SHE’S been dubbed ‘The Ledra Street Star’ by local newspapers and has fans who greet her as they pass by. Irini Kokkini is a Sri Lankan lottery ticket seller and perhaps the most popular one in the old town of Nicosia. She has befriended almost every shop owner in Ledra Street, making her welcome in their stores and cafés, a rare streak of sensitivity that stands out from the usual tales of prejudice.
However, this woman has overcome the racism, has witnessed cruelty and with a smile she sits on a bench selling tickets to make ends meet.
“I came to Cyprus in 1991 after my husband was killed by terrorists and my life was threatened, literally with a knife to my neck,” she says with tears in her eyes. “Coming to Cyprus was very good for me as I got a job taking care of an old woman, who loved me dearly and was slowly recovering from my heartache.”
However, the good luck came to an end when the old woman died after just two years and Irini was forced to return to her country.
But during her two-year stay in Nicosia, Irini had met her future husband, who made his way to Sri Lanka asking her to marry him and return with him to Cyprus. “I wanted to go back and this was my chance, so I took it,” she says.
Although Irini didn’t work for six years, as her husband wouldn’t allow it her, when their marriage hit rock bottom, she pleaded with him to help her get a job. “If it wasn’t for my husband, I would never have got this job,” she notes. “The Government Lottery department wouldn’t have given me any tickets to sell.”
Before she received the licence to sell, she had been caught by the police illegally selling tickets she had obtained from another lottery ticket distributor. Her husband came to her rescue, got her the licence and helped her get on her feet.
Dressed in a blue and yellow Pokemon dress she made herself, Irini spends hours sitting on a bench on Ledra Street. She’s poor, but “will never beg” and together with her son (she has another one who lives in Sri Lanka), they struggle to make ends meet.
“I pay £140 rent a month,” she says showing me her house, a shameful excuse of a room with one light bulb, no refrigerator and a rubbish dump for a garden.
“My son makes £70 a week, working 10 hours a day, seven days a week at a construction site.”
So, does she manage to keep them afloat? “Every £100 worth of tickets I sell, I get £6. I’m happy, it’s OK,” she says and then adds: “But what I’m not happy with is the way I am treated by people. They think I’m stupid and try to con me by saying they gave me £10 for a ticket when I know they didn’t because while I’m getting the tickets out of my bag, they put the £10 back in their pockets.
“It’s happened to me more than enough times, but what can I do? I get called a thief if I open my mouth.”
Despite the mistreatment and ill fortune, Irini is eager to point to those that stand out for their kindness. “Some people may be bad but there are also some very good people, God bless them. Once a 19-year old, who works at one of the shops, won £500 off me and he was sick and needed the money but decided to give me £50. It was the nicest thing anybody has done for me in a long time,” she says, waving to a mother and daughter as they pass by and greet her.
Being the star of Ledra Street, Irini insists she will not be giving up anytime soon, refusing to be dragged down by “bad people”.
Instead, she starts telling me her worries about the troubles of the neighbourhood and her concerns of children smoking…
