“I’m very energetic. I like adventure. I like to try. I’m afraid of nothing.” Eyvon Bastouri is 34, has a lot of living behind her and oodles of drive to succeed and improve life in Ireland for her and her daughters. “I believe myself, if opportunity is not coming, you seize opportunity.”
She is from Syria and has lived in Galway since 2016. She is full of ideas, enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit. Eyvon spells her name Yvonna for her fledgling baking business Yvonna Pistachio Cake. She makes oriental sweets including baklava (“this is very famous. It started from Aleppo, not from another country”) and other Syrian pastries such as kunafa, shaibiat, barazek. She also makes more familiar treats such as scones and protein balls for local Irish cafes such as Placebo. She’s brought me some protein balls to try (yummy) and shows me photos of her fabulous birthday and occasion cakes, bright and decorated like edible cartoons, which she makes to order.
It’s early days and she’s not making a lot of money yet – “I can’t stand on it” – but she talks about one day opening her own place, serving her cakes, Arabic coffee, Syrian drinks such as sahlab (milk and cinnamon) and zhurathe (herbal), with books and games too.
“I don’t feel like something is not possible in this life. Opportunities are coming sometimes when it is not a good day. For me, I don’t see life is negative.”
From Aleppo in Syria, Bastouri’s family lived in Dubai for seven years when she was a small child, before returning to Aleppo to be near wider family. Her father is a carpenter, her mother was a dressmaker and she has a younger sister. The family is Catholic.
“Syria is very nice. For education, for everything. Our college and university is very strong”, though qualifications are not all recognised elsewhere. “We are very clever people, though the news does not focus on that, it focuses on religion. And the religion is not everything.” Though people perceive Syria as an ancient place, it is also modern, she says.
As a very young woman, she nursed in the operating theatre of a private hospital for five years, then started studying nursing while working there.
When she was 22, her aunt made a match for her, with the nephew of a friend, and she married in 2012. She didn’t want to abandon her dream of nursing after marriage, but says her husband did not want her to work or study, and she had to stop. “He was a nice person but we were not nice together. We were very different personally.”
By the time their first daughter, Anitta, was born, the war had started. “Day by day, year by year, is getting worse.” The family moved from Aleppo to Latakia, another Syrian city, for a couple of years, hoping it would be safer. “But it’s the same: the bombs, the guns. Same danger.”
Then a chance arose. Through family they became friends with an Irish legal professional, who wanted to help them and invited the family, now with three-year-old and five-month-old girls, to visit Ireland in 2016. It was almost impossible to leave Syria, says Bastouri. “When we came here we decided we don’t want to go back. When you find a safe place it’s very hard to go back.”
They applied for asylum in 2016, lived in direct provision in Salthill for 18 months and were granted asylum in 2018. “The government gave us a paper. You can stay.” They rented a house, her husband worked and she looked after their small girls. Later she started studying pre-nursing, but found it wasn’t possible to continue without support at home.
Some years later she and her husband separated.
She has a busy life, juggling two children, many after-school activities, and her own projects. She is careful and skilful at budgeting her limited income. She recalls times when she spent four hours walking to and from shops, because she didn’t have bus money.
She has worked in hotel housekeeping, as a chef in a creche, and in a bakery.
The girls are happy in school in Newcastle in Galway city. “For me that is number one.” They speak Arabic at home and English at school. English is an easier language, says Bastouri. They learn Irish at school (“difficult”), Anitta is learning French, and Natasha is interested in Japanese. Their lives are full of activity and learning skills.
Bastouri’s desire not to let life pass her by is strong: “I want to do something, me personally. I can’t just stay watching. I keep busy. I’m very energetic. I’m not lazy.” She’s considering training in phlebotomy or payroll, to work in healthcare. Her passions are nursing and art, “and baking is art”.
The weather was difficult but now it’s okay. People are kind, friendly, respectful. Sometimes I’m lonely
She started baking for others in 2021, and sold her cakes at a Christmas market very successfully. The following year customers returned. “Everyone around me says they like my food and I should open something. And I know myself, I believe myself. I know I can do it” in a couple of years. “My personality is positive. If there is a problem, we can fix it. I’m happy with what I do it now. I enjoy it. I didn’t fail.”
After four years renting near the girls’ school, she says last year her landlord gave her notice as he needed the house for family. It was incredibly difficult to find a new home, and they had to move 13km out of the city to Claregalway last August, which means travelling back and forth daily to school. All the same, she is happy with the place. Her landlord is good, she says, and even helped them move their stuff in a big van. “He very nice. He is really human. He understands my situation.”
Living in Ireland “I feel the same peace as before the war” in Syria. “The weather was difficult but now it’s okay. People are kind, friendly, respectful. Sometimes I’m lonely”, and she would like to see her parents.
As a woman “I have more chances and options here to study or work” than she would in Syria, though as a Christian woman she says she had more freedom there than Muslim women.
Since the collapse of the Assad regime, Bastouri fears for religious minorities there. “Now we are afraid. What’s happening now is scary, for people who are not Muslim.”
She observes of the Assad regime, “for a country to be successful it must not just be good for the president and their circle. Let’s all work together to make the country nice, not just for one person. He was a problem, but not all the problems were down to him.”
“That’s why I like here so much, because the President is amazing. Michael [D Higgins], he’s very nice. I hope every country has someone like that. Me, I feel more safe in Ireland. The system, the people, everything.”
She became an Irish citizen in 2022.
We would like to hear from people who have moved to Ireland. To get involved, email newtotheparish@irishtimes.com.
