
Every once on a blue moon you stumble upon a story that gets stuck in your mind. The story of Mrs. Popa is one of them. I met her a year ago while on assignment for Amnesty International in the slums just 10 kilometers due North of the posh inner city of Paris, where she lived with her husband, three children, a cat and a goat in a cardboard shack somewhere along the high-speed TGV train track that connects Paris to Brussels and Amsterdam.
She was a hearty woman and invited us in for a remarkably good cup of coffee. Her tale was one of sorrow and despair for their future in Romania and the health of her daughter who didn’t get any treatment for her tuberculosis back home. Thus they ventured out into the world searching for a better life, only to end up there in their shack next to the trains swishing rich tourists back and forth to the Champs Elysées. She managed to make the most out of the hostile environment in which they settled. The lack of water and electricity was a minor nuisance. It was the rejection of people living their rich lifes comfortably tucked away in their lavish homes that hurt, especially the kids throwing stones at her beautiful daughter on her way to school nearby. And still, in all the misery, she was kind and welcoming and invited us over for a BBQ one day. Of course we never went back, our worlds being so close and yet so far apart.
A week ago I went to Paris and must have swooshed past her small cabin. I never managed to spot it, but she’s been on my mind ever since. Mrs. Popa, how have you fared?