Learning to Love Ireland

by Althea Farren

  Desperate for their nicotine fix, Cynthia and Val were going for the kill.

  The manner in which one dealt with complaints was the critical issue... Turn the complaint into an opportunity... Listening requires self-control and patience... Sympathise without too much involvement – never say: ‘I know how you feel’... Agree on a course of action... Always indicate to the customer your desire to please...

  ‘I quit,’ I said, and walked out of the shop.

  The other groups behaved in a more conventional fashion.

  ‘Tomorrow Bryan will be in to coach you on Life Skills,’ said George. ‘He’ll show you how to boost your self-esteem, how to get rid of self-limiting beliefs and how to turn difficulties into opportunities. You’ll learn how to overcome fear and how to motivate yourselves. You will be “listening to your inner coach and not to your inner critic”.’

  There was a chorus of ‘We’re going to miss you, George...’ (Cynthia), ‘Feck Life Skills...’ (Francis), ‘I don’t want to stop beating myself up, I don’t want to be the hero in my own life...’ (Darren).

  And

  ‘Can we have our smoke-break now?’ (Cynthia, Val, Barbara, Francis, Darren and Orla.)

  The Retail Sales Course was interesting, entertaining and very different from the ECDL Course. I’d got off to a rather shaky start, though.

  Since I’d joined the class a week late, I’d been determined to catch up quickly. I’d copied down the notes from George’s flip chart, borrowed Cynthia’s file and made sure I had all the information that had been circulated. But when George photocopied some research I’d done on Health, Safety and Security and used it as a handout, Orla suggested that it might be easier for everyone if I did all the study notes for the class. As a ‘blow-in’ – a new word to me meaning a stranger or foreigner, or, in fact, anybody whose ancestors had not lived within sight of the parish church for at least ten generations – I was obviously trying to pick up brownie points.

  Bryan, who was in charge of the course, joined us from time to time to administer a dose of Life Skills. While he was waiting for the class to arrive, he would study the relevant section in Life Coaching for Dummies. Then, when everyone had wandered in, he would assume an expression of earnest rapture and begin his lecture. Which did we think was the better definition of ‘empowerment’? ‘A process that challenged our assumptions about the way things are and can be...’ or ‘a multi-dimensional social process that helped people gain control over their own lives...’?

  It soon became obvious that the class had no interest in life skills. No one cared that Bryan had replaced ‘negativity’ with ‘challenge’ and through ‘self-awareness’ had changed his life. No one wanted to ‘pack a survival kit’ and use it on his journey towards ‘self-worth’. Even quiet, nineteen-year-old heavily pregnant Jennifer was a cynic. They preferred to discuss health and safety issues with George and consider how ‘shrinkage’ in stock-holdings occurred.

  My other error of judgement had been to participate too enthusiastically on the first occasion Bryan discussed empowerment and positive thinking. Consequently, he’d ignored the wide yawns that nobody bothered to hide and, for the rest of the lecture, had addressed most of his comments and questions to me. As I squirmed with embarrassment, Darren’s very audible remarks to Francis about the value of Life Skills became more and more scathing.

  No stranger to classroom dynamics, I’d realised that I needed to wise up and smell the cigarettes, the chocolate biscuits and the coffee. Otherwise the next few months were likely to be pretty damn lonely.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The retail course had been a grand build-up to Christmas.

  Darren had been on several shopping expeditions to Dublin (‘never on a Saturday, though, the traffic’s fecking impossible’) and he and his partner had bought ‘must have’ games for their three kids. The concept of ‘must have’ varied from age group to age group. Twenty-three year old Marie’s ‘must have’ was the latest mobile phone. She changed her phone every month or so. I wondered how she managed this on ‘benefits’.

  George divided us into two groups for the last module before the Christmas break. We would be designing window displays for a children’s clothing boutique and for an up-market confectioner’s. Piles of colourful garments (many of which were to be Christmas presents) began to accumulate behind George’s desk.

  Barbara took charge of the confectionery team. We hadn’t realised that she was a qualified chef.

