Our journey back was undertaken full of uncertainty and apprehension. For the first time in nine months we set foot in our town, to be confronted with terrible destruction, ruin after ruin-streets in shambles, potholes and everywhere trenches and barricades, barbed wire and smashed windows, heaps of dirt.
Our house was still standing, damaged by bullet and grenade impact, but coming through the open door, we were welcomed by an enormous stench.
The sight was a shocker, it was like arriving at a rubbish tip, worse they used our livingroom as a toilet. A nauseating task to clean all this mess and it took some time putting some order in our lives again. Weeks, and even months later Mum or Jacqueline would call out, 'Do you know what else is missing...'?
Without the help of HARK and the Red Cross, where would we have been. We received beds and other furniture, a dinner set, while the food was cooked and supplied by a communal kitchen. It was not the best of tastes, rather bland, but we were grateful not to be left on our meagre resources.