Paul Hopkins: Enriched and saddened meeting young Ava and Polina

It is a warm and sunny Sunday, a slight breeze in the air. It is the Orthodox Easter Sunday, about two weeks after the Rome one, a day celebrated by Ukrainians, those refugees we have welcomed to our shores. Those fleeing the Russian onslaught being rained down on their kinfolk — the fighting men and women, the old and infirm and those with no wherewithal to escape — left behind in a hell on earth.

The Ukrainians are holding an Easter fair in the local Scouts den beside the tennis courts. They had been preparing for it all week. A group of women spent three days baking in Grainne's and Paul’s kitchen while elsewhere floral wreaths, painted eggs and decorations were being made.

On the day the hall is decorated with balloons, tables are stacked high with authentic Ukrainian food and crafts and everyone is dressed in traditional attire. The fence outside in the Sunday sunshine is hung with Ukrainian flags and chairs scattered on the grassy knoll.

I am here to meet Nadia Iashchuk and her daughter Ava, just 14. I have become involved in helping Ava settle in to the local community school and, other than that, I wish not to elaborate. Nadia and Ava are living with Grainne and she too I am meeting today for the first time.

I meet another Nadia, Nadia Vasnevska. She has a stall selling ribbons and headbands in the Ukrainian colours of blue and yellow. I buy some. Nadia is 19, she tells me.

Who did you come with?

I came alone, she replies, somewhat shy and hesitant. My mother would not leave my grandparents. My father and brothers are fighting in the war.

There is a sadness in her eyes.

Then I meet Polina, also 19. She is with her mother and their stall has sold out, as have most at this special Easter fair. She, too, has left her father and brother back home, fighting against the raggedy Russian invaders.

She is a journalism student, she tells me, and is continuing her studies online with her college back home for as long as that is feasible.

I tell her I am a long-time, paid-up member of this relentless and remorseless trade that is newspapers. Polina asks if she can interview me for her ongoing video blog to get my views on the war. We step outside to the grassy knoll and the Sunday sunshine, and she flicks her smartphone into action.

I ramble on for five minutes or so with carefully worded views on Putin's onslaught on Ukraine. When I finish, she smiles, a most wondrous smile and we hug. You are like my grandpapa, she says, and I do my utmost to keep the salted tear from trickling down my cheek.

Then I finally meet Nadia and her daughter Ava. We elbow each other. They acknowledge me in that they know of my role in Ava's schooling. As much as Grainne and I feel they need to know. I don't wish to pronounce in any fashion my small, simple contribution.

Nadia is a trade journalist, had her own magazine and a staff of 10 back home. Ava is a delight; pretty as a picture, bubbly and energetic, full of life and potential.

I just love your glasses. I want those glasses, I say, and she laughs the good laugh.

Nadia and Ava left their house in Rivne in Western Ukraine on Friday, 25th March. From there they got a bus to Krakow in Poland as it’s the nearest Polish town with direct flights to Ireland.

Nadia tells me: "We took the bus in one day and we came to Krakow. When it started it was an awful situation. People were at border for two days and two nights."

Leaving the Ukraine was a difficult decision to make. Mother and daughter left behind all their family and friends including Nadia’s husband, her sister and her parents. "They’re all at home," says Nadia. "It’s a difficult situation now in our country, in our city. So bad. You always wait on something to happen. Too much times in the day you have sirens."

I eventually bid farewell, not wishing to overstay my welcome, to be that inquiring journalist. I promise to keep in touch.

I leave the Scouts Den an old man enriched by meeting these lovely people, positive and hopeful despite the odds. But, also, a man draped in a cloak of utter sadness at the madness of this world.