Omala Snyder talks to Maria Ostrenko, who with her young son fled Kyiv in the early weeks of the war with Russia—leaving behind her husband. Even though, Ostrenko says, “We understood that no one could guarantee us we wouldn’t be [shot] along the way.” And, in fact, they passed cars riddled with bullet holes that still bore signs reading, “Children inside.” After staying for a time in central Ukraine she realized, Snyder says, that nowhere felt safe. So she and her son eventually made it to Hanover, where her mother lives, joining the several dozen other Ukrainian refugees who call the Upper Valley home, at least for now. “The woods around me,” she says, “made me more calm.”

From Kyiv to Hanover_Omala Snyder.mp3

One of a series of podcasts produced by Dartmouth students in Sophie Crane’s winter 2023 class, “Tell Me A Story: An Introduction to Nonfiction Radio and Podcasting.” Omala Snyder is a junior at Dartmouth, originally from London, England.