Brief Encounters:

Brief Encounters:

In some ways it may be described as a cliché, but for as long as I can remember, I have loved meeting people; different people, not just different in numbers but different in character, temperament, attitude, culture etc. I tend to talk to people I meet at random; it might be a waiter in a restaurant; a chance encounter in a gym; on a bus or train or a fellow hotel guest. Really, the possibilities are endless. Many people encounter many other people every day but never actually make contact. This is completely understandable as people have busy lives and most of the time are concentrating on whatever task is in hand. To be fair, many of the interesting people I’ve met were when I was on holiday or retired or when I was free to chat and listen. I find Ireland, at the moment, to be a rich hunting ground for stories as there has been such an influx of people from almost every nation on earth. I have met people from the most unlikely places and from all continents. In most cases, all you have to do is ask a person where they are from and they will tell you their story or at least some of it, usually the interesting parts.

I have been fortunate to meet many people who might be described in some circles as eccentric, or certainly a little unusual. We are all different and we all have a story. In many cases, the views of some of these people would have been diametrically opposed to my own, but it takes all sorts and I guess differing views to enrich the total of human experience. I have had hundreds, if not thousands of these brief encounters. Here I have chosen a couple of extreme cases because they demonstrate some of the ills present in society today. In some cases I have had to change the names but I haven’t changed a word of the dialogue as to do so would damage its authenticity. This ensures that some of the language is far from politically correct, but such is the way people speak. In some cases I comment, mainly for clarity, but in most cases, the people are represented in their own words.

Ireland football team - 1994 World Cup - USA.

Human trafficking:

We are all aware that people are trafficked every day and that it is a lucrative operation for those on the shadier side of humanity. I’m sure there are people all around us who have been trafficked but don’t talk about it for all sorts of reasons, probably mainly fear. This is the story of Nadya, one such person, who survived and told me her story. Interestingly, despite my spending many years working in Russia, I met Nadya when she was working as a cleaner in Dublin. She was cleaning my house one morning and I offered her a coffee. We started chatting and the words just poured out:

If you will allow me a little poetic licence here, it's a rags to riches to rags to riches to rags story. She grew up in Sevastopol, not from a wealthy family. Her parents didn’t have much but they survived. As is the case in all Russian cities, there are organized crime networks hidden beneath the surface which often attract young men trying to escape a poor existence. When Nadya was 18, she readily admits she was attractive and a local Mafia guy fancied her. She was terrified of him - but he was crazy about her and pursued her relentlessly. He kept asking her out and through fear she relented. She told me she was really afraid of him so when she was 21, she agreed to marry him. She said life was ok, for a while - he was very wealthy so she and her family were able to afford things they had never had previously.

However, she did not love the guy and she constantly lived in fear. She thinks it was about three months into the marriage when he started to beat her up regularly. She tried for years to pluck up the courage to leave him but she was terrified because of his connections that he'd find her and make things even worse. She also feared the repercussions for her family. When she was 28, after a particularly violent beating, she finally was desperate enough to try to leave Russia. Luckily, they hadn’t had children. She paid people smugglers to smuggle her out of the country. This was how she arrived in Ireland.

The people she paid were not connected to her husband and she reckoned he wouldn’t find her here and he didn't. But she went from the frying pan into the fire. When she arrived here, despite having been promised employment, she was told, 'you're illegal, so you have two choices, you can work as a prostitute or on a mushroom farm in Galway.’ Needless to say, she chose the mushroom farm. They worked 12 hour shifts, in the dark, got no pay and were only given to eat - wait for it - mushrooms, water and for some reason, orange juice. After two months, she had lost a lot of weight and was feeling really poorly - she was still terrified as she was illegal, but one morning she rose early and just ran away.

Sevastopol.

This was where her luck turned - she said she only had two phrases in English: 'Hello' and 'Can you speak Russian?' She started hitch hiking and was on the road a good while but eventually when a car stopped, she said - 'Hello, can you speak Russian?' Amazingly, the woman driving was Russian and had lived in Ireland for many years. She sort of adopted Nadya and took great care of her. She was very courageous; she went to the Gardai (Irish Police) and reported the mushroom farm. The guy who ran it said it was all a big mistake and that Nadya's wages were waiting for her. He then called round and gave her two month’s salary - 1,600 euro. Because of this, the police allowed him to continue to operate. Nadya says she felt for the other people working there but what could she do? The Russian woman ‘minded’ her for a few months, taught her English but as there was no employment in the area, after a time, Nadya left for Dublin to seek her fortune.

She shared a house in Dublin with other Russian girls with whom she was put in contact. She found work as a receptionist and life improved. She made occasional contact with her family back at home. They seemed to have been left alone by her ex-husband, whom, they assured her, had moved on to a new lover and had apparently forgotten all about her.

She then met what she thought was a ‘nice’ Russian lad. He had settled in Dublin and owned his own I.T. firm. He apparently had made a fortune and convinced her to quit her job and have a good time with him. He bought her a Mercedes; took her on endless foreign holidays; they used to drive around Europe for three months at a time and just stay where they liked, spend what they liked.....the money seemed endless. But all good things come to an end; her man got into drugs in a major way; he rejected all his friends; got new ones who took drugs; neglected his business. Then he started beating up Nadya. At this stage they had two children, a boy and a girl. Eventually the IT business went broke through neglect. He disappeared; ghosted her; as far as she knows, he returned to Russia and abandoned her and the children. She still had her Mercedes but had to sell it to make mortgage payments. Eventually her house was repossessed because she couldn't make the repayments. When I met her, she was working as a cleaner and living in a rent supported flat. I have no idea how she is doing now but she’s a survivor so I’m sure she’s fine. Her children would be in their late teens by now.