  ‘We’ll have a white table cloth with a red overlay,’ she said. ‘And napkins to match. We’ll have mince pies, iced fairy cakes, a Christmas cake and liqueur chocolates. We’ll have crackers, holly with Christmas tree ornaments scattered around and we’ll spray snow over the whole thing. And, of course, we’ll need to have cards indicating prices and special offers.’

  The other group concentrated on colour co-ordination and visual appeal. There was so much stock, they found it difficult to decide what to discard.

  George was delighted with the results, and photographed the displays for his records. Both groups passed with distinction.

  Bright, festive Christmas lights illuminated the town. It was icy cold and dark very early now. I found it surreal that nights began at 4 p.m. December evenings before Christmas in the southern hemisphere are lit with brilliant sunshine. Then, after sunset at about 6.30 or 7 p.m., millions of stars stud the sky. Or dark rain clouds boil up overhead and you hear the rain coming before you see it, especially if you are outside. Spectacular flashes of lightning rip the sky apart and crashing thunder shakes the ground.

  We gauged the temperature according to the amount of steam we exhaled as we shopped for small, light gifts for Audra to take back to friends in Zim. We bought scarves, evening handbags and jewellery – things that were unobtainable or unaffordable in Zim. Supplies of sugar, flour, cooking oil and toilet paper would have been more useful, though.

  I realised (now that I had comparisons to draw) that most of the Christmas trees in Bulawayo had been rather sparse and puny. The lush Irish firs were beautifully shaped with luxuriant, spiky needles and plenty of branches. There were also artificial trees in a variety of sizes and designs to choose from. On my way to lectures, I examined the trees on display outside the tiny hole-in-the-wall premises from which tyres were repaired. Tyres and Christmas trees seemed an incongruous mix.

  Periodically, George dispatched the class on missions to research window displays and shop layouts. He needed a break from us now and again. Since Christmas tree decorations were my own ‘must haves’, I knew exactly what was available. There was an excellent selection at Dunnes Stores.

  Like a magpie, I was attracted to gleam and glitter. Our first Christmas tree in Ireland had to have a large gold or silver star at the top. A shiny glass slipper was on my list. A golden partridge and a red pear. A frosted gift box with satin ribbon. A snowflake with silver crystals. A shimmering pine cone. A glistening sphere. Music notes. A silvery butterfly, very like the old one we used to have, which clipped onto a branch. A set of golden baubles. No tinsel. And the bright beaded African ornaments Glyn had sent me for my birthday.

  We bought a beautifully shaped tree in a red pot. In spite of having to carry the prickly object all the way home from the shopping centre, Larry was still in reasonably good humour, so I managed to drag him around the corner to Heatons, where we found ‘eco-friendly, energy-saving’ blue lights with ‘eight different lighting effects’.

  Standing in front of the decorated tree an hour or so later, I was delighted that we’d chosen elegant blue lights instead of the usual multi-coloured ones.

  I always thought of my mother at Christmastime.

  She believed in magic. She convinced us that we could reach that distant star, hear angels sing and see fairies in the garden. We travelled with her in The Wishing Chair and wandered with her through The Enchanted Wood. We flew over our farm beside a rabbit with wings called Pookie. We spent hours choosing which flower fairy we’d like to be.
My favourite was the Lady’s-smock Fairy – she had a pretty mauve dress and the wings of a swallowtail butterfly. Glyn’s was the graceful Primrose Fairy. Cicely Mary Barker had painted her a delicate dress made from yellow petals.

  We’d return home to the farm from boarding school in Hartley during the first week of December, and count the days till Christmas Eve. The 24th was always a perfect morning – clean, fresh and pure – with the wet grass sparkling in the sunlight. We three children would go off into the bush to search for ‘evergreen’ – wild asparagus fern. Our ‘tree’ would be a branch cut from an indigenous msasa or mopani tree. We’d bring the ferns back in a wheelbarrow and then, after breakfast, weave the evergreen into the branch. A Christmas tree would begin to take shape: roundish and soft (despite the thorny evergreen). When each familiar ornament had been carefully positioned and candles clipped onto the stronger stems, our mother would draw the curtains. As she lit each candle, sequined gleams and glittering sparkles began to appear, until the entire tree glowed with mysterious promise.

