Romanek solved the problem in his own way

Author: Jan Horvath
Location: Stories Exchange Project Workshop #1
EastWest Institute
Prague
My son Romanek is six.
When we lived in Brno, Romanek attended a kindergarten. So we wanted to find one for him when we recently moved to Studenka near Ostrava. He’s used to being with other children. The rest of our kids go to school, and he has nobody to play with at home. He also needs children of his own age.
His mother had a lot of trouble finding a kindergarten, though. She contacted the authorities. The school bureau told her to come back in two weeks.
But my wife didn’t wait for the lady to notify her, and she visited the kindergartens again. After an hour-long conversation at one of them, its director evaluated the situation and said that there could be a place found for Romanek.
And so Romanek started to go to kindergarten. He was very happy to be with other children. Every morning he looked forward to going to kindergarten. He used to take his toys along and show them to the other children. And he wanted to teach the Czech children some games he knew.
But in about two weeks Romanek came home crying. Some children had called him a dirty Gypsy, and they didn’t want to play with him any more. So he asked me, since he knew that I was a Romany activist, to go to the kindergarten and explain to the children and the teacher that he was a normal boy, and that he felt sad when somebody called him a dirty Gypsy.
He also wanted me to send her some books my wife and I had written and published, a Romany cookbook also a table game for children in Romany and Czech. So I wrapped up the books and sent them to the teacher.
But a few days later Romanek came home and said that was not enough. He asked me once again to come to the kindergarten and help him fit in: to make the children accept him. I promised to do it, but I had other things on my mind at that time and I forgot.
So Romanek solved the problem in his own way. He went to see the teacher and invited her to visit our home, so that she can see that we were normal people and not dirty as the children had said.
We’re expecting the teacher to visit us next week.