Palina Yanachkina grew up near Chernobyl and after the nuclear disaster had exceptionally high levels of radiation in her body. Her future looked bleak - until a holiday to Ireland changed everything

I grew up in the village of Polessye, in northern Belarus, and the event that shaped my life took place two years before I was born. In the early hours of April 26 1986, the worst nuclear accident in history occurred in the Ukrainian city of Chernobyl.

Following the explosion at the nuclear reactor, Polessye, which is about 200 miles away, was swamped by a cloud of radioactive fallout. By the time I was born, the radiation was embedded in the fabric of the village. Not only in its air, water and soil, but in people's attitude to life. The disaster had taken away their hope.

In the wake of it all, my mum, Nadia, and dad, Lyocha, did their best to give my younger brother Micha and me a good life. They owned a farm and we kept pigs, horses, cows and chickens and grew potatoes, tomatoes, strawberries, cucumbers and sweetcorn.

Before Chernobyl, my parents sold their produce to the international market. Afterwards, no one would buy it. My parents knew it was contaminated, but we had no choice but to eat it ourselves. It was either that or starve.

Occasionally, my mum and dad would talk about happier times, but mostly people tried not to think about the past. It was too painful. Many turned to drink to blot out their memories.

I was around eight when I started becoming aware of the reason behind the suffering in my village. Some important people from a university in the capital, Minsk, came to visit our school. They talked about what we could and couldn't eat. Some kids liked to pick mushrooms in the forest, but we were told not to do this because they were badly contaminated.

They also did tests on us and found that my body contained high levels of radiation, just like the mushrooms. We were all given vitamin C to take, but that didn't stop me falling ill with throat infections every winter. Sometimes, I would be off school for three weeks in a row. My kidneys were very weak, so I also suffered from constant back pain.

I was 10 when the people from the university asked me if I would like stay with an Irish family in Limerick for a month in the school holidays. They explained that a charity had been set up to help children like me, and that the trip would improve my health.

I couldn't help feeling daunted at the prospect of going to a strange country by myself. I had barely left the village before and didn't speak a word of English. But I was given a few days to think about it.

"It's entirely up to you," my mum said. "You never know - it could be a real benefit."

I decided to go for it. Another five children from my village had been chosen to come to Ireland with me. We were all picked because of the exceptionally high levels of radiation in our bodies.

When we arrived in Limerick, I was given a sticker with the name of my host family written on it. A translator came along to help with the introductions.

I watched as all the other kids were taken away - the family I was to stay with were late. I was filled with trepidation. Would they like me? How would we communicate? What if I wanted to go home?

Then I saw a young, friendly-looking couple walking towards me with a little girl in tow. "Please let it be them," I prayed. To my great relief, it was. Their names were John and Fiona Quaid and they had two children, Chloe, then three, and Evan, who was six.

On my first day, John and Fiona took me to a shopping centre and bought me a teddy bear. It was a world away from the little village shop that I was used to, and I gazed about, open-mouthed, the entire time we were there.

With the translator gone, the only way to communicate with John and Fiona was using a phrase book. We took it in turns to point out words in English and Belarussian, but I soon found a better way to show them how I was feeling. After my first delicious meal round their table, I gave them both a hug to demonstrate how grateful I was.

I soon became firm friends with Chloe and Evan. You don't need to speak the same language to play. But as the days passed, I missed my family terribly. We didn't have a phone back home, so I couldn't even call them. Sometimes, I found the Quaids' way of life overwhelming. When Fiona took me shopping and asked me to pick out some clothes I liked, I didn't understand. It wasn't just the language barrier. At home, we got what we were given. There was never a choice - and besides, I loved everything in the shop.

By the time I went home, I could speak a few words in English and was delighted when the Quaids invited both my brother and me back for Christmas.

The translator had told me that Christmas was a big deal in Ireland, but even in my wildest dreams I could not have imagined what it was going to be like. I nearly fainted when I came down on Christmas morning to a room full of presents. In Belarus, my parents couldn't afford to buy us gifts. The best we could ever hope for was a bar of chocolate or a fizzy drink when they got paid. They earned the equivalent of £20 a month, so there was little spare for luxuries. It was the same for everyone we knew. When I packed to go home after Christmas, I left all my clothes in the wardrobe so there would be room for all my toys.

The twice-yearly visits to Ireland became a matter of routine and I started to spend three months with the Quaids over the summer. It had a dramatic effect on my health. When I hit my teens, the people from Minsk came to retest my radiation levels. I had just come back from a spell in Ireland and they were down to zero. The experts were convinced that I had picked up some medicine from somewhere. They insisted on searching our house for it and even tested our food and clothes. Word got around the village that we had some magic cure for radiation and everyone was stopping my mum to ask her about it. The people in the village had little comprehension of life in the outside world. They could barely believe that there was a place where children were mostly healthy and breathing the air did you good.

No one had to remind me how lucky I was. John and Fiona even paid for me to have lessons with a girl in my area who had been to university and spoke English.

But as I got older, I couldn't help feeling frustrated. Ever since I could remember, I had dreamed of becoming a doctor. I was doing well at school, but my dreams had little chance of coming true. It was increasingly the case in my country that you had to have money in order to go away and study. I stopped trying so hard at school and spent most of my free time helping my parents out with the farm.

I imagined that I would probably end up marrying someone from the village and carry on doing farm work for the rest of my life.

Unbeknown to me, John and Fiona were planning a different future for me. They had visited my village and seen for themselves what my prospects were if I stayed in Belarus. When I was 16, they asked if I would like to stay with them full-time and study at university in Ireland. It wasn't an easy decision. I knew my parents would find it hard to let me go, but they told me that my future was more important than theirs. They wanted me to live rather than just exist.

It was a long and painful process to get my visa application approved. For a while, it was touch and go whether I would be allowed to stay. Seeing how worried John and Fiona were about me having to leave made me realise just how attached they had become to me. I had begun to refer to them as my second mum and dad, and they now saw me as their daughter. Luckily, everything worked out in the end.

I am almost 20 now and about to complete my first year at the University of Limerick.

I am studying industrial biochemistry and hope to one day work in a lab researching cures for diseases. I haven't ruled out doing a medical degree later so I can fulfill my dream of becoming a doctor. I have heard that one other girl from Belarus ended up studying here, but don't know whether she stayed. The trips abroad ended for most of the children once they had grown up.

I have been in Ireland for three years now and it's becoming harder and harder for me to go back to Polessye. My last visit was a year ago and I try to go annually. My parents and brother have a phone now, and every time I ring they tell me that yet another young person I know has died of cancer.

One day, I hope to return to Belarus and help those who haven't been as fortunate as me. My Irish family gave me the one thing every child deserves, and that is hope. I see it as my duty to pass that on.

· Palina Yanachkina was talking to Danielle Wrate. She first went to Ireland with the Chernobyl Children's Project International (chernobyl-international.com).

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