English version by Anca Șovagău
Original version in Romanian by Natalia Luncaș Ionel, available here: Bunica Ludmila
Photographer: Vlad Bodarev
“My grandchildren are Moldova’s voice in Ireland. It’s up to them how other nationalities will respect our country.”
If her soul would be able to shout with all its power, it would tell us about all the sacrifices made, about all the pleasures she had to sacrifice for……her family to be ok, not to disappoint her mother in heaven, her father on earth to make him happy. A lot, but a lot of knives touched her heart. But instead of hurting her, Ludmila became stronger and wiser with an inner, unexpected force. She is the daughter, wife, and mother who knows when to give up on herself for the happiness of her family. Also, she is the woman who dared to say “Stop, life! From here, I’ll take the lead”.
Grandmother’s Ludmila Buzdugan story shook my present. I say what she told me. I don’t know how it is with others, but I know how I am and, with incomprehensible tears in my eyes, I hold my children and love them, hug them thinking at the same time how much I gave up to dedicate myself to them. Mothers, most of the time forget about the women inside themselves. And it’s a real blessing when those moments of forgetfulness when you meet ladies like Ludmila.
Ludmila Buzdugan, 64 years old, mother of 3 children, grandmother of 4 grandchildren, originally from the village of Tomai, Co Leava, Republic of Moldova. With a respected career throughout the country, developed in the 22 years of teaching practice in the city of Cantemir, Ludmila found the Emerald Country as the place that would heal her tears. Tears of sadness but also a joy because, as she says, there is no perfect life. She came to Ireland 22 years ago, at a time when the decision to immigrate could have left her without her house, not to mention the decent future that she was dreaming of for her children. 22 years of professional peek in Moldova and another 22 years being a “mother in a hurry” here in Ireland. Because life never asks what your soul desires, but it directly puts the bill on your table. Today, with a lot of joy, Grandmother Ludmila can gather all her family together at the same table in Kildare, Ireland.
Natalia: Mrs Ludmila, thank you for your time I don’t want you to see our meeting as an interview, but as a soul-to-soul talk…. I have admired you for a long time for the dedication with which you talk about the family you are raising. Let’s start with the beginning: who is Ludmila the Woman?
Ludmila Buzdugan: Ludmila, the woman, is a mother, an accomplished grandmother who lives on the joys of her family. I am 64 years old. God bless. I worked for 22 years as an English teacher in the Cantemir’s Secondary School, in the south of Moldova, a very respected profession back home 2 decades ago, simply because not many people speak English. My students ended up able to go into the big world thanks to the English and with many of them, I am still in contact. I have students that made it to the Republican Olympics even with Biology in English and I am so proud of them. Then I came to Ireland where I had to do different types of jobs, but teaching is my passion forever.
Natalia: Why did you leave?
Grandmother Ludmila: The year 2011 was the peak of the greatest poverty that Moldova went through, after its Independence. We didn’t receive our wages even 7/8 months, sometimes even more, and my husband lost his job just as many others those days. My son was in college, my daughter in secondary school and my youngest boy in preschool yes, money doesn’t bring happiness, but we needed it to survive. My husband had several attempts to work in Germany, but he failed each time with debts accumulating more and more so we decided to come to Ireland. We risked everything to come here. In those times wasn’t as easy as now, you weren’t able to only put your passport inside your pocket and leave wherever you wanted. We borrowed 5000 dollars from a loan shark who was giving “money at interest”, we pledged the house to the bank so I could borrow 1000 dollars more and we came. We had to work and pay back all that money. You liked the place of work or not, you knew English or not, it didn’t matter at all. We were obliged to honour the employment contract otherwise we would lose our house.
Natalia: I also lived the poverty in Moldova, being born in the 90’s, but how were the difficulties in the family seen from the eyes of a parent?
Grandmother Ludmila: “Simple and painful: there were long periods when we had no money in the house. There were times when we had nothing to put on the table. Our salary wasn’t even enough for food not to mention other expenses. My father helped us a lot may he rest in peace. He used to grow a pig for us every year, he also had two cows who constantly provided us with cheese and milk. Then, when we had to help our son go to college, my father sold his young ox only for us to be able to send “Sasha – the smart one”, as his grandfather used to call him, to Chisinau. Cause he had been admitted to college thanks to his high grades, with a scholarship, but money to travel, for food and clothes – where from?”
Ludmila, the girl, by her maiden name Ursu, grew up without a mother since she was 12 years old. She has one brother and one sister left; her older brother died when he was 42 years old. Her mother passed away while trying to give birth to a child when she was only 37 years old. Father Alexei became a widow at only 45 years old and, as Ludmila counts, only recently did she understand how hard it was for her father back then, being alone, with 4 children in his care and an unfinished house. “I only now can imagine what he went through, but back then seemed to me that he was the strongest man in the world. He made everything possible for us to educate ourselves. He wouldn’t make us work around the house so we could have time to study. He offered us everything he could; he built our houses, he sent us all to school, only that…. we never had a mother’s mercy.”
Natalia: Who is Ludmila, The Woman, anyway?
