Madrileños helping Ukraine

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post and I’ve been super-busy, but I don’t want to wait to share a story with you about how everyday Spaniards are reacting to the war crisis in Ukraine and doing their bit to help out.

This is not your everyday story about people donating food, goods and money—that’s a given and is happening in every town and city across the country and across Europe. In Tres Cantos there was a collection at the town hall and within a few days they had 2000 boxes of non-perishable supplies—everything from diapers and baby food to medicines and even sleeping bags, that were loaded onto trucks and shipped to Poland a couple of days ago. There are also silent vigils to protest Russia’s aggression.

But the story I want to tell you is about something that happened, this past Sunday, at the Madrid airport. There was a group of taxi drivers, standing around talking, waiting for customers, and of course, the topic was the Ukraine invasion. Everyone was lamenting the terrible situation and wishing they could do more. Suddenly, as happens, one of them said, “You know, we could…” and here’s how I imagine the conversation went:

“Could what? Go to war ourselves?”

“No, be more direct with our help.”

“What? How? We’re in Madrid.”

“What if we drove there…”

“Where?”

“And do what, pray tell!”

“What if we drove to Poland, to the border with Ukraine…”

“Yeah, we could take supplies with us to give them help, right there on the border.”

“And we could bring some Ukrainian refugees back with us. We are professional drivers, afterall…”

Excitement grew and they started putting forth more ideas.

Then suddenly one of them said (and this part is true, according to the taxi drivers who were there,) “¡No hay huevos!” meaning, no one has the balls to do it.

And just like that, there were suddenly a whole lot of “huevos”.

So, they raised money and made plans. On Thursday, March 10th, in the afternoon, just 4 days later, 34 taxis, each carrying two drivers, left Madrid. It’s a 30-hour trip, some 3000 km (2000 miles) each way. Their plan is to stop only to switch out drivers.

Their taxis packed to the gills, they are transporting thousands of pounds of humanitarian aid. When they arrive on the Ukrainian border,  they will offload, spend the night in a hotel, then pick up refugee passengers (as approved by the Ukrainian government and NGOs that are helping with the massive resettlement operation) and turn around and drive the 30 hours back to Spain.

Once they arrive in Madrid, the Spanish government will organize housing for the war victims.

Over 2.3 million people have fled from the country whose population is only 40 million. These are people that 2 weeks ago had jobs, went to school, and lived in a democracy. And here in Europe, they are our neighbors.

It’s a small effort, bringing back the number of people who can fit in 34 taxis, but it is meaningful. I’m so proud of those taxi drivers—and everyone—who is doing what they can to help.