Racism:

John Slaughter was one of those people of whom it is said that if he didn’t exist, you’d have to invent him. (I have to advise that this encounter was in 1994 and the language is completely non PC). Well he certainly existed and he also epitomized the expression, ‘larger than life.’ He was about six feet, eight inches tall and about twenty stone (130k) in weight, but his height allowed him to carry it well. He was in his mid-sixties when we met but he looked fit and sharp. I was in Florida for the 1994 World Soccer Cup. Ireland played two games in New Jersey and two in Orlando, so a group of us were billeted in Daytona Beach, about an hour from the stadium in Orlando. We were there for about a week which allowed lots of free time. Our routine was to have breakfast, spend some time on the beach and then go to Orlando for the afternoon. One morning was particularly hot so I declined the opportunity to get even more sunburned and took refuge in the hotel lobby with a cup of coffee and a book.

The sunshine was strong so it took a very large presence to put me in the shade. That presence was personified by the very large man who towered over me and politely asked if the chair opposite was free. I told him it was and invited him to join me. We introduced ourselves and he immediately identified my foreign accent and asked:

‘Where y’all from?’

‘Ireland,’ I responded.

‘Ireland, where the hell’s that?’

‘It’s a small country on the periphery of Europe.’

‘Yerp, yeah, I’ve heard of Yerp alright, but not Ireland; so what’s it like?’

‘Oh, I think it’s a beautiful country but of course I’m biased. It’s an island and we have a lot of very beautiful scenery, with mountains, lakes and beaches.’

‘Hmmm, sounds cool. You got any trouble over there?’

‘How do you mean trouble? Do you mean crime?’

‘Well sure, or terrorism?’

‘OK, well, we did have an ethnic conflict in the north of our country for many years but in recent years, it has gotten more peaceful. I’m sure we have crime but I’d say probably less than many other countries.’

‘You got any blacks?’

I wasn’t sure I’d heard him correctly so I asked if he meant black people?

‘Sure I do.’

‘Oh well, not really, I mean most people in Ireland would be white.’

I’d inadvertently said the wrong thing….

‘Darn, I knew it, ya got a peaceful country because y’all ain’t got blacks.’

‘I’m not sure I understand you?’

‘Blacks man, negroes, the cause of all our problems in this country; should have never brought em over from Africa. But they’re here and they can’t behave. You ask me, ya gotta put em away.’

I tried to bring a little balance to the discussion. I mentioned that I knew a little about the race issue in the U.S. and how difficult it was to resolve. I remarked that I had noticed in some places that white and black communities had become almost polarized and that for me, it was a shame as I tried to mix with both. But he was having none of it.

‘Polarized, is it? Polarized my ass! Ya gotta put em away, the only way to resolve what you call the race issue. Oh sure, I ain’t saying all blacks are bad, hell no; but a hell of a lot of em are no good; lazy, layabouts, into drugs and crime. Let me ask you a question son; how did you travel down here to Florida?’

‘We drove on I95 down the east coast.’

‘You see any work parties on the highway? You know, guys in prison gear, cleaning up the highway.’

‘Yes, we did actually.’

‘You see any white men among them?’

In fact, the work groups we had seen had been exclusively black, apart from the prison supervisors, who were invariably white men, on horseback, armed with shotguns. So I tried to make light of it. But John was in full flow –

‘What’d I tell y’all? Ya gotta put em away; only way to teach these guys.’

The discussion was fast losing all perspective, so I tried to change the subject and I asked him where he was from.

‘Charleston, South Carolina; been coming down here every summer for thirty years, me and Marge and the kids; course now it’s just Marge and me, but I can tell you, we ain’t never had no trouble in all those years and I’ll tell you why son; because I always protected my family.’

With this, he dug his right hand into his pocket and produced a pistol, which he slammed loudly on to the table, saying:

‘You carry a piece?’

I almost broke the world record for the sitting high jump but when I eventually recovered some composure, I told him that I didn’t and that it was illegal to carry a gun in Ireland.

‘What sort of a country is that, where it don’t allow you to protect yourself and your family? I never go nowhere without my thirty eight, no sir; no one will ever say John Slaughter didn’t protect his family, no sir.’

He continued for a while in this vein, then finished his coffee, shook hands and left. I can still see him shaking his head at what I guess he assumed was my innocence and how I wasn’t allowed to carry a gun to protect my family. I may have thought him to be unusual but I’m sure he felt the same about me and I was in his country so he assured me that I was very much in the minority there. I have no doubt he was correct.

I don’t wish to stereotype but while I assume that John has by now gone to his eternal reward, the attitudes he had and the views he purveyed are, sadly, alive and well. Once again I don’t wish to generalize or demonize people but I suspect a significant number of those who voted for Donald Trump still think this way. I have noticed in subsequent trips to the USA that there is more racial integration but they are not there yet. Despite electing a black President in Barack Obama, the divisiveness which had been apparently left as part of history is now alive and well again and is effectively the policy of the current incumbent of the White House.