English version by Anca Șovagău
Original version in Romanian by Natalia Luncaș Ionel, available here: Bunica Livia
Photographer: Vlad Bodarev
My grandchildren are only 50% Romanian, but as long as I am alive, I will make sure that this half will get the maximum value.
At 64 years old, Grandmother Livia had to split all her life: Between past and present. Between her wishes and her parents’ plans between self-peace and the unforgiveness of her father, between Romanian longing and African dust, between Romanian communism and Sudan’s freedom. All these without any regret at all, because as she says: “After you live it, regrets have no sense.” Anyway, the best of this division, she feels it now between her role as a mother, grandmother and painter.” I wouldn’t change anything at all from what I lived so far.”
Elisabetta Popescu, known by her friends as Livia, originally from the town Putna county Suceava, Romania, passioned by chemistry, marries in a communist Romania and leaves for Sudan for 31 years. She never accepted to convert to Islam, she divorced and followed her son in the Emerald Country. In Ireland, she has a surgical intervention on her spine, after which her walk depends on a wheelchair. Her refuge: painting and the three grandchildren she has from her only son.
Romania
“In my times, if you wanted to marry a citizen of another nationality, the country’s secret services would follow you. Eleven months I had to wait for the approval to get married. I had to leave the job where I had five years of experience and even if I had a child with him, we couldn’t live together at all till we received the document from Nicolae Ceausescu (Romanian dictator of those times). It was extremely difficult. My husband was a medicine student back then – I was a chemical operator at the shoe factory in Timisoara”, remembers grandmother Livia also telling me how she had to take her son, who had only a few months, to her mother’s house in the village only to be able to work and support herself. Even though she never thought of emigrating, she then understood that she could offer her son a better future in Sudan by her husband’s side.
Note: Communist Romania is an unofficial name of the communist period in Romanian history (1947-1989) The official names were Popular Republic of Romania and Socialist Republic of Romania.
“When we left Romania, we were told that we were only allowed to get out of the country 20 kilos per person, but at the airport, they confiscated everything: my earrings, the rest of my jewellery, they built a mountain out of our clothes and other people’s clothes. I was very agitated and stressed. Our plane was about to take off in 10 minutes and they were still interrogating me about why I left and where I was leaving. There were so many obstacles for us to not leave. In the end, I left with my child, but with no money, no clothes, no papers (Nr: they took her study diplomas and her work cert) I had nothing left. Only my passport and the dress I was wearing.”
“I had Amir in Romania, and he is my best blessing from all my life. I know that maybe all mothers talk like this about their children, but my son is the only person in the world that helped me to not forget about myself. Even though he also lived for 31 years in Sudan, I never stopped reading to him in Romanian to help him improve his Romanian vocabulary and to get to know where he came from. I always hoped that. The moment of our return to Putna I will come.” In the year 1994, Livia could almost convince her husband to stay and live in Romania. They sold everything they had in Sudan: house, car – but it couldn’t be. They resisted for three months. A big pain that she still feels today is that her father died before she could go back. He suffered so much that his daughter married someone from Sudan.
She went back in 2008 after a five-year gap without being in Romania not even once. The 5000 kilometres between Romania and Sudan seemed like millions to her because she boarded the plane urgently. Her father was extremely sick and even though they tried to take him see the best doctors, he passed away at the age of 79 years old.
SUDAN
“I arrived in Sudan as well, and what could I tell you? It is a completely different world. When I landed, I felt like I was on another planet. Not even once more think compared to Europe. I only saw pictures up to that point, but the reality was shocking. His family received me very well. They never had anyone of another nationality in their family and they always tried to spoil me, giving me a lot of attention.”
She had a house in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, and because it was always extremely hot, she had to stay mostly inside the house. Pedantic by nature, she would clean the house for four hours, she would rest for 30 minutes and would clean again. Not because anyone would ask her, but she simply couldn’t stand dust.” In Sudan, you can’t breathe you are always in the shower as you sweat all the time. I got used at a certain point with that country, but I certainly never wanted to get old and die in there.”
In all the 31 years in Sudan, Livia took part in all the activities about and for Romania. Initially, a group of Romanian ladies got together and supported by the Romanian Embassy in Sudan, they set up the Romanian House. The government gave them a piece of land on which they built a small house from the ground, they arranged it in the Romanian traditional style, and they had various activities of gathering Sudanese who wanted to learn the Romanian language, but most of all, it took away a little bit of their homesickness.
They all had another responsibility apart from that: one was a doctor, another one was an engineer, but inside The Romanian House of Sudan they all had only one profession: to be Romanian. Now there is a war in Sudan, and I have seen on TV that in that house there were sheltered around 20 Romanians who were recently evacuated. “Very hard, but they managed to take them out”, says Grandmother Livia with a trembling voice remembering her friends who are still in Sudan.
“With or without any special occasion, we got together. We also had genuinely nice consuls and ambassadors who would encourage us and help us to get organised. The console Alexandru Costin deserves all the respect in the world for his endless effort to help Romanians in Sudan. Others closed their door in our faces, but we continued to promote our green Romania among the Sudanese dust.”
