Roma are free people

ROMA ARE FREE PEOPLE
Zdenka SimovaNymburkAugust 2000
The following story was told to me by Mrs. Vejtrubova, an officer at the Social Affairs Department in the Nymburk City Hall . She was very kind and told me about experiences that she has had working there.
“I met a very interesting man at a training session recently. It was attended by both Roma and non-Roma. We were divided into small groups. My group was quite diverse. It included a lawyer working as a Romany adviser in another town hall, our Romany adviser Cyril, and a very lively Romany man. Everyone was quite different. When we were discussing things we could never reach a compromise.
I was most impressed by the lively Romany man. He originally came from a Romany settlement. Yet he was not ashamed about that: he was proud. And he was the most difficult opponent in our discussions.
At first I wasn’t able to understand him at all. Until I learned more about him, I couldn’t accept his opinions. This was his attitude: the Roma are playful, the Roma are lively, the Roma are free people, and nobody can restrain them: why don’t we let them live the way they want?
I answered that I would let them live them the way they want, but then they couldn’t ask anything from the others. This was a problem that we couldn’t agree about.
I came to realize that it’s really what he feels. He believes that it is possible, that it can be done. He does work somehow, although it may be a little bit obscure. He is very intelligent and he is a tax consultant. He has had no education but he has coped with that: it is no problem for him and he is successful. He is in constant touch with his community, he visits them and says they are happy and free people. They may have no water and nothing to eat but they’ve got their freedom and songs and are happy with that. He didn’t consider his origin a handicap because he has found his way in life.
So he is a little different – in the clothes he wears, in everything – both from the whites and other Romanies. But when you talk to him it’s clear that he has his head on his shoulders. He knows what he wants, and where he is going. It may be slightly against the rules of this society, but he sails through.
When our group was asked to simplify a problem, that is, to give as brief an account of it as possible, this man was the best of all. And that is exactly why he sails through life.
This encounter may have helped me a bit to understand the thinking of some Romanies. I admire this man, he has achieved a lot. He has organized a folklore festival, made films of his own in Gypsy villages in Slovakia. And so on. Sadly, I couldn’t see the films because we couldn’t get accommodation and had to commute back and forth so I missed the screenings.
For the last evening of the training course he arranged a barbecue. In the open air, ‘Gypsy style,’ ribs with onions barbecued in foil. I was so sorry that I couldn’t be there as I was freezing and felt sick. But I was told that it was fun.”