The two girls eyed each other curiously when they met in the office of the director of Zhodino State orphanage near Minsk in Belarus last month. The taller girl with the blond hair looked expectantly at the younger one with the impish face who had just skipped into the room.
"My name is Christina," the older one said, waiting for recognition. "I have a sister called Christina," the little one boasted. "But I am your sister," Christina screamed, before the girls, who had not seen each other in almost three years, cried and embraced.
The emotional reunion between Christina and Katya is one of the happier stories from a country that has been torn apart by fall-out from the Chernobyl nuclear accident and the effects of a disastrous economy. They were put into state care when their alcoholic mother abandoned them and their grandmother could no longer cope. Christina's father died when she was very young and her stepfather, Katya's dad, was in jail.
Christina, now aged 10, was sent to Grozova Orphanage in southern Belarus. Katya, now six, went to Zhodino orphanage for pre-school children four hours drive away.
We first met Christina on December 23rd, 1998, in the Chernobyl Aid Ireland headquarters in Waterford. Pale-faced and shaven-headed, she had come to Ireland to undergo surgery for Fallot's Tetralogy, a serious heart condition which left her with purple lips and required her to go down on her hunkers several times a day, to catch her breath. Her health was so poor that doctors did not think she would survive many more winters in the harsh eastern European climate without surgery.
As we sat in the Chernobyl office, trying to get to know our new friend, Christina picked up the telephone and starting talking in Russian. "Who is she calling?" I asked. "She makes imaginary telephone calls to her little sister all the time," Christina's devoted interpreter, Alice Gordeeva, explained.
My husband John, son Stephen (10), daughter Catherine (8) and I were enchanted with Christina from the moment we met her that Christmas week. She looked every bit the poor little orphan. Seriously underweight, her head had been shaved by the orphanage authorities because of lice infestation. But there was a twinkle in her big blue eyes and a happiness about her that belied the tough times she'd been through.
Christina's operation was scheduled for January in Our Lady's Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin and she stayed with Alice Gordeeva, who now works full-time with Chernobyl Aid Ireland in Waterford, while she waited for the call. When it became clear the operation would be delayed, we invited Christina to come and live with us in Dublin. She had no English at first, but this did not stop her forging an instant and close bond with our children. There are no language barriers when it comes to playing with Barbie or listening to Boyzone, and her bright and lively personality cheered us all.
She became fully integrated in our community when the principal of Loreto National School in Rathfarnham, Sister Maria, welcomed her as a pupil. Special language tuition was arranged and within a month Christina was speaking English (and a few words of Irish!) with a south Dublin twang. Her hair had grown and she was now a blonde beauty.
Christina had her operation in Harefield Hospital in London last July where many Irish children are sent by the State. As luck would have it, her doctor was the renowned surgeon Dr Magdi Yacoub. She was transformed after the surgery. Her complexion changed from a bluey white to rosy red. Her breathing became regular and those pit stops for air that had been a feature of her daily routine were no more.
Last October, there was heartache when Christina's seven-month stay with our family ended and she boarded the plane at Shannon to return to Belarus. It seemed wrong that she had to go back when we were willing to give her a home here, but the authorities in Belarus insisted. The devastating loss we felt was eased by the news that she would be able to return to us for three weeks at Christmas, and for every summer for the foreseeable future.
Christina came to Ireland thanks to the remarkable efforts of the Waterford-based Chernobyl Aid Ireland group which "discovered" Grozova Orphanage in October 1997, and established a five-year aid programme to improve life for the 200 children there. It also set up a "rest and recuperation" programme whereby 50 of the children come to Ireland every summer for a one-month holiday with families all over the country.
Belarus, with a population of 10 million, has suffered enormously from the effects of the Chernobyl accident in 1986. This has been compounded by the economic collapse following the break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. The death rate has increased by 31 per cent since 1980 and more than 70 per cent of the population is living below the poverty line - compared with just 5 per cent in 1989. Since the Chernobyl nuclear accident, there has been a 10-fold increase in the number of children diagnosed with thyroid cancer in Belarus.
The founder member of Chernobyl Aid Ireland, Waterford ambulance driver Liam Grant, had been a volunteer with the Children of Chernobyl group led by Adi Roche, and part of the first Irish convoy to take aid to Romania. When he first visited Grozova, he was shocked at the dreadful conditions there.
It was a throwback to 1940s Ireland. Children had to trek to an outhouse to have cold water showers all year round. The food they were given was contaminated and they lived in the most basic of dormitories, where the air was thick with the smell of urine.
THE orphanage is a former military barracks built in the 1950s and situated outside the town of Slutsk, over 200km from Chernobyl. Grozova accommodates a mixture of social and biological orphans. Many of the social orphans, including Christina, come from families where alcoholism ruined whatever chance they had of a normal upbringing.
Chernobyl Aid Ireland drew up an action plan to bring conditions at Grozova up to an acceptable living standard for the children. Last year, volunteers built a new laundry with industrial washers and dryers. While this means that the children's clothes are now washed on a more regular basis, hygiene is still not what it should be.
Recently, a team of more than 100 Irish volunteers descended on Grozova for two weeks to continue with the upgrading programme. Plumbers, electricians, and carpenters worked around the clock to build new showers and toilets. Essential re-wiring was also undertaken and a new home-economics room was fitted out for the children. Plans were also drawn up to gut and totally replace the kitchen next summer - for which a major fund-raising campaign will be launched. The building equipment and food supplies to feed the army of volunteers for the two weeks were transported overland in a convoy of 10 trucks for what has now become the annual Irish invasion of Grozova. The orphanage gym became the "war office", dormitory, kitchen and dining area rolled into one. The food for the fortnight was served up by five Irish Army cooks.
I travelled with the group with a mission in mind - to see Christina and to take her to see the sister and grandmother she had not seen in so long.
Seeing Christina in her "home" environment was strange and upsetting at first. The sleeping area in Grozova is still in need of upgrading. The stench of urine as we walked up the stairs in the dark, depressing building to the room she shared with four others, was sickening. I could not help thinking of the last time I tucked her up in her snug bedroom in Dublin before she flew back after her Christmas break.
It was thanks to Alice Gordeeva that we discovered that Katya was living in Zhodino, which, in contrast to Grozova, was clean and bright. It was wonderful to see Christina and Katya skip around together after being apart for so long.
Christina travelled back with me to Ireland for the summer. She will have a minor operation next month to repair damage on her arm badly scalded when she was three. Her mother had left an open pan of boiling water within her reach in their apartment. She will stay with us until the end of August, and returned to Loreto National School until the summer holidays began.
And little Katya is coming to Dublin as part of the Chernobyl Aid Ireland rest and recuperation programme. She will be staying with close friends and Christina can't wait to show her Belarussian sister off to all her Irish friends.
"I have two sisters now," she boasts. "My sister in Dublin and my sister in Belarus."
Chernobyl Aid Ireland, c/o ESB Office, The Mall, Waterford. Tel: 051-858944
