At a summer camp for war-traumatized children, two campers found love
LVIV REGION, Ukraine — To hear Elvira tell the story, she and Kyrylo fell in love on the fourth day of summer camp.
The buildings were rustic and wood-hewn, the skies stacked tall with clouds. It was a place where anyone might start to feel normal again but especially children of war, forced to grow up too soon. Afternoons brought crafts and vanilla cones, hula-hoops and a pool with a high dive. No cellphones.
In the swarm of 50 kids — ages 7 to 17, all in matching cotton shirts with pink hearts on the front, each traumatized in their own way — Elvira and Kyrylo found each other.
She was 11 but wished she was 15, with brown hair that hit her waist and sandals shaped like sharks. She liked to argue with her assigned psychologist, aiming to annoy her as much as possible — the same tactic she took with her roommate, Katya. He, “almost 13” but actually still 12, wore bright, baggy shorts and a thin-lipped smile. The dye streaking his blond hair was more pink than the intended red.
Kyrylo thought Elvira was pretty and confident, so on the third day of camp — after their team had won the quiz bowl — he invited her to dance, then gifted her a yellow bracelet. If he is the one telling the story, that’s when he says they fell in love. But to Elvira, it was still unclear. “I want to ask if you want to date me?” she wrote in a letter to him that night. “I propose tomorrow we discuss it. If not, I don’t mind being friends.”
https://wapo.st/47Q0X7s