Anna’s story: From Belarus to Bandon Agricultural Show
She works locally in the offices of the Irish Cattle Breeders Federation, and has a good strong Bandon accent, but Anna was born in Belarus in June 1992, and she is a Chernobyl child.
She was born with a number of physical difficulties as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the first three and a half years of her life were spent in a babies’ home in Belarus before Adi Roche stepped in and literally saved her life.
When Adi succeeded in bringing Anna to Ireland in 1996, so that her medical needs could be attended to, Anna became the first child from Belarus to be adopted in an Irish-Belarusian adoption agreement, which was signed in 1998, much to the delight of her adoptive parents Robert and Helen Gabriel.
Anna was born deaf, but through a miraculous device she calls a “bone-conductor hearing aid”, she now hears perfectly well.
As for talking, she told me over a coffee last Saturday, “My only problem is that I talk too much, and maybe too fast.”
It’s trying to get a word in edgeways that is the problem now.
Anna was also born with deformed legs, but that doesn’t stop her from getting around. She uses artificial legs (particularly well, I’m told, when attending Nathan Carter concerts).
“When I started out with artificial legs, I began with a walking frame, but I used to fall with it a lot, so I just said please get me crutches, and after that there was really no stopping me.”
Last Saturday, before I met her, she had spent her morning learning to sail, at Kinsale.
I asked her about her job with ICBF, the non-profit organisation charged with providing cattle breeding information services to the Irish dairy and beef industries.
She has worked in the administration and finance department for the past two- and-a-half years.
“It’s a job I really enjoy, I met a lot of interesting people in farming, because of my work,” she says.
And I ask about her grandfather, well-known vintage farm machinery enthusiast, Hughie O’Donovan.
I had spotted the 93-year old listening with pride at Bandon Show to his grand-daughter as she spoke at the opening of the event.
Does she ever spend time helping Hughie when he’s repairing an old rusty tractor?
“Oh god no, my farming interests don’t stretch as far as that,” she said, with a laugh.
As we mark the 30th anniversary of the terrible Chernobyl disaster, Anna is a great example of the continuing work of organisations like Chernobyl Children International.
