Learning to Love Ireland

by Althea Farren

  I would take as my starting point Charles Birch’s hypothesis that the solution to our problems depended in large part ‘...on human will guided by a “moral compass” requiring a change of heart about how we live and work, how we produce things and how we treat other people and other species...’

  I continued to apply for jobs, but my research kept me so occupied and interested that I no longer had time to feel depressed. Among other things, I was collecting newspaper and magazine cuttings relating to the current Big Brother TV programme. George Orwell certainly didn’t have this type of frivolous, tasteless cavorting in mind when he described the horrors of Room 101. I was also having fun downloading and printing out political cartoons satirising Robert Mugabe – and to keep him company – other tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin.

  News from Zimbabwe was grim, as usual. Stephanie wrote about food and fuel shortages:

  Basic commodities like salt, sugar, maize meal, cooking oil and bread are very short here in Harare and are virtually nonexistent in Bulawayo. There are task force people everywhere to monitor manufacturers and retailers. Last week, bakers were forced to reduce the price of bread from Z$50,000 to Z$22,000 a loaf. Meat is very scarce. Sausages are available from time to time, and you can buy chicken or lamb occasionally. These are severely over-priced, as they are not considered ‘basic commodities’ like bread that is ‘controlled’ by government decree. Similarly, fuel has been slashed from Z$140,000 per litre to Z$60,000 per litre, creating an artificial shortage. Who is going to sell below cost? Manufacturers simply stop producing until the government backs off and they can resume charging realistic prices again.

  Shirley from our Bulawayo book club wrote:

  Things are pretty hairy and will, no doubt, get worse. My favourite story at the moment (because, as ever, if we don’t laugh – we’ll cry) is of a service station owner in Gwanda who was visited by the police and accused of hoarding his petrol. He put up a bit of an argument, saying that it wasn’t his to sell – he was only storing it for someone. His protests were brushed aside. He duly put up a sign indicating that he was open for business. After the last drop had gone into the last car, a policeman monitoring sales asked him whose petrol it was. The service station owner told him that it belonged to the Zimbabwe Republic Police. He then walked into his office, shutting the door in the policeman’s face. The guy deserves a medal!

  I’ve finally read ‘The Poisonwood Bible’ by Barbara Kingsolver. You and Mary gave it such glowing reviews last year. I procrastinated for months, as I was sure that it would depress me. But I found it really compelling, and am looking forward to reading more of her books.

  We have to go shopping in Botswana once a month now – that trip is ghastly, as you can imagine, the border is a nightmare – three and a half hours in the queue is about the norm. I curse and stomp around the house like a lunatic whenever we have to do it, shouting about incompetents who force us to go to a different country to buy loo rolls... On Thursday when we last went, I got up at five only to discover that there was no power. I had to put on my make-up by torchlight...

  So count your lucky stars every time you flick a light switch or open a tap that you moved when you did – it was very wise...

  CHAPTER THREE

  Did you enter the wrong text? Press the wrong key? Word’s Undo feature enables you to reverse your most recent typing or editing action if it has produced unwanted results...

  That little curved ‘Undo’ arrow was indeed the most useful feature on the toolbar. But on this occasion, it had failed me. I was halfway through my ECDL Word Processing exam and the big black square that should have been the clip-art picture of a footballer along with the solid black area below it that had once been text refused to be undone. My ‘unwanted results’ wouldn’t budge.

  Trembling with horror, I put my hand up. Our lecturer came over to me.

  ‘Look what’s happened,’ I whispered. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done.’

  Peter sighed. ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Usually he could tap a few keys and correct our mistakes.

  He’d say in a tired voice, ‘Didn’t you listen when I told you ...’

  Yes, most of us had listened. But we hadn’t quite grasped how to apply ‘the italblue style’ to the line of text we were working on, or exactly how to change the spacing between the default tab stops.

  Peter examined my document. He took over my keyboard and hammered in a series of rapid instructions. And then a whole lot more. But the stubborn black sections of my exam were there to stay.