Digi24: The privileged relationships that Nicolae Ceausescu had with the Middle Orient made Romania become a sort of paradise for African students in the 80s. According to non-official data, in the last decade of the Ceausescu era, almost half a million Arabic students came to Romania.
Ireland
Amir, Livia’s only child, was born in Romania, raised and educated in Sudan, works in IT in Ireland for four years. He is the father of three children.
“Meanwhile, I divorced, and I was living separately, and when Amir left to study, the house was coming on top of me, that empty it was. I was visiting my mom in Romania for a while. She was extremely sick and passed away just on that period and I even found a job as a translator in Radauti, Romania. But because of my health, I wasn’t able to take care of myself. I never thought that when I would be old, I would end up living with my boy and his family. With me is different than with other grandparents: instead of me taking care of my grandchildren, they take care of me. But I consider this a hug from God.”
Haneen, Reem and Faris. – the three grandchildren of our grandmother Livia’s sky, earth and air. Their mom is from the Arabic Emirates, and their father is only half Sudanese, and this makes the maths on calculating their origin as 50% Romanian identity.
“It’s a very big challenge for me to teach them Romanian. They only speak Arabic at home, English in school and Romanian has the last place. Either way, I always tell them a lot of stories about my childhood, about our traditions. Unfortunately, they don’t know what Romanian Easter or Christmas mean, as they are Muslims, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t gift them something small just for them to realise that their grandmother is Romanian. My great wish is to be able to take them to Romania to show them the country, but my health doesn’t allow me. Now, after the spine intervention, at least I can move tanks to the wheelchair, although I can’t walk for more than 10 minutes. So, all that is left is my grandmother’s love. I believe that if they will remember me as a loving grandmother if they will have as many nice moments with me as possible, they will automatically be aware that through their veins also runs Romanian blood.”
“Granny, I love you.” – with an extraordinarily strong English-Arabic accent, Haneen says to grandmother Livia.
“Me too. My miracle”, grandmother Livia continues the dialogue.
In a corner of a table, quiet, the grandmother and her granddaughters are painting. This is their best activity through which they can connect and spend a lot of hours together. Grandmother Livia started to paint when she was in Sudan to be able to disconnect from the boring routine that she had there, but since she is in Ireland she paints out of happiness. “Besides the fact that is like an escape for me, I love to paint in Ireland because it’s more accessible for me. I find the best quality paints, paper and frames all at the lowest prices. Unfortunately, I don’t manage to sell too many of my paintings because I am not good at selling. I get to some art markets sometimes, but without talking English is more difficult.”
– Natalia:” What is the greatest happiness of your life?”
– Grandmother Lydia:” The fact that I can live with my son and my grandchildren. It is not easy at all because they are young and of course, we have different opinions sometimes, but the thought that I won’t die alone gives me peace.
– Natalia: “What is your biggest regret?”
– Grandmother Livia: “Regrets don’t count anymore. You have already done it. I could regret that I got married, and left for Sudan, but how else I would have learned to be so strong? Look what a nice family and grandchildren I have. I am aware that it depends on me how proud they will be of that 50% piece of Romanian identity, but as long as I will be alive, I will take care that this half would receive its real value.”
Recently, Grandmother Livia took part in a painting exposition in the heart of Dublin. In Saint Stephens Green Park, together with another 108 painters. Especially for the interview with me and knowing that I will emphasize her grandmother’s role, Mrs Elisabetta Popescu, known as Livia by her friends, painted a painting representing an old lady that sits in front of a house.” I will be so happy if you will bring it to the Romanian Embassy on the 1st of October when we will have the photo exhibition with our grandparents”, asks Vlad Bodarev, my colleague photographer, with a great admiration towards grandmother Livia’s talent. Visibly excited, she answers: ”Oh, but this painting is not for the exhibition!”
I don’t say a word. I am aware that both the painting and her life stories deserve to have an echo. They seemed to be from those movies in which you first see the future with all its lessons. But she got to all this wisdom after so many tears, so much pain. Without being able to control my emotions, I cried when Grandmother Livia was telling me about the big pain caused by the fact that she couldn’t be at her parent’s side, that she couldn’t help them when they needed it, or that she didn’t see them getting old. Gone from Romania for 35 years, grandmother Livia was at the same time an immigrant, a daughter, the mother of an immigrant child raised between two identities and then an orphan of her parents who couldn’t see their daughter at home anymore. What a blessing that now she has her grandchildren close to her.
And no, not all the stories are the same. Just as our grandparents aren’t – the same.
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This interview is part of the longing campaign “Like Grandparents in Fairytales” – a project initiated by Natalia Luncas Ionel in partnership with the photographer Vlad Bodarev, the Embassy of Romania in Ireland, and the non-governmental organization Romanian Community in Ireland. The purpose of this campaign is to honour all the grandparents from the diaspora, not only the 10 ones participating in our interviews and at the same time thank them for the huge impact they have on the identity of their grandchildren living in the diaspora. Being as present as possible, our grandparents reconfirm the roots of our entire nation. On the cover of this magazine, you will be able to see where the 10 grandparents we discovered this year, started their journeys and where they are today. The next objective is to “spread” on our grandparent’s map as many stories as possible.
All copyrights belong to Natalia Luncas Ionel.
