This is the trip before the one that finalized with us arriving in Dublin. (I shall continue the story later on) It was such a cold winter, as you have them, in Romania, and we had to give it a try.
At the time,winter of 1999, Romania wasn't in the Schengen area and we wanted to get to Italy somehow, for a better life.
If all went well, we would spend the Christmas in Italy and hey, that was good. (but things will not turn out the way we hoped ....) the following episode finds me and my husband within a group of maybe 10 or 12 people, in some woods at the border of Slovakia with Austria. (I remember the day before this night, we walked around in Bratislava, bought some food and vodka for the night trip, and at some point we had to hide behind some landfill, as we saw what we thought it was the street police)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
(All these notes I have them almost ten years now....I have the notes, as I have some of the books from college. Its hard for me to throw a book away, I don't think I ever did. When I started college in Ballyfermot, my French teacher heard some of my story and she asked me to write, promising to help me publish maybe in some college journal, as she found the story fascinating. Yes, many people did when I told them in short. To me it felt normal, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of similar stories, of young people trying to get oversees before starting a family home, and even after, pushed by misery and lack of opportunities ). and one more thing, as I m merely re typing these notes, I can't help myself smile at my naivety ...Please forgive it. And then again, if any less naive than back then, I m still very much naive now. Naivety, stupidity and goodness, I hold on to bits of each.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
(All these notes I have them almost ten years now....I have the notes, as I have some of the books from college. Its hard for me to throw a book away, I don't think I ever did. When I started college in Ballyfermot, my French teacher heard some of my story and she asked me to write, promising to help me publish maybe in some college journal, as she found the story fascinating. Yes, many people did when I told them in short. To me it felt normal, there are thousands if not tens of thousands of similar stories, of young people trying to get oversees before starting a family home, and even after, pushed by misery and lack of opportunities ). and one more thing, as I m merely re typing these notes, I can't help myself smile at my naivety ...Please forgive it. And then again, if any less naive than back then, I m still very much naive now. Naivety, stupidity and goodness, I hold on to bits of each.
I kept asking R how much longer we had to walk, and so he asked the person in front, and that person the next person in front and so on....at some point I was told that not too long, but this was repeated for the last two hours at least! It was night and I was cold. My legs were sore, I was moving automatically, and thinking maybe this has been the last time I had to ask for how long we re still to walk. To reach the river. We had to get to the river. There, on the other side of the river actually, a minibus would wait for us, to bring us all, through Austria, to Italy. We were , at that moment, not faraway from the border and with some luck and of course our "leader" help, we should pass through.
I knew the guy, the "leader". His girlfriend and I worked at the same "pizzeria", Siena, a restaurant with Italian food, like many opened all throughout the 90 s. I only realized he s my colleague's boyfriend in the neighbor city we all met, a few hours after we left home. He didn't inspire me any trust, but I trusted my husband and at the time it was enough for me. We had some vodka, bought from the city , to keep us warm on our walk through the woods, it must have been minus 15 degrees Celsius, just a few days before Christmas. It turned out my intuition was right, the guy was a creep, he had no plan or idea what to do with us. The most far I got was on the other side of the river, but alone, without my husband, he was left behind, cause there was nobody to drive that boat back and pick him up. So we were screaming at each other , he telling me to keep calm and me growing a panic. So there I was brought by one of the men in the group, and the plan was him to go back after the others, but once there, he run away to look for the minibus that was supposedly waiting for us all. The pneumatic boat, or what it was, laying there near me in the river but the water was too cold and agitated, under the broken ice, that the thought of me getting into that boat and back to my husband, while seemingly doable ,was also paralyzing. Well, apparently not enough to be quiet, as I kept on screaming. How was I supposed to get back? I couldn't stay there forever, someone was going to hear our screams and we were bound to spend Christmas in some jail. But I was thinking , this seemed to be the only way I could get back to my husband, so I could scream as loud as I could, it didn't matter any more.
Have I got your attention? :) I m fine! After all, nobody caught us, some guy missing the minibus turned back to where the boat and I were, and took us on the other side, to my beloved hubby. He than had to literally drag me back to the hotel. You see, I had too much vodka all the way to the boat, my legs were not listening to me by now, and I was having a loud conversation with everybody, the trees, the "leader" of the group (yeah , he was still with us) and my husband. I know now that I can talk so much more than normal when I m drunk, not that I m not talkative already. I remember all these as a good time. I have never been afraid. We were trying to escape the misery and the trap we felt ourselves going in deeper and deeper.
In my behalf, I always wanted to go out (of the country) I had that feeling that I can't breath in there. In there (in my country) there s been only one single truly happy day for me. It was the moment I got crowned as a beauty princess and got so much attention from that man, the one that organized the contest, so much that I couldn't even deny all the gossip around us after that.(he was some well known business man that graduated at the high school I was in, and he paid grants to smart students, and also organized a beauty pageant under his name, and than he gave me the crown) It was the first time anyone showed so much interest in me. And in school the day after, there I was, incapable of explaining all these to my colleagues,no way, I was so shy. So I said nothing and let everybody think what they wanted to. (I kinda have the same attitude today. People will believe what they want to believe, and I m sometimes the same so I know) Nobody knew me before that night, nobody noticed me in school. So worried that they ll notice my worn out shoes, I kept very much to myself.