  ‘I don’t know what you’ve done this time,’ he remarked, resigning himself (and me) to failure.

  ‘Please, please could I have extra time to sort out this mess?’ I implored him.

  ‘You’re going to have to delete this whole section and go back to question four,’ he said. ‘This is the worst sequence of errors I’ve come across for a long time. I’ve no idea how you achieved it. But I can’t allow you extra time. You’ll finish along with everyone else.’

  I considered my options. There were only two. I could burst into tears and leave the room. Or I could pull myself together and make the most of the time I had left.

  My hands were shaking violently. I muttered a quick prayer for calm and clarity, and went for it. This time I was determined not to panic. I managed to insert the image of the footballer into the document at the correct place.

  I was still shaking when I handed Peter my paper, having completed all but the final two questions. I was the last person in the room. Everyone else had finished before the allotted time.

  I had always known that Peter regarded me as one of his slower and woollier students. But now he smiled at me. ‘I didn’t think you’d make it,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

  When, a month before, I had received the letter from FÁS offering me a place on the ECDL course in Gorey, I could hardly believe my luck.

  Not only was I being offered free tuition, but I would actually be paid to study. The FÁS allowance was more generous than my job-seeker’s payment, and I could continue to prepare my own lectures for the library in the evenings.

  The ECDL course was held in a large house that had been converted into business premises. Each person was allocated his or her own computer. Behind our desks a jungle of cables snaked their way into electrical sockets. Peter had to struggle through this dense undergrowth whenever someone’s computer went on strike.

  Our class was an interesting cross-section of ages and personalities. About half were young men and women in their late teens and early twenties, and the rest were mostly in their forties or fifties.

  I was seated next to Evelyn, a friendly girl in her twenties, the only person I had spoken to while we were waiting outside on the first day. On my left was Jonathan, a tall, slim young man with spectacular tattoos. I was in the middle of the young crowd, while the older group had positioned itself at the far end of the room.

  Both Evelyn and Jonathan were from Dublin. Their accents were less difficult to follow than Joy’s or Ray’s or Angela’s. I didn’t have a clue what Ray was saying until he had repeated a comment at least twice. He usually arrived ten minutes late for class and then, for the rest of the morning, draped himself across his desk hung-over and half asleep. Jonathan spent much of his time searching for information on Manchester United. When he wasn’t immersed in football statistics, he was looking for sexy females to use as wallpaper or screen savers. Joy was an attractive, slim blonde with huge blue eyes and flawless skin (which was surprising, since she sucked lollipops all day long). Angela was freckled, plump and dark, a quiet girl, who kept to herself much of the time. Elizabeth lived in a different world from the rest of the class. She made Ray look lively. Occasionally, she’d summon the energy to play a game or two of patience and then, exhausted, she’d lean back in her chair and stare at her blank screen. Susan, sitting on the other side of Jonathan, fizzed with energy and enthusiasm in spite of being short of sleep. She worked part-time at Tesco
’s.

  At the far end of the room, the mature group lived different lives. Their conversation was about children and grandchildren, the availability of jobs and where next to go on holiday.

  Much to my surprise, I enjoyed being with the young crowd. They didn’t pull any punches. If they felt bored, they leaned back in their chairs and yawned loudly. If they felt like a cigarette, they went outside and had one.

  Peter had the difficult task of deciding where to pitch his lessons. All the young people were familiar with computers to a greater or lesser extent, having used them at school. There were two or three members of the older group who’d never had occasion even to switch one on. Peter somehow had to teach the basics, while retaining the youngsters’ interest so that they didn’t disrupt the class with their chatter. He empathised naturally with Jonathan, who loved computers and who could converse in technical language. And Peter’s three sons were Man U supporters!

