Becoming Part of the Canadian Family - Marion Israel

Last week Ken & I attended a display of photographs by David McMillan at the K-W Art Gallery titled `The Chernobyl Evacuation Zone'.   The exhibit was a series of pictures of abandoned homes, schools and churches, empty play grounds and green areas where vegetation is stunted or growing abnormally.

Since 1994, David McMillan made 6 trips to Chernobyl to photograph the decaying architecture filled with remnants of personal belongings of those who fled the disaster, and to capture the catastrophic effects of human invention and the disappearance of ideals of a human-made world.   In 1986, radioactive emissions from the damaged nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, resulted in the forced evacuation of over 135,000 people.  The entire population of Pripyat was evacuated by bus.  People took only essential belongings with them and left everything behind, including pets.  Within days of the evacuation, hunters entered the city and shot all the animals.  Many of the buildings have since been vandalized or used to store contaminated materials and articles.

Consequences from the disaster persists. It has been estimated that the soil and food chain will be significantly contaminated until the year 2135.  For the people of Belarus, who must continue to eat, breath and sleep beside the zone, life expectancy has dropped dramatically.  This was brought home to us recently by the young lad who has spent the last three summers with the Israel family.  We received an e-mail from Yura in February of this year, to tell us his mother was sick.   We immediately e-mailed back and asked him to let us know what the doctor said as soon as his mother came home from the clinic.  In the meantime we informed the members of our group and remembered Marina and Yura's family in our prayers.

Yura is 16 years old.  He is a very personable boy, tall and very, very thin. He not only learned to speak English quickly but he learned to operate the Israel computer and find his way around the e-mail.  He even translated letters for some of the host families to send home with the visiting children.  When he returned to Belarus he arranged to use the Internet at the Post Office.  The next message we received from him said that his mother had an enlarged thyroid and sugar in her blood.  Marina is in her late forties.  Yura is very worried about his mother, especially since his aunt, Marina's sister Ina, died last year from cancer of the kidneys.  Marina had been caring for Ina's two children.  Now they have gone to live with their father and new step mother.

We visited Belarus last fall and met Yura's parents.  They are a lovely family, considerate and generous - and we feel so badly for them.  To complicate matters, Yura's doctor in Belarus told him that he has a heart murmur.  We will have Yura checked by our excellent Canadian health care providers and if possible he will have the tests and treatment that he needs.  Yura has hope because he will come to Canada again this summer.

Our hearts ache for the people who must live with life altering problems that they cannot avoid.  When children come from Belarus to get away from the radiation ( to allow their immune systems to grow and become stronger, to receive health care, to learn life skills, to glean  hope for the future) they become part of the Canadian family where they stay.  Host families love them while they are here and worry about them when they go home.  A solid bond is formed between the families on both sides of the world.