Around the table, dishes and small labels. On one side, the French name, on the other the Ukrainian name, even if sometimes, it is not always easy to translate: “the quiche, it does not exist in Ukraine” explains Katrina. She still writes the name of a dish that looks like her: “we also put ingredients on the dough, but it is for example meat, or cabbage, that we cook first“. This 30-year-old left Ukraine five years ago to make her life in France. Since March, her parents have fled the war and are living with her.
– Perrine ROGUET
In welcoming families and because of the language barrier, it is not always easy to discuss, and even for those who already learn or speak French well, finding compatriots is good: “It’s like a family, we miss ours very much“says Lumilia.
Go and leave all his family behind
She left alone with her son from kyiv at the start of the war” the important thing is that my son is safe, here he goes to school in Orléans, and I have found work” she explains. When she left, she left behind her husband, but also all her loved ones: “Fortunately there is internet to see each other every day, but that does not replace contact, smells, it is very difficult“.
A family spirit is born between the Ukrainians welcomed in the Loiret, and Laurent noticed it: “Ola and Zina [ qu’il accueille avec Marie, sa femme] introduced us just now to women we didn’t know“. This network allows everyone to find help, especially for administrative papers, in the face of which those welcomed and welcoming sometimes find themselves alone and helpless.
hopes for peace
In the garden of the Tournoisis village hall, the parenthesis allowed a hundred people to feel a little lightness. Laurent, hopes he won’t come back for a second edition next year: “it will mean that peace will have returned“. With Marie, his wife, they even have a project: “going on vacation to Ukraine next summer!“An optimism coupled with a desire: that of finally being able to combine war and the past.