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A very sunny Sunday in Galway, the seagulls soar above the city. I slip through the streets like silence in the beads from Ukraine, I head to the central square of the city of Eyre Square. We are meeting here with the Ukrainians living in Galway for the afternoon vigil – to express our solidarity with Ukraine.

This opportunity was given to us by Elizabeth Stolbovaya, a Ukrainian woman who lives in Galway, who gathered all of us here to provide us with information on how we can support the Ukrainians. And she said that consciousness that they are not alone hugs them a lot.

I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one – we are welcome by the words of the John Lenon song Imagine from a smartphone connected to a loudspeaker. I feel warm and see beautiful colors around me, but at the same time, my tears shine in this March sun. Pain, which I cannot name exactly, only knows that there is something blue about it. I am thinking of my sister’s Ph.D. student who is hidden with her child in a subway – a shelter in Kyiv. It must be terribly dark there. Meanwhile, at Eyre Square, children paint the Ukrainian flag, then a crooked image of the torturer who sparked the war. However, throughout this event, in the background, one man sprays the wings of a butterfly on a foil-covered window pane.

There are so many colors and lots of different people. We feel, pack parcels in the afternoons, read poems, busk for peace on the streets, talk, fear, paint nails like some women on the front. Some of us are sick and have been in bed for a month, having serious surgeries, but wearing blue and yellow ribbons in pajamas.

Each of us tries to unite with Ukraine as much as we can, and this huge community, which we sew with colorful threads in various places, connects us. Let us believe that we have the power to stop this terrible war.

For more information on how to help from Galway, you can check out the group West of Ireland support of Ukraine.

You can also join the volunteer group in a new central hub for Ukraine donations Galway Racecourse or help in packing in Polo Stores on Tuam Road, Galway.