I heard this in a movie: details will sell the story. But damn it, I don't think I have a good memory, and getting worse! More than that, I don't pay attention to much. So in that happy day/night, I wasn't paying attention to anything much. I know now that I would see the whole event very differently. And it didn't matter to me than, but now it does, because maybe that day was the beginning of something new. The beginning of a different me. It must have been that moment that I wanted to get free. And talk. And say it all as I never dared before. Well, it wasn't going to be all smooth as I thought. Many things happened and some other were about to happen. Some mistakes I can't forget still, but only because I won't repeat them. There may be some things I m sorry for but surely not for coming to Ireland. I m proud of it, even if its not the only place I want to go. But I m here and there s hope for my dreams. I wasn't going to keep a secret the way I got here. One friend of mine, hearing that I want to write about it, freaked out. But why? We all have a story and I want to share mine. And I want to share feelings with it.
and more:
Like I said, I don't pay attention to much. Only what I m interested to, what catches my attention. I have been called oblivious. I sadly accept it. I accept I am and I hate it. I am also innocent to some extent, and the part I hate most to be associated with, ignorant at times too. Differences between innocence, ignorance and obliviousness may appear subtle to most of us, but they are profound. And I am aware enough of the reasons for being so. I recognize the symptoms in my son, and bring it to his attention sometimes. I would tell him: use your eyes to see what right there in front of you, use your ears to hear the noises around you, pay attention, its there, there s no excuse for you to miss it. But children copy on parents behavior. Children will not do as told, but do what they see their parents are doing. With that being said, I hope my son sees a lot of good behavior in his mum. We ll come back to this. Of course. I ll slowly build up the above story, my story, also. All in good time.
Thank you for reading.
Have I got your attention? :) I m fine! After all, nobody caught us, some guy missing the minibus turned back to where the boat and I were, and took us on the other side, to my beloved hubby. He than had to literally drag me back to the hotel. You see, I had too much vodka all the way to the boat, my legs were not listening to me by now, and I was having a loud conversation with everybody, the trees, the "leader" of the group (yeah , he was still with us) and my husband. I know now that I can talk so much more than normal when I m drunk, not that I m not talkative already. I remember all these as a good time. I have never been afraid. We were trying to escape the misery and the trap we felt ourselves going in deeper and deeper.
In my behalf, I always wanted to go out (of the country) I had that feeling that I can't breath in there. In there (in my country) there s been only one single truly happy day for me. It was the moment I got crowned as a beauty princess and got so much attention from that man, the one that organized the contest, so much that I couldn't even deny all the gossip around us after that.(he was some well known business man that graduated at the high school I was in, and he paid grants to smart students, and also organized a beauty pageant under his name, and than he gave me the crown) It was the first time anyone showed so much interest in me. And in school the day after, there I was, incapable of explaining all these to my colleagues,no way, I was so shy. So I said nothing and let everybody think what they wanted to. (I kinda have the same attitude today. People will believe what they want to believe, and I m sometimes the same so I know) Nobody knew me before that night, nobody noticed me in school. So worried that they ll notice my worn out shoes, I kept very much to myself.
I heard this in a movie: details will sell the story. But damn it, I don't think I have a good memory, and getting worse! More than that, I don't pay attention to much. So in that happy day/night, I wasn't paying attention to anything much. I know now that I would see the whole event very differently. And it didn't matter to me than, but now it does, because maybe that day was the beginning of something new. The beginning of a different me. It must have been that moment that I wanted to get free. And talk. And say it all as I never dared before. Well, it wasn't going to be all smooth as I thought. Many things happened and some other were about to happen. Some mistakes I can't forget still, but only because I won't repeat them. There may be some things I m sorry for but surely not for coming to Ireland. I m proud of it, even if its not the only place I want to go. But I m here and there s hope for my dreams. I wasn't going to keep a secret the way I got here. One friend of mine, hearing that I want to write about it, freaked out. But why? We all have a story and I want to share mine. And I want to share feelings with it.
and more:
Like I said, I don't pay attention to much. Only what I m interested to, what catches my attention. I have been called oblivious. I sadly accept it. I accept I am and I hate it. I am also innocent to some extent, and the part I hate most to be associated with, ignorant at times too. Differences between innocence, ignorance and obliviousness may appear subtle to most of us, but they are profound. And I am aware enough of the reasons for being so. I recognize the symptoms in my son, and bring it to his attention sometimes. I would tell him: use your eyes to see what right there in front of you, use your ears to hear the noises around you, pay attention, its there, there s no excuse for you to miss it. But children copy on parents behavior. Children will not do as told, but do what they see their parents are doing. With that being said, I hope my son sees a lot of good behavior in his mum. We ll come back to this. Of course. I ll slowly build up the above story, my story, also. All in good time.
Thank you for reading.
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