Light in the darkness

This article came out in the newspaper ”NEUES DEUTSCHLAND“

The section of Roma population in Europe mostly lives under unreasonable social and economic conditions which in our European social system are hardly imaginable. The reality of Roma life has nothing to do with the dream of a ”never ending journey“ or ”campfire romanticism“, instead it shows a hopeless picture of misery, particularly in East-Europe, which you can only grasp if you see it with your own eyes. Not only the myth of freedom is questioned here but also your own westerly feeling of tolerance.

SOFIA
From Berlin we flew to the Bulgarian capital Sofia, from there we took the train to the Black Sea and then travelled on in a horse and cart to a Roma ghetto in a suburb of Varna. Getting slower and slower we moved on departing more and more from our westerly world of thought. A first idea of what we were to expect we got on the railway station of Sofia when we were waiting for the train. A Roma teenage girl came towards us with her credit card asking us to give her some help to withdraw money from a cash machine. At first we were baffled but then she handed us her credit card and gave us her code number for it saying that she wanted 10 Lewa out of the cash machine. Illiteracy on this level was shocking for us but on the other hand the confidence of the people here was amazing. Will this girl be able to withdraw money from a cash machine herself the next time? Laughing she left and we got on the train.

ROSENTAL
On the way to the Black Sea we stayed in Rosental in a small country hotel for one night half way between Sofia and Varna. We were served by an elderly married couple with a self-burnt drink from figs and a ”Schopska-salad“ from their own vegetable growing and sheep’s milk cheese. Crickets were chirping and the Alsatian was lazily lying in the corner, a perfect Bulgarian idyll. When I went to the grill to take a steak from it the dog suddenly started to bark wildly and was going to attack me, only with a great deal of effort we were able to calm him down. The old lady told me to stop shuffling with my feet because this is what the Roma usually do and her dog was trained on protecting them from the Roma. This scene seemed to be unbelievable in some way, but, in fact, when I lifted my feet the dog stopped barking and I was even able to stroke him.

VARNA
The next morning we set off to Varna. At the bus terminal we were met by Frank, a German
Christian missionar in the Roma ghetto and some boys. They picked us up in a horse and cart and together we rode through the big city of Varna. One of the boys asked us how many horses we had in Berlin and he was very much amazed to hear that there were none for transport purpose in Berlin.

MARKET
Before we rode into the ghetto we went to a market to buy some fruit and vegetable for the boys. Often there is a great lack of vitamines in the Roma’s food, firstly because of financial reasons but also the parents have no sensibility for healthy food. The market was calm, nearly lethargic. Suddenly there was a big noise when our group approached the market place. The street dogs began to bark loudly running towards our cart. The boys said: ” We already know that, whenever we come here the dogs bark. This is because they recognize us as Roma“. They shrugged their shoulders, as if they had accepted their stigma. Usually you can recognize them from their outer appearance, as Roma – dark skin, poorly dressed, a group of neglected youngsters. There is even an acoustic prejudice against the Roma, the old lady in Rosental was right. ”Here Europe ends” – with these words we were welcomed in the ghetto We noticed a westerly but neglected standard of living. A small boy had cut the two letters D&G – standing for Dolce and Gabana – cut in his hairstyle, a girl was urinating into the snow not being embarrassed at all. There are spectacular social differences in the population here showing a clear hierarchy of poverty. The better off people live in blocks of flats, the poorer people live in huts made of hard cord and corrugated iron with only very little space in them. But everywhere you find hospitality, with how much calculation you wouldn’t know.

STATION AND SERVICE

Frank took us to his station. Ten boys accompanied us, we played cards with them, they were cheating like world champions, laughing when they were caught. After that we danced together after Middle Eastern music, like so often it was the music which connected,. if you dance together you are friends. They are happy children up to the point when you hear their stories. Day in day out there is chaos in the ghetto, if someone experiences a misfortune he hands it over to the next one. One day Frank held service for the children. There were 30 of them sitting in a circle and he had to fight against their noise. He shouted and gesticulated wildly with his arms always repeating some words in Bulgarian or Ziganski, the language of the Roma. After some time the children were quiet and were listening to him. Frank told us it had taken him three years of time to get the boys used to this behaviour. A minute of silence for everyone, a silence the boys do not often experience. The youngest ones were looking eagerly, then the Halleluja was sung in Bulgarian, English, finally in German and if they wanted in Ziganski as well. In the end they all enthusiastically clapped their hands. Then they were listenig to the stories of Jesus Christ which Frank was telling them. Even if one is not a believing person one can hope that they learn from these stories.

HOSPITAL
If these children – today still being victims – are not helped they will be culprits tomorrow. Actually everyone of them needs psychological treatment because a lot of them are traumatized. But even if they only have an outer affliction medical help fo them is insufficient, they always have to reckon with discrimination in a hospital because they are Roma. They often don’t know their rights as patients and their little knowledge of the Bulgarian language makes them dependent from the doctors. You can only avoid this by paying extra money to the them. Twelve year old Velvin was sent to hospital to have his leg in plaster checked, the receptionist was very indignant and wanted to send him home immediately. One floor higher with a lot of begging and an extra pay of money of 20 Lewa the check up of the leg was possible. The doctor wanted to see Velvin’s identity card, Velvin shrugged his shoulder, there was none. Velvin officially didn’t exist. Without any registration he had probably been born between the huts in the ghetto. Who is Velvin? He got into a muddle and confused his Christian- and surname desperately looking at his aunt for help. ”The adress“ the doctor groused sceptically. The aunt replied: ”Velvin lives in the ghetto, his father is in prison and his mother is a prostitute, so what.“ The smile from the boy’s face
disappears, the doctor hadn’t smiled at all, it was a real humiliating procedure. Back from the hospital Frank introduced us to an old lady. ”She is someone whom you would have called a witch in the old times“, he told us. Occult preachers often advise the roma praying would be enough to protect their children from illness, any kind of medicine was devil’s trash and was not necessary. Mainly the old Roma, who partly still believe in ghosts, follow this advice. Tattooing is supposed to protect them from the evil eye. Often they kill a cock and mix its blood with cement to make an amulete out of it. A lot of Roma in the ghetto are infected with hepatits or aids without knowing it, they simply die of influenca. When we met the old lady we noticed that she couldn’t speak, she took off her scarf and instead of the larynx there was hole in her neck. There had been no money for an operation or an electronic speech help. Amulets do not really help very much but for many Roma there is no other alternative. So our westerly moral standards are counteracted by the East-European reality.

Written by Anna Georgiev, 15th November 2008