  In Jennifer Johnston’s glorious novel The Christmas Tree, Constance Keating chooses to die at home in familiar surroundings. Drifting in and out of consciousness, she is consoled by the glow of the little blue lights on her Christmas tree.

  Each evening in Gorey, as we watched the changing patterns of our blue lights, I thought of her, too.

  During our last few years in Zim, I’d grappled with misery and depression especially at Christmastime. Would things ever improve? I saw my life as drudgery – a limited lurching from one diary season to the next. I was sick of the problems that, each year, like swarms of locusts, devoured our resources and our energy.

  When we first arrived in Ireland in April, I was amazed to see 2008 calendars and diaries for sale in the shops. How wonderful to be able to produce and market your product so efficiently. In Zim, if we’d got the diaries and calendars our company produced into the shops in September, we’d have considered ourselves very lucky and we’d have cornered the market. (One of our bug-bears was the refusal of the Ministry of Information to release its list of public holidays and school terms before the middle of the year.)

  When Sean and Brian were growing up, my mother always spent Christmas with us in Bulawayo. Glyn and Ian would drive up from Durban and we would all be together after a whole year of being apart. Then our mother died suddenly and, shortly afterwards, Zimbabwe began its terrifying downward spiral. Ian could no longer stomach the Beitbridge border, where, on a good day, you queued for three or four hours and were frequently under pressure to pay bribes to get your papers processed. Sometimes you would be stuck there for the whole day in temperatures exceeding 36°C. The heat in the overcrowded customs and immigration building would be suffocating: frustrated sweaty travellers would push, shove and jump the queue and there were times when Glyn was close to fainting. One year, they tried the other option and travelled across Botswana (a much longer journey), entering Zimbabwe through the Plumtree border post. Although they escaped the Beitbridge chaos, Glyn picked up a vicious bug that laid her low for the entire holiday.

  For Ian, that was the last straw.

  So they stopped coming.

  For the first time in many years, Larry and I went to confession. At Our Lady of Lourdes in Bulawayo, you could choose how you wanted to make your confession. I always took the informal route, where you sat with the priest on his side of the confessional, and had a discussion that culminated in contrition and absolution. So I was apprehensive. The conventional confessional would be the type you saw in the movies – where you knelt in the dark and spoke through a grille. Larry had been brought up the traditional way, and the thought of a ‘friendly’ face-to-face discussion with a priest horrified him.

  ‘You converts have some strange ideas,’ he’d often say to me. ‘I insist on remaining anonymous, even though I know he must have heard a lot worse than my boring, petty indiscretions.’

  To my intense relief, the priest at St Michael’s church in Gorey was a kind and understanding man.

  Unfortunately, Brian had to work over the holiday period and Audra was spending Christmas in Zim. Sean came down from Bray on Christmas Eve to be with us for our first Christmas in Ireland. His gift to us – two bookcases which he assembled as soon as he arrived – was just what we needed. There was now a proper place for the piles of books that had been stacked against the walls in the spare bedroom for months.

  Christmas Day was quiet. But there were lots of phone calls and text messages and we went to church.

  For the first time in years, we felt a sense of peace.

  The St Vincent de Paul committee had agreed that Cynthia and I could sort through the bulky bags of unwanted clothing that were left every day on the doorstep of their local charity shop. This would serve as the ‘work experience’ we needed to complete the final module of the Retail Sales Course.

  The clothing in many of the bags was sweat-stained and dirty. It was unpleasant to handle, even though we were wearing rubber gloves. Mismatched shoes and cracked plastic handbags with broken straps lurked among scruffy school uniforms and tatty cushion covers bristling with dog hair. My hay fever was triggered instantly by the musty smell of unwashed clothes, and I sniffed and sneezed until we’d stuffed everything back inside, tied the bags up tightly and thrown them into the ‘useless’ pile.

  ‘Disgusting,’ said Cynthia, sipping her coffee. ‘You’d think these people would be embarrassed, but no, not a chance. This way they don’t have to drive out to the dump. Much easier to off-load their shite on us.’

