffee but with checking that our relatives and families are still alive,” Seniv told Huddle.
Driven by a need to do something, Haidash and Gaidash have essentially put their business on hold while they help organize rallies in support of Ukraine. Haidash works on logistics while Gaidash paints increasingly aggressive posters protesting Putin’s war.
They’ve also turned their leatherworking business into a fundraising apparatus, making leather keychains and donating profits to relief efforts.
Seniv, meanwhile, is spearheading a fundraiser with New Brunswick’s wider Ukrainian business community.
On March 13, at the north end YMCA in Moncton, more than a dozen businesses will come together to offer products and services as a way to bolster the Ukrainian Club of Moncton’s fundraising efforts.
The event will see vendors offering everything from traditional Ukrainian food and crafts to professional photography, and “symbolic” Ukrainian solidarity items like vinyl car stickers and Dodo’s keychains.
Seniv said the fundraiser has quickly grown as Ukrainians (and some Canadians) who are desperate to help in any way they can sign on.
Seniv, Haidash, and Gaidash all say they feel an urge to do something—anything—positive to help the Ukrainian people.
“Everyone feels now that we have to participate as best as we can, as much as we can, like all our efforts and thoughts,” Seniv said.
“For myself, it is important just to participate and feel that I can do something to help because Ukrainians here are all thinking that we kind of have… fault somehow. We’re safe and sleeping in our cozy bed when our families are sleeping in bomb shelters.”
Haidash knows that feeling all too well.
Last week, she left her house for the first time after spending two days working in her basement planning volunteer activities.
Things had been tough for her family in Ukraine and she had been holed up talking to them and watching the news, hardly sleeping.
As she drove to meet some other Ukrainian activists she was taken aback by how peaceful the streets of Moncton were. The local radio was playing a cheerful song; DJs chatted about the weather.
“I had so much dissonance and in my head; like, nothing changed here. But, for me, everything changed, my whole world changed,” she said.
“It felt like it was like 100 years since the war started, like that much information and that much emotions were there. [It was] so hard to comprehend.”
Haidash said Canadians looking to support Ukrainians both in Canada and in their home country can donate money to the red cross, the Ukrainian Club, or even directly to the Ukrainian military.
She says sharing information about Russia’s war is also important because Russian propaganda is even present in Canada.
“Everything helps,” she says.
For more information on the Moncton fundraiser, which runs from 11 a.m. until 4 p.m. March 13, visit the Ukrainian Club of Moncton’s Facebook page.
Trevor Nichols is the Associate Editor of Huddle based in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].