Made with Love: Soup and Smiles from kids in a kitchen to the Frontline

Food is very important to the soldiers fighting in the trenches and we were about to witness how high calorific tasty soup mixture is made and packaged to feed the defenders at the front.

We arrived at another non-descript house on another non-descript road. The complex simplicity of supplying the Ukrainian front line was about to be fully demonstrated again.

It was joyous to see a small group, of children all aged twelve or under, giggling, a little embarrassed at meeting these strangers from strange lands and, best of all seeing them when they broke away to play on a garden swing and laughed with such delight it was a privilege to behold.

I noticed a couple of the girls looking at me and whispering but thought nothing of it not even when they approached me and asked my name. “Liz, L.I.Z.” I said and I spelled it out.

Then the question, to explain the side eye interest and whispers, “Do you have a blog?”

I explained I did and gave the blog title. The smiles on the faces grew huge. These girls had read my blog. They were meeting the writer of a blog they had read and it was like I was special. They had their picture taken with me and I took pictures of them making the soup mix.

This is a practised production line. Ingredients are measured, large dehydrated items efficiently crushed and then the serious and thorough mixing began.

Once it was agreed that the mix was correct ziplock bags appeared complete with instructions and a claim of “Зроблено з любов’ю” [made with love] printed on the labels and each packet was careful filled with the correct quantity.
One batch mixed by these youngsters makes one hundred and thirty packets of ‘one man’ soup. They feed one hundred and thirty soldiers from this little kitchen table.

They offered us samples of the soup and initially I declined, not wanting to wanting to come between a squaddie and his grub. But then I remembered my ‘Old cold war warrior’ at home and I struck a deal with the kids.

I would pay them 1000uah for a packet of soup as long as they used the money to treat themselves. For something fun for them.

At a time when we are all raising money for so many worthy Ukrainian organisations it suddenly struck me: nothing is as worthy as the joy given to kids who can go and buy ‘whatever’ they want guilt free. That they earned that money and it is theirs to do with as the wish.

I hope they wasted it on themselves as unwisely as possible.