When Irish Eyes are Smiling

On the 9^th September late in the evening the trucks rolled into Chisinau after an eleven hour stint at the Moldovan border. It was cold wet and miserable just like we felt but the only thing to keep our spirits up was the fact that we didn’t have the aid delivered yet. The next morning we believed was to be the final part of our journey to deliver the aid. It started with a short journey to the Transdnistrian border where we were held up for around two hours while the customs and police crossed their T’s and dotted their i’s. There was five trucks going to this part of the country and our first stop was to a secure compound managed by one of the charities in Tiraspol.

The three English trucks off loaded their aid there under the watchful eyes of the customs while the two Irish trucks Anthony McCrave, Michael Gallagher, Rory Duggan and John Wallace were sent on to their final destination which was Victors Psycho-neurological Hospital. On arrival we were informed that we would not be off loading the aid until the following morning as the customs had to be present to break the secure seals on the truck doors.

After being introduced to Victor who runs the hospital and some of his staff, we then got a tour of the facilities. You could see there was plenty of work done to the buildings but more to do. As for the patients/residents of Victors to be honest I have seen men, women and children with similar degrees of mental disabilities of about 70% of Victors residents as my sister is a manager in a mentally handicapped hospital in Ireland. However the difference in attention, facilities and financial support is worlds apart. The other 30% of patients in Victors was horrific both physically and mentally handicapped boys and men. I couldn’t imagine where you would start to give these people and quality of life, but in Victors they try.

That night there was a hospitality dinner set out for us with the different members and representatives of the charities. We were made very welcome and we were all afforded the opportunity to speak and mention what we thought of the work being done. The following morning, Saturday 10^th we arrived back in Victors to off load the trucks while our English counterparts were taken away to meet a government representative. They were hoping to help us offload the trucks but that unfortunately was not to be. However there was plenty of help at hand including some of the patients of Victors who got stuck in.

We know that the aid we off loaded that day was probably less than 1% in a lifetime but all them 1% add up and the excitement on the lads faces would be on a par with a child on Christmas morning. After the trucks were empty we sat down on the pavement in the blazing sun surrounded by the lads from Victors. Michael got out his guitar and banjo and played some tunes and sang some songs. It was then more than any other time we knew we were happy to be there and we know they were happy to have us there. Everywhere I looked around everyone was happy, laughing and singing, me and a couple of the boys from the hospital were dancing, the sun was shining like never before.

I know we had arrived

I know our work here was done

Irish eyes were smiling.

Anthony McCrave CWU Ireland