  Both Evelyn and I knew how to switch on a computer and dabble in Word, but anything more complex required our undivided attention. If we got stuck, we asked Angela or Joy for help. Both girls were bright and understood new concepts easily. Jonathan would also help, if you could drag him away from his own screen for a few seconds. Though they were generous with their assistance, they all tended to want to ‘fix’ rather than to explain.

  Evelyn, the eldest in a large family, had left school when she was fifteen. She was a delightful fun-loving girl, whose gurgling laughter was infectious. I admired her determination to succeed. She was attending evening classes so that she could sit her Leaving Certificate in 2008.

  Arthur, the oldest member of the class, was a talented artist and an amusing raconteur. He was on the course with us because he wanted to learn how to catalogue his paintings efficiently. There were often times when he wondered whether the stress was worth it. Particularly after an exam.

  ‘That’s it,’ he’d say. ‘I’m not coming back on Monday. I must be mad. Why am I putting myself through this? It’s not as if I need a job...’

  After I saw a brochure of his work, I knew that I had to have one of his paintings.

  From Word Processing, we moved on to Excel. I was dreading this, as maths had always been my weakest subject. We worked with spreadsheets, grappled with formulae and battled with such concepts as the MIN and MAX functions. Poor Peter had a torrid time trying to get the logic of the IF function across to some of us oldies.

  ‘Use the IF function to check if the value in a cell or range of cells satisfies the criteria you specify,’ he told us several times. ‘You can also specify what values are returned if the criteria are met (TRUE) or not met (FALSE).’

  A number of us had to retake the Excel exam.

  We all loved PowerPoint, which we found a welcome diversion from Excel. Peter announced that he didn’t plan to spend much time on this module.

  ‘Some of my classes manage to grasp PowerPoint in a couple of hours,’ he said. ‘We discuss the concepts in the morning, work on a few practice exercises and write the exam in the afternoon. You lot are going to need at least a couple of days, unfortunately.’

  Our son, Sean, used to design PowerPoint presentations for each new calendar range we produced at Alfa. Now I was learning how to use ‘transition’ so that one slide replaced another by appearing to drop down from the top of the screen, while the previous slide dissolved. Animated slides revealed information gradually. If I’d been presenting the calendars for 2008, I could have revealed each category separately, discussing specific designs, before going on to the next section.

  After PowerPoint, we’d be moving on to databases, which we’d find VERY difficult. If we were going to fail any of the modules, it would be this one, Peter warned us. We would be studying Microsoft Access. Not the database he would choose, there were better ones... We were to think of databases as being structured collections of facts about a particular topic. Address books, card indexes and telephone directories were all examples of databases.

  I could tell that we were beginning to bore Peter. He was losing his sense of humour and becoming irritable, especially with Ray. If Ray wasn’t talking to Elizabeth, he was away with the fairies somewhere. When Peter asked him to repeat what he had just explained, Ray usually hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

  I was pleasantly surprised to find Access interesting and less difficult than Excel. It certainly wasn’t easy – we were just skimming the surface – but I didn’t feel as though I was in enemy territory.

  I was becoming more confident. It wasn’t that I understood everything. ECDL made you realise how much there was to learn. But I knew now that I COULD do whatever needed to be done. After years of feeling queasy about computers, I was beginning to like them.

  I knew that I could even cope with Excel if I had to.

  I learned many other things on the course...

  ...Young Irish people were self-assured and independent. They ate sweets and crisps non-stop. Smoking was more widespread in Ireland than in Zimbabwe, although we had once been among the world’s leading tobacco-producing countries. Irish society’s view of unmarried mothers had altered radically. Twenty years ago, young girls who fell pregnant were ostracised. There were two girls with us whose babies would arrive before the end of the course. Peter (very much a family man) was particularly solicitous of them. Both were intelligent and capable, and they never complained. There were state benefits available for young women in this situation...

  I had tried unsuccessfully to order an ECDL text book from a local bookshop (the one that wasn’t well acquainted with Shakespeare). Evelyn had been photocopying notes for us from a friend’s book, an expensive and time-consuming process. I happened to mention my problem to one of the older students.

