Second meeting

And now I have finished my second meeting. It was not so nice as the first... I mean, not nice, in the sense that the girl was not actually there. Only her grandmother and aunt. But I talked to them, telling the background story of why I am doing this.

The aunt, around my age, has a 3-4 year old child on her own and she currently works as a tailor, which she studied in vocational school and thus studied for the full 12 years. Her son attends kindergarten.

At this family, we talked more about declaring yourself as a Roma and well-known teachers and other people in town who refused to do so, even though everyone knows their family and background. I very much like it to just stand there and listen to what the people want to talk about, especially since I don't imagine many Romanians coming in and asking them about their opinions.

But this family recognises me after telling my name. They even know where I live, asked me if I like 'my second mother', as they call my father's partner. I underline the fact that I no longer live here, that I moved away since I left for high school. I try to avoid telling them that I study in the UK, since I see that a little bit as a way of bragging. Additionally, I would seem more of the 'foreigner interested in the Roma' than the 'local interested in the local community'. The grandmother also gave me the address of the girl, since her parents live somewhere else. They live close to the train station, at the edge of the city in the sole block of flats that is there. I avoided going there, rather leaving the items with the grandmother. Thinking on the way back as to why I did this, I realised that I, too, have certain stereotypes in my head. But besides this, there is another thing that a girl from Malta told me more about in a full hostel room in London: fear. And past experiences fuel this fear. And it is not because they are Roma (since Romanians live there too), but because of the situation they have to live in. Walking there during the night, coming back from the station, I was attacked with stones from the small 'park' in front of the block. Nothing happened back then, but I am always weary when I walk around there. It reminds me of the Lamp Community in the film The Soloist and I am ashamed of having such strong stereotypes in my head, again, generally against the poor and dispossessed. But I shall fight those stereotypes, some way or another. I have decided to go there, the next time I get an opportunity. (As cheap an excuse as 'I will stop smoking... starting from tomorrow.' :| )

Now I need to go. I will go together with my neighbour to the Roma neighbourhood just next to where my mother lives. Since many of the girls live there, I will not be able to write for each family on its own, but I will write about all at the end.