Grandmother Ludmila: “Do you mean on a personal level? I don’t think I would have a lot to say because…”. And suddenly, the lady with the always smiling face cries. Not only with a lump in her throat but with tears running down her face. I was annoyed at myself for insisting. Why did I even ask when I already can see what a careful mother, she is for her granddaughter Veronica, what a wise grandmother for her grandchildren? I apologized for the question as I was ready to change the subject when Mrs Ludmila took a deep breath and she taught me the most valuable lesson, inserting on the paper the full story of her life.
Grandmother Ludmila: “There is no perfect life and that’s why you always need to learn how to manage to create your perfect moments. I studied, I dedicated myself to my profession and this brought me a huge satisfaction. Then I was very happy just to be the mother of my children and that was enough for me. I believe that each woman goes through a period in which she gives up on herself. The most important is that this period won’t be too long.
For about 10-12 years in Ireland, in the midst of worries with raising children, then their weddings, then a lot of work to be able to buy apartments in Moldova for them, and in the end my grandchildren coming into this world and…I kind of forgot that I am not only a wife, mother, and grandmother but a woman as well. Many tears had to flow for me to realise that I must love myself. It was as if I was in a work marathon. My soul was too empty, and I couldn’t cope. The salvation came from my daughter. Veronica started by taking me out for a coffee into town, I discovered with her and her family all the counties in Ireland, because Ludmila, the woman, loves to travel very much. For the last 6-7 years I have been in Birmingham, Paris, Seville, New York, Amsterdam, Creta, Rhodos, Lanzarote, and Portugal and the adventure just began. In Ireland, I try to be present at as many events as possible, especially the quality ones or the ones close to my soul as the events that Mama in IE organises or other communities in the diaspora. Today I practice yoga, I take care of my physical appearance and I enjoy my life. Difficult, painfully I got to this point, but I repeat: there is no perfect life, and it only depends on us to create our perfect moments in life”.
“As there is no perfect life, there is no perfect country either”.
Asked by me and my colleague photographer, Vlad Bodarev, to find an activity that would describe their family in images, the grandmother chose to plant together with her family in the house garden. “Just as the plants grow only if they are taken care of the same is with our family”, justifies her choice grandmother Ludmila. Inside the house she was waiting for us with the table prepared with cheese, green onions and tomatoes, polenta and meat steak- the essence of a Moldovan person, regardless of the country in which that person emigrated. Her son in low reveals, joking but serious at the same time, while he was stroking his t-shirt: “Since I married Veronica, my mother-in-law Ludmila feeds me that much as you just have to take a look at my belly”. We are not able to finish the topic we started to talk about and Ludmila shows the urge to feed us. Just as a genuine Moldovan. Indeed, that was also 10 in the evening, and I had another 90 minutes of driving to get to my house.
In the 22 years since she is in Ireland, grandmother Ludmila also brought her 3 children close to her, each one of them being settled at their own house in Co Kildare. Together, they went through divorces, complicated surgical interventions, financial worries, and entrepreneurial successes and, each time, any challenge made them even stronger and powerful as a family. Ludmila’s house is opposite her grandchildren’s school and they, the luckiest grandchildren in the world, spend all their afternoons in their grandmother’s house. Caoimhe the youngest granddaughter proudly carries an Irish name and Moldavian blood. One day she and her older brothers will buy a house in Moldova. “For the family”, they say.
Natalia: What would be a value that you would want your grandchildren to carry forward in life?
Ludmila: “Family. The value of the family. Me, how many times I was in the position to choose in this life between something else and my family, I have always chosen my family and I wish that they will understand how precious this gift is. There is no celebration that we are not gathering at the same table, and it is the same when we have challenges. For both good and bad we need to go back to the family because it is the only place where we will find healing. I would like so much that when my grandchildren have their children, they will cherish the value of the family as much as I do.”
– “You told me about the hurricane of events that you went through and how much they influenced you as a woman. You have a granddaughter: what is your advice for the future woman Caoimhe?”
– “To be strong, never to give in to difficulties, no matter the situation. It’s impossible not to mention that our granddaughter comes from a family with an Irish father and a Moldovan mother, and I believe it is very important for her to know how strong her mother is. Because in Moldova very difficult we reach democracy, the freedom of women and it is important for her to have the same strength of character”.
– “And what do you think is that your grandchildren shouldn’t forget about Moldova, growing up in Ireland”?
– “Moldova’s history mainly. They must know where they started from, and how their race evolved and not only to know but also to share the stories further. My grandchildren are Moldova’s voice in Ireland: at school, at work and everywhere they will end up in life it’s up to them how other nationalities will respect our country. And the rest of our traditions, of course, like Moldavian dances, red Easter eggs and others, which we are careful to show them through real examples every day”.
Without having any official title, Ludmila is a wonderful ambassador of all that Stefan cel Mare (ruler of Moldova) said: Moldova belongs to its descendants. It passes the Romanian language on to its generations of grandchildren, also the respect towards family, the Moldovan hospitality, polenta, steak and all the beautiful values of a nation.
Just as there is no perfect life, there is no perfect country. It’s up to us how we build our route in life and what we leave behind. Grandmother Ludmila Buzdugan leaves love, power, and courage to say “Stop life. I will take the lead from here.” What about you?
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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.
