Rosemary Jenkinson

Based on a stage play by the same author (called "Lives in Translation"), the play is a dramatization of real stories - the struggle of a refugee from Somalia to find a new home in Europe.

Asha Suleman fled her native country and ended up in Ireland. None of it was easy - she had to pay to be smuggled across borders, she was raped from people she trusted and she had to leave her daughter back home with her family. Her hope was to manage to get her refugee status and then send for her child - the conventions are supposed to work that way. Except things got horribly wrong.

When she entered the country she did not speak any English so she had to talk via an interpreter. We never get the complete picture of what exactly happened and why although from the hints and the bits of information Asha shares, it seems like the interpreter made all in his power to fail her claim - and she was denied for not speaking the correct dialect and not knowing her own home city ("how many mosques are there in the area you lived in?" being one of the questions she failed for example).

Going back is not an option - so before they can deport her from Dublin, a friend proposes a solution - catch the bus to Belfast and apply there. So Asha goes, she applies, she gets a room in a house of women like her... and a few weeks later gets a denial because of the Dublin agreement: she needs to seek refuge in the first country she lands in - Ireland. Off to jail for her, a few plane rides and she is back in Dublin (where she is already denied). So off on the Belfast bus she gets again - and as she is now entering anew, she can file again. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

The years pass. Asha writes letters home, finds friends in the most unexpected places (the immigration office in Belfast starts greeting her with "Didn't we send you to Dublin? OK, here is the paperwork"...) and she stays in limbo - with nowhere to go and noone seemingly caring about a woman who has no home and no options.

This specific story has a happy ending - Asha gets her refugee status. Too late for her daughter (the girl ages out) but still it works out. For how many it does not?

The change of the title of the play between the stage version and the radio one is interesting. Most of what Asha goes through is because of the translator's initial blocking of her claims - and even in the radio play the women talk about the all-powerful translators. The radio play uses that as a setting to set the things in motion - it is the movement and the absurdity of all the hoops that seem to be there that are taking the central role. From what I found online, the stage play used the translation angle a lot more.

Not an easy play to listen to and it can almost sound too set in places and drag because of that but still worth a listen.… (meer)