  We weren’t complaining seriously. It was more of a commentary. Cynthia and I knew we were lucky to have found ‘employment’. Otherwise we wouldn’t qualify for the certificate or for our weekly allowance from FÁS.

  Occasionally we found a designer garment that looked brand new. Something special at last.

  ‘This’ll fly off the rails,’ Cynthia predicted. ‘I think it’s a Moschino. Pity it’s so big, though. It won’t fit either of us. I don’t like the colour, anyway.’

  Cynthia knew what she was talking about. To me it looked much the same as the rest of the stuff. We selected what we thought would sell in the shop, using the appropriate hanger for each garment: white for children, blue for men and red for ladies’ wear. By the end of each day, we’d also accumulated as many as twenty bags of surplus clothing to be recycled.

  There were hundreds of little denim outfits featuring appliquéd cartoon characters, colourful butterflies and suns and stars with smiling faces. There were masses of ladies’ tops and skirts. There were loads of T-shirts sporting the badges and crests of Europe’s football clubs and America’s basketball teams.

  I’d seen clothes just like these at the Revenue Hall flea market in Bulawayo...

  ...Bulawayo’s Revenue Hall is an imposing building with massive windows of copper-coloured one-way glass guaranteeing privacy to the workers inside. Tidy pebbled walkways surround it. Cheryl has promised to introduce me to a very different type of shopping at the ‘Bend-over Bazaar’.

  ‘Hang your bag round your neck,’ she says, ‘leaving both hands free. That way you’ll be able to bend over and sort through piles of clothing more easily.’

  I pause at the top of the steps. Each trader has laid claim to his or her own ‘stall’. There are no demarcations, so there must be a series of unwritten rules... Most goods have been arranged in neat rows on blankets. Here and there, at the more sophisticated stands, garments hang on wire hangers from makeshift rails. Crowds of browsers are picking through large mounds of crumpled clothing... One needs to be careful when choosing an item from these motley heaps. Most clothes are second-hand, Cheryl explains. They are donations shipped out to Africa from the First World.

  ‘Watch out for missing buttons, frayed cuffs and stains,’ she cautions. ‘Most of the marks will come out after a few washes, though.’

  It’s a lovely morning. Not too hot. Many of the stalls display attractive garments unavailable in
Zimbabwean shops. Little pleated denim skirts, tiny embroidered denim tops and T-shirts with colourful motifs make me wish I had grandchildren.

  I find a rust-coloured top that costs only Z$250,000. And there are no stains or missing buttons. The Revenue Hall windows function as excellent full-length mirrors, perfect for checking fit and style. I twist and turn, and wonder whether the workers inside are watching...

  Everyone seems happy and relaxed – it’s a pleasant change from the stressed atmosphere of the city during the week. I’m tempted to buy a denim shirt with Peanuts characters embroidered on the front pockets. There are a number of marks on it, though, so I decide not to put my last tin of stain remover to the test. Cheryl chooses a brightly checked long-sleeved shirt for herself...

  Children run among the stalls chasing each other, while their mothers chat and linger over potential purchases. Secondhand dealers bargain animatedly, gesturing at clothing selected from the piles in front of them. The latest beat pulsates from portable radios. An ice cream vendor relaxes against his bike, waiting for customers...

  A long time ago, it seemed, in a city far, far away...

  The package of replacement documents finally arrived from South Africa. The University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of South Africa had, as before, been efficient and helpful. The UKZN logo, its colourful Zulu shield an expression of the new ‘rainbow nation’, was very different from the staid old coat of arms of the University of Natal.

  A few weeks later, I received a notification from John informing me that they had recognised my degree and diploma, and had decided that both were comparable to Level 7 on the Irish National Framework of Qualifications.

  Good news and bad news.

  I argued (respectfully) that my Higher Education Diploma was a two-year post graduate qualification and, as such, couldn’t possibly be viewed as being on a par with my degree. I suggested that it should equate to a Level 8 award, and asked them to reconsider their assessment.