TECUMSEH, Mich. — Life the past five weeks has been non-stop for Valeriya Isakova, her mom Oksana, and her younger brother Artur.
They escaped from Ukraine to Poland with little more than the clothes on their backs, bouncing from one temporary living space to the next. First in Germany, and now Switzerland, countries where they don't speak the language. But as refugees, it's all they can do while they wait for their American visa appointment in May.
"It's awful, it just destroys you from the inside. And it's really exhausting because you always have to move, you can not start planning anything," Valeriya said
Waiting for them in the United States is Valeriya's former host family, the Mattsons of Tecumseh. Not only have the Mattsons promised to let Valeriya and her family stay with them as long as they need, Valeriya says they're literally keeping them alive.
"We are lucky, in suffering, because we have Kari and we have Tecumseh and they saved us," Valeriya said. "The community raised money and that's what we live on right now. Because if we didn't have them, who raised the money, we wouldn't survive at all."
But returning to Tecumseh feels very far away for Valeriya and her mother. They have just received news that a friend of theirs had just been denied a visa.
Valeriya's mother is frustrated.
"My main desperate question is, why the United States doesn't accept people like us faster?" Oksana said, translated from Ukrainian. "We have friends there who could give us shelter and safety and help us through this period, but instead, we have to wait and struggle and we don't even know if we can enter or not. They make the process so complicated and it doesn't need to be this way."
But they say that while the process has been painful, and they are tired, knowing what awaits them in Tecumseh gives them the strength to keep going.
"My mom says during this time, you want to spend it with people who are waiting for you," Valeriya said.