When a Belfast center faculty language arts trainer and an English trainer from Bucha, Ukraine, just about met within the winter of 2021, their function was to attach their lecture rooms.
However as invasion, battle, terror and displacement modified the Ukrainian lady’s life in late February, her Belfast counterpart grew to become a lifeline that helped her escape from her nation.
“I had one angel defender, [Martha Conway-Cole],” Anna Maymeskul, 41, mentioned final week through video chat from Plymouth, England, the place she has discovered security as a refugee from her native Ukraine. “Now I all the time make the joke that it appears to me that the God is within the heaven. He’s sitting taking a look at me and he’s saying, ‘OK, Anna, you’ve received issues. Now, I’ll discover individuals who will assist you to.’ There have been so many individuals who helped me, however throughout all this fashion, there was one one that took care of me for the reason that first days of the battle. It was Martha.”
The lecturers’ paths first crossed throughout the pandemic, after Troy Howard Center College social research trainer Man Hamlin started corresponding with a trainer at a college in Bucha. One other trainer at that faculty, Maymeskul, additionally needed to have an American faculty connection. Hamlin requested Conway-Cole if she could be keen. She was. Their seventh grade college students started sending movies forwards and backwards between Belfast and Bucha, a leafy suburb of Kyiv that later would change into notorious for battle atrocities dedicated towards civilians by Russian troopers.
“We’d present Troy Howard Center College children harvesting the backyard and strolling by way of the fields in a snowstorm,” Conway-Cole mentioned. “[The Bucha] children have been studying English and appeared very suburban and complicated to me.”
The 2 lecturers discovered that they had a variety of issues in widespread. They every had two sons and an curiosity on this planet past their properties. They despatched small presents to one another after faculty was out for the summer time. “One Morning in Maine,” the beloved image guide by Robert McCloskey, went to Bucha. Ukrainian tablecloths got here to Belfast. They began calling one another on Sundays.
“We received to be fairly good buddies,” Conway-Cole mentioned. “She’s a very heat, pleasant particular person.”
This winter, when it grew to become clear that Russia was going to invade Ukraine, Conway-Cole was frightened about Maymeskul. The Ukraine trainer was no stranger to battle and displacement —- she was moved to Bucha as a refugee after Russian forces attacked an space in japanese Ukraine, the place she lived, in 2014.
When the invasion started on Feb. 24, it was onerous to get details about Bucha, Conway-Cole mentioned. She misplaced contact with Maymeskul for 10 days and discovered from worldwide studies that Bucha was being bombarded by Russian forces.
“I used to be afraid that I had made a buddy simply to lose her,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
Issues had taken a darkish flip in Bucha. Throughout a few of these 10 days, Maymeskul and her household misplaced their electrical energy and camped out in a basement to keep away from the extraordinary bombing. Later, she discovered that certainly one of her seventh grade college students had been fatally shot by Russian troopers.
“There was no strategy to contact the world,” Maymeskul mentioned. “And Martha misplaced me. She didn’t know the place I’m or what occurred to me.”
Finally her household managed to get out, in a automotive filled with eight folks, animals and suitcases, and make it to the relative security of Kyiv. Maymeskul known as Conway-Cole immediately.
“She was one of many first folks I contacted after coming to the protected place, as a result of I knew that she frightened about me,” Maymeskul mentioned.
The contact was a blessing for the Maine trainer.
“It was such a aid, as a result of I might simply think about all of the worst issues that might occur,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
As soon as in Kyiv, Maymeskul and her finest buddy debated whether or not they need to attempt to depart with their youngsters and animals in tow. Their husbands needed to keep behind to assist guard the nation.
“I keep in mind desirous to seize the cellphone and say, ‘Get out!’” Patrick Hurley, Martha Conway-Cole’s husband, mentioned.
The Mainers did what they might to lend assist from afar.
“It appeared to me that they didn’t have a variety of data of what was occurring, as a result of communications weren’t nice,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
She shared information tales and data she discovered from one other buddy who was working for a humanitarian group that helps refugees. Maymeskul and her buddy questioned what to do about their pets, and Conway-Cole informed her that organizations have been offering assist and assist for refugees with canine, cats and different animals.
In the end, the Ukrainians determined to go away.
“She despatched me this actually touching image of her on a bus going to Poland together with her cat on her lap and her canine mendacity there, wanting like the load of the world is on his shoulders,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
They stored in each day contact, with Conway-Cole serving as an data conduit about teams that supported refugees.
“She informed me she didn’t need to keep in Poland, as a result of there have been so many individuals flooding into Poland,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
The Ukrainian ladies utilized for a brand new U.Okay. refugee sponsorship program, and have been accepted.
“All of us have been comfortable,” Maymeskul mentioned.
However the course of was very sluggish, they usually didn’t have a spot to remain in Poland.
“All of the refugee camps have been overcrowded. There have been a number of folks. And we had two animals, a cat and a canine, and it was much more tough to discover a place for us,” Maymeskul mentioned.
They determined to attempt to get to Germany, which was a bit bit nearer to England, and keep there till they might journey on.
“I didn’t ask something from Martha. I’m simply telling her about my occasions,” Maymeskul mentioned. “And she or he mentioned, ‘OK, I’ve understood. We’ve to seek out somebody in Germany.’”
Conway-Cole knew folks in Germany as a result of she hosted three Belfast Space Excessive College trade college students from there through the years. She received in contact with all of them, and two mentioned they’d assist the ladies discover flats and with translation. The third supplied for the ladies and their households to stick with her mom.
“So [Anna and her friend] and the three boys and the canine and the cat ended up in Germany,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
They remained in Germany for weeks, till lastly getting permission to journey on to France. By this time, that they had despatched the cat again to Ukraine so it might be reunited with Maymeskul’s husband. That’s as a result of they wanted to get a particular license to deliver the animals to England, and figured it might be simpler with simply the canine.
Lastly, after one other delay in France, the Ukrainians made it to England. They’re staying with a household in Plymouth, and determining their new lives. For the second, Maymeskul continues to be educating her class from Bucha remotely, and the children are starting to be taught English.
It’s not all the time straightforward being a stranger in a wierd land, even with assist. Particularly when their residence nation continues to be beneath assault.
In June, Conway-Cole and Hurley went to England to go to household there — and to fulfill Maymeskul in particular person in any case this time.
“I felt like I’d recognized her all my life,” Conway-Cole mentioned.
They’d a picnic, and a champagne toast, and laughed and talked collectively, and even the load of what that they had lived by way of couldn’t dampen the enjoyment of the day.
“I used to be glad I had my sun shades on as a result of I used to be getting all teary-eyed,” Hurley mentioned.
For Maymeskul, the best way that so many individuals — together with Conway-Cole — got here ahead to assist her and her household and buddies on the journey to security has meant the world to her.
“I see how individuals are involved about occasions in my nation. How individuals are prepared and open to assist,” she mentioned. “It offers the hope not solely to me, however to all folks of my nation, that if the world is with us, it means that we’ll win this battle and all the pieces might be OK for all folks.”
