Watching the news back home never interested me. Not because I did not understand the importance of keeping myself informed about the happenings around the world. It was just too much war and violence. It was always one reporter in a country filming and talking about some war where thousands of children and innocent people were being killed daily, and no way of solving the conflict. I always felt so lost and helpless, like there was nothing I could do but watch all of them die. Therefore, my solution was to keep the news I watched to the minimum. I would only watch when we were eating dinner in the living room, as my dad insisted on watching the 6pm news.
As I grew older, I began to watch more news, read more articles, and keep myself updated on the most important happenings in the world. Still keeping it to less than average because of the sickening feeling of not being able to help at all.
This changed when Russia invaded Ukraine February 24th, 2022. During that period of time, the Trinity women’s squash team were still in season and we were doing well. Our team is mostly international players, and one of my teammates is Ukrainian. Our former teammate and captain, Nadiia Usenko, graduated from Trinity in 2022. She is probably one of the toughest people I have ever met, her nickname was “the machine” because she never gave up and trained almost more than anyone on our team. Seeing first hand how the war affected her was devastating to me. The first time she was notified that her father was being called back into the military to fight in the war, she cried in my arms. The time her parents had called her before her graduation, telling her that they might not be able to watch it because there were bombs being dropped outside their house, and they had to hide in the basement without internet. I could see the pain in her eyes when she told me. Not only were they not able to watch their daughter receive her diploma, but they were living amid conditions of war and danger while being helpless with hope for survival.
I learned that even though she was here in the US, she still involved herself in the war. Her involvement was that of love and support. Spreading the truths on social media, how many innocent people were dying, how Russia has been breaking most of the human rights possible, and how Russia has been spreading fake news to excuse their attack. Therefore, I have chosen to do the same through this blog. Keeping people informed on what is going on in Ukraine. However, because I still do not like reading too much about the many deaths of soldiers, innocent people, children, and animals, I will try to focus on the good news. With good news I mean the news about people helping people, the news about everyone standing together in a time of war and destruction, it can even be about predictions telling us how fast the war might end.
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