Karma isn't a bitch: ... a collection of sarcastic stories from a private refugee camp
About this ebook
A businessperson.
I managed a comfortable life, owned a decent-sized hotel and a small complex of houses just outside the city.
My world was tidy, predictable, built on balance sheets and bookings.
But everything changed in a matter of days.
Not just for me—but for hundreds of others who arrived with nothing but fear in their eyes and the clothes on their backs.
When the war started in Ukraine, I didn't plan to get involved.
I watched the news like everyone else, shocked and angry.
I saw the images—families separated, cities bombed, people running with no clear destination. And then the buses started arriving.
The first week was chaos. Hundreds of people came through—most of them women, many with children, a few with parents in tow.
I still remember the exhaustion on their faces, the silence of the children, the way they clutched plastic bags like lifelines.
They didn't want much.
Just somewhere safe to breathe.
Somewhere warm.
I opened the doors to my hotel and the houses. Everything was free.
No one asked me to do it. No one promised anything in return.
I just knew I had to. It was as if some unseen force had taken hold of me, whispered"Go. Help."I didn't ask questions. I just moved.
It wasn't easy.
In fact, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done.
We ran out of food, space, patience, sleep.
I had to expand rooms, make temporary bedding, organize volunteers, and mediate endless conflicts. Because truth be told, when you put hundreds of strangers in the same space—traumatized, frightened, with no idea what tomorrow brings—it's not peaceful.
It's pressure.
Constant pressure.
And those women?
They drove me crazy a million times over.
Some demanded too much, others clashed with each other, some cried constantly, and a few didn't even say thank you.
I got yelled at, lied to, leaned on.
But despite all that, I couldn't stop.
I kept helping.
Even when I swore I'd had enough, something inside me kept pushing me forward.
Looking back now, three and a half years later, I realize I was part of something far bigger than myself.
Something karmic.
That's the only word that fits.
I didn't help because I was a good person.
I helped because I was meant to.
Something—or someone—moved me.
I still don't know what it was.
A force.
A pull.
Maybe God.
Maybe fate.
But whatever it was, it made sure I didn't walk away.
Now, with the clarity of time, I can say this: we all showed our true faces during those years.
Every single one of us.
The refugees, the volunteers, even me.
Some people became bitter, selfish, cruel.
Others became softer, kinder, stronger.
We didn't all come out better, but we all came out revealed.
I saw women who had lost everything step up to help others.
I saw volunteers cry from exhaustion and then keep working.
I saw teenagers become men overnight.
I saw sides of myself I didn't know existed—both noble and shameful.
There were days I cursed the war, the people, and the entire mission.
But there were also days where the smallest "thank you"
broke me open.
Today, I still host some of them.
Not as many, but enough. Some have stayed in Romania.
Some went back.
Some moved on to Germany, France, even Canada.
I still help, even when it's hard.
Even when I feel I have nothing more to give.
Why?
I wish I had a rational answer. But I don't. The truth is, that force—whatever it was—is still inside me.
I'm still determined.
Not because I expect reward.
Not because I'm a saint.
But because, when everything fell apart for them, I had something to offer.
A room.
A bed.
A moment of peace.
And if I could do it again, even knowing how hard it would be... I would.
Because in that mission—difficult, chaotic, maddening—I found something I didn't even know I was searching for.
I found myself.
And I learned that sometimes, the greatest act of love is simply to open your door.
About the author
I began my first book at sixteen, full of the belief that words could open worlds. But when I realized I could not publish it, I folded the dream away and abandoned the idea of becoming a writer.
Twenty years later, I returned to the page, certain that this time I would succeed. I wrote with ambition, chasing recognition... and failed again, watching the success I was after slip through my fingers.
Another five years passed before I started writing once more — but this time, it was different. I wasn't writing for an audience, for applause, or for any kind of measurable result. I was writing as a way to breathe. As therapy.
It was what I came to call self-therapy — a private conversation between my thoughts and my soul. I found myself analyzing strange ideas, shaping them into words, and in the process, forgetting entirely about the pursuit of success. I was simply expressing myself in short essays, capturing fragments of thought.
In this way, I became perhaps an essayist — not quite a poet, yet not entirely a writer either. Or maybe I was a kind of poet unable to write poetry, but still finding ways to express myself in a language that felt close to it. Not a writer, because I could never linger on the same subject long enough to turn it into a book-length story.
Or perhaps I am not even an essayist. Perhaps I am simply an ordinary person who thinks too much, who uses words as tools for understanding himself. Through this ongoing process of self-therapy, I began to see life more clearly — the paths I should have avoided, and the ones I should follow.
And I wrote. And wrote. And wrote. Until one day, I realized I had published dozens of books — without truly understanding how I had managed to do it.
Today, I dare to recommend writing to others as a form of healing. It is a mirror that shows us who we are, and a gentle way of mending the soul.
I continue to write. For me, it is a story without an ending — a practice I will carry for the rest of my life. And I am glad to do it.
I keep walking this philosophical path, without the need to define myself clearly as a writer or an essayist. I only know that I am moving in the right direction.
And if there is one thing I can offer others, it is this: try it. Put your thoughts on the page. It may not give you success, but it may just give you yourself.