  ‘I’ll get you one,’ she said. ‘I bought a copy for myself in Wexford last Saturday. They had several on the shelf.’

  She presented me with the book the following Monday. The shop in Wexford had sold out, so she had driven to Waterford, another 58 kilometres and bought it there.

  She wouldn’t let me pay her for the fuel.

  ‘Ah, sure, you’re grand,’ she said.

  Towards the end of the course, we were required to find a two week ‘placement’. This entailed working for a recognised business so that we could put into practice what we had learnt. Our ‘employer’ would not have to pay us – FÁS would continue to fund us and provide insurance cover.

  Most of the class struggled to find businesses that were prepared to have their routines disrupted, even for a brief period. Since I had no contacts, I had little chance of being placed. Peter agreed to accept the research I was doing for ‘Reading the Future’ as a substitute for placement. After all, he said, I was utilising Word extensively, and spending a great deal of time on the Net.

  The four months had gone by swiftly and productively.

  On the final day, Arthur gave me an exquisite water-colour of Enniscorthy town.

  My CV was looking a whole lot better now that I could add ECDL to it. Applying for jobs continued to be the same depressing exercise, however, as hardly anyone bothered to acknowledge applications.

  Like everyone else on the ECDL course, I’d applied for a job at the new Dunnes Store to open shortly at the Gorey Shopping Centre. Like everyone else, I’d been interviewed. And like most of the others, I hadn’t heard a word since the interview. Elizabeth, one of the exceptions, had been offered a job and was being trained in Arklow.

  I was also helping Larry edit Once an African. This was not an easy job, as we frequently argued about my suggestions and alterations.

  ‘You have just eliminated the most important section of my chapter,’ he’d say through gritted teeth. ‘What are you trying to do? Make it into some bland, grammatically correct essay?’

  We’d both read Stephen King’s book On Writing. He comments: ‘the road to hell is paved with adverbs’. I went back through my most recent draft of It’s a Little Inconvenient, the book I was writing about the
situation in Zimbabwe, and scoured my manuscript for pointless adverbs. There were plenty. He also talks about ‘shooting the attribution verb full of steroids’ – one should use ‘said’ instead of ‘gasped’, ‘shouted’ or ‘grated’.

  Another wise imperative is: ‘kill your little darlings...even when it breaks your...heart’. You write something that you are sure is really clever. Absolutely brilliant, in fact. Yet, somehow, there is a sense of dissonance. You re-read it several times, resolving to be brutally honest. Finally, you’re forced to admit that it isn’t brilliant or subtle. Like an anal retentive, you long to hang onto it, because you think it’s clever. But it’s a pretentious ‘little darling’ that has to be jettisoned. So you hit ‘delete’. It hurts, but – yes – it was there for effect.

  I’d thought that South Africa was the obvious market to target, in view of its close relationship with Zimbabwe, but none of the South African publishers I’d approached had shown any interest, so I needed to start looking elsewhere.

  The Zimbabwean crisis was having an adverse effect on South Africans at every level.

  Although estimates varied, it was generally thought that up to three million black Zimbabweans had escaped to South Africa as foreign migrants and asylum seekers, swelling the number of people from other parts of Africa fleeing conflict in their own countries. Every week thousands more attempted to cross the border into South Africa illegally. Some died while trying to swim across the crocodile-infested Limpopo River. Others fell prey to robbers and thugs lying in wait on the other side of the 12ft high electric fence topped with razor wire. Those caught by the South African authorities were placed in a detention centre and then deported. Invariably, they tried again. It was better than failing to support a starving family.

  Desperate Zimbabweans were prepared to work for lower wages. The local people whose jobs they’d ‘stolen’ became hostile, triggering violent xenophobic attacks on immigrant workers and asylum seekers. In 2008 a riot broke out in the township of Alexandra (in the north-eastern part of Johannesburg) and spread to migrant settlements in other parts of the country. Sixty people died and thousands were displaced.