“In 2011, I graduated from Moldovan high school and immediately went to work in Belgium. Sint Traiden. Strawberries. Strawberry picking, that is. It was quite miserable… well, the work we had, Moldau, in London, in Lille, on the canals, in Chambery… it was a pleasure, comparatively! How was I supposed to know that those damn strawberries had to be picked On the knees?! This is where I found out. All day I crawled on my knees, the box behind me, and I still earned very poorly, because I worked with old Bulgarian women in the trade who knew how to do it, I could not keep up with them, they took the cream, I came with a full box green or old strawberries, half of them were thrown away during sorting. Difficult, difficult in general! The accommodation was in a large building, the conditions were humane, but there were many of us, about 30 people. And yes, and yes, you just know how it is at work.

We made a soccer team, we rode bikes in Newvekerken, where there were free fields, we played there with others, some Romanians, some foreigners, we used to de-stress. There were six of us. Staroste was one, an ex-boxer, a bit crazy, he was a young hope of his time, he made the national junior team, around 1992 or 1993, but he was late for that train because he had a drinking problem and his head wasn’t going to carry him. Otherwise, a man is like iron: he worked for apples, he earned well, he was like a machine, he never got tired and never rested, the Belgians loved him, because he also kept the Romanians, there were no scandals, there was nothing. And so one evening we were returning from a football match and passed the house of a local man who was breeding deer. There was a big yard, but big. And the deer were free in that yard. And this boxer, a former one, says, let’s take it. Let’s jump over the fence, let’s take one for a barbecue.

They left me on the road to guard the bikes, because I was younger, and you know how it is at work: the younger one makes the coffee. All five of them were jumping, it was night, and summer was clearly visible, I watched, I didn’t miss anything. They chased those deer for a long time, ten minutes, because they were sprinters, damn it, and finally this boxer caught one right by the fence where I was. Goodbye, Moldo! He caught her and put his hand in her throat, and in a moment she completely broke her throat like a chicken – I have never seen such a thing, God forbid! He threw it over the fence, everyone jumped, we split up, someone went to Sint Traiden for tools, me with this and another one, back to the football field, to Newvekerken. I waited for them there, they came with knives, shovels and shovels, I gutted the deer, butchered it, made nice packages of meat, one for each, six for all, equally. I buried their heads, skins, and hooves there, in the field, in a more wooded area, further on. They returned, put the packages in the freezer and went to bed.

I ate that deer for two weeks! I used it to make stew, soups, kebabs, but whatever else I did; wealth! We had very little money, food, we ate sponges because everyone was making ends meet so that we would not return to Romania empty-handed. I don’t know if the people in the apartment suspected something, I think so, but no one poured it on us. I, what can I say about this stage… I… I came back to the country and I never needed Belgium again. And no strawberries. I went to work, trees, as you know, and three years later we met, then in Luton, when I came to pick you up in a car, in a van, because you were still a wreck!’

I have no reason to doubt the statements of a former colleague. I have known him for almost ten years, he is a serious person, without faces, without numbers in his head. If he says so, then it was so! Little lies are my prerogative, not his. I believe him.

Here’s what I’m asking you, dear readers: reach out and make a chart like I did. With two columns. Read the rest on Contributors.ro