‘If my optimism dies, so do I’

True story.

Back in his early days in Ireland, Zaur Antia needed to get to DCU but with no more than a few words of English scraped and scrounged together, he thought it best to call a taxi rather than risk navigating his own way across the city. It all seemed to be going well as he sat in the back watching the strange buildings flashing by the window but then they arrived at some surrounds that looked like anything other than a university. Staring out at a bunch of animals, the driver turned to him and said they were there. All the Georgian native could do was repeat in his harsh accent the letters “D-C-U, D-C-U” as he sat in front of the zoo. These days he laughs about it but they were tough times when he first came here.

“I had difficulty with the language, with a new country, it was all hard. Family is most important but mine weren’t here. Every one month and a half I’d say, ‘Now I go, now I go’.”