How a water bottle on an Irish train sparked an Afghan woman's childhood memories

Sara Wahedi said: 'There is just no such thing as borders and we are really intrinsically connected.'

Sara Wahedi speaking after receiving the One Young World "Entrepreneur of the Year" award in Belfast. Picture: Sarah Wahedi via Twitter

Tipperary. A word on a water bottle and in a song. The one word linking memories from the past and the present for a 28-year-old Afghan woman as she travelled down to Dublin on a train from Belfast.

Sara Wahedi was five years old when she, her mother, and her brother arrived in Canada as refugees from Afghanistan. 

Ms Wahedi said she spoke no English, her mother worked three jobs, and that she and her brother were “entrusted” into the care of a couple. A Norwegian-Canadian woman named Marit and an Irishman named Merrill.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Ms Wahedi said as a child barely saw her mother except for the routine 5am hug they had every morning. 

“They were two Canadian immigrants who took care of my brother and I while my mother worked three jobs,” the Columbia University student said.

Ms Wahedi described Marit as a person who was “uncommonly kind to everyone she met” and that she had welcomed the siblings into their church and always said that “Christians are brethren to the Muslim faith.” 

“Merrill was a staunch and very proud Irishman. He always had a pipe in his mouth and he was always cleaning it,” Ms Wahedi told the Irish Examiner.

“He would always tell us to pause our stories or questions until the end of the pipe was filled and ready to go,” Ms Wahedi said.

The 28-year-old had just been awarded Entrepreneur of the Year by One Young World in Belfast over the week for her work with creating Ehetsab App which helps deliver real-time alerts on security, electricity, and traffic for people in Afghanistan.

I just experienced one of my first ‘full circle’ moments.

I bought this bottle of water on my train to Dublin and noticed the name - Tipperary.
Almost immediately, I began humming a tune. I searched “Tipperary song” on Google and learned that it was an old wartime song during… pic.twitter.com/PaYnKcqUGN

— Sara Wahedi (@SaraWahedi) October 5, 2023

Ms Wahedi said it was her first time in Ireland, as she took the train down to Dublin. She went up to the cart to get a bottle of water and as she looked at it, the word ‘Tipperary’ in bold white colour in front of a blue background sprung out to her which led to a “rush of emotions" as she was trying to figure out how she knew the word. 

She said she had been subconsciously humming a song that she had learned from Merrill some 20 years ago which stayed with her for most of her life. It was an old marching song used in World War I called “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.” 

But she said she couldn’t remember the title of the song, and if the song had existed, so by putting the word "Tipperary" and "song" into Google she was able to find it and she reconnected with memories from her childhood.

“Merrill would sing the song every single day,” Ms Wahedi said.

“My brother and I didn’t speak much English but I would say that from Merrill just being very insistent about us pushing ourselves and learning.

“He used that through music and through his stories and I guess Ireland became a huge subconscious part of our childhoods because Merrill was the one who would really talk to us and really spent time speaking to us, even as children,” she added.

The water bottle with the sign Tipperary. Picture: Sara Wahedi via Twitter

On her trip to Ireland, Ms Wahedi said she and her brother saw the memory of Merrill come in “many different ways.” 

“We saw a man in Dublin with a pipe and my brother was just like ‘You see, he’s everywhere” and it’s just to see that Irishness everywhere and the personality of this man that meant so much to us come out.

“We’ve seen Merrill in every facet of Ireland so far, in just the kindness of people, their patience and their desire to question and ask about us and our journeys with such kindness and respect and also just the comedy and the people’s humour here is amazing and it definitely felt like coming home in a weird way.

I’ve never been to Ireland before, so the fact that I feel so comfortable here has been just kind of like a goosebump, out-of-body feeling that really there is just no such thing as borders and we are really intrinsically connected.

Sadly, Ms Wahedi was told by her mother a few years ago that Merrill had passed, but the memories of her childhood spent with the couple definitely influenced her life now.

Even though Ms Wahedi recalled that Merrill had a very strong accent, she has yet to find out which county he was from — a mystery she wishes to “figure out soon”.