Common Ground

Among the Czech Roma: a reporter's notebook

By Mary Rizos
Prague 2007: Common Ground

Hello from Prague, Ostrava, Vsetin, Brno, and everywhere in between!  My Czech partner, Vendula, and I are working on a story about integration and segregation of the Roma in Czech communities.  These opposite strategies are being realized in two places that we have visited this week—Vsetin and Ostrava, both in the eastern part of the country.  We’ve spoken with government officials, non-Roma in both cities, and with the Roma who have been moved out of Vsetin and the Roma who are living with white families in a “coexistence village” in Ostrava.

So many Roma children in Vsetin, 7, 10, 12 years old, speak Romani and Czech, and English—at least enough to talk to me in English, ask and tell our names, how old we all are, where we live.  Many families spend part of the year working, or looking for work, in Sheffield, England, and come back to the Czech Republic with a new perspective (the adults seem to say that there’s less discrimination in England) and vocabulary (the kids are fond of asking, “You crazy?”).

We spent Monday and Thursday last week in Vsetin, where the Roma live outside of town, in two towering orange metal buildings. To read, in English, about how this came to be, go here.

We were initially met with quiet, suspicious looks from adults, and lots of little kids crowding in and yelling to get their picture taken.  I was almost immediately asked if I had any children by the mother of some of the kids I was photographing.  To me, it’s an odd first question for a stranger to ask, but in Roma culture, it’s one of the most important.  The kids had already asked and translated my age, 27, and most Roma women have several children by that age (and we’ve been told that “No children, no happiness” is a traditional Roma saying).  I got asked the same question again, the second day, by a different woman.  It’s an interesting feeling to realize you’re being evaluated by someone else’s cultural rules, and there’s nothing you can do about it, that your worldview isn’t real in that place and you’ve already been judged, people think they know who you are.  But I guess that’s part of why this situation is so complicated, and why it can be so hard for both the Roma and the Czechs, or any different cultures in the same space, to find some common ground.  In any case, the initial awkwardness of our presence in the community gave way to a long evening of music, conversation, and sometimes-loosely-controlled chaos.

We were told a lot of different, and sometimes conflicting, things, by the people we talked to, and the experience of the Roma in Vsetin is very different from that of the Roma we visited in Ostrava.  From what we learned at the Museum of Roma art and culture in Brno, the experience of Roma in the Czech Republic is different from that of Roma in surrounding countries.  It is a complicated experience, especially when it comes to employment, housing, and education, and I feel like it’s probably best understood in the context of place and of history.

I had read a book written by a Roma author and scholar before I left Montana, and it emphasized the Roma’s purity taboos, one of which holds that spending time with non-Roma is bad, that it drains Roma’s spiritual energy.  We asked some of the Roma we met in Ostrava about this, and they pretty much said they had no idea what we were talking about.  Another book, Isabel Fonseca’s “Bury Me Standing,” says that Roma in the Czech Republic are among the most uprooted from t heir traditional culture.  Some Roma families in Ostrava said, in effect that assimilation into Czech culture has changed them –we’re living “white” now, that’s what you wanted us to do.

I don’t think because peoples’ stories of being Roma here vary, that some of them must be wrong, or that we should look only for the most typical or the truest version— it’s a BIG issue, and with 12 million Roma throughout the world, we have to know that experiences will vary.   

Some musicians in Vsetin had told me Monday that some stores and bars in town don’t like them to go in—because they’re gypsies, they’re black.

Back in Vsetin on Thursday, I was chatting in English with an eleven-year-old boy, and when I asked, he explained that he spoke English because he had lived in England.  I asked him what it was like there, he said school wasn’t that good.  Why?  Because of the Pakistanis.  Why?  Well, they’re black, he said.

A Blog in Verse Form

By Sean Breslin
Prague 2007: Common Ground

A Tale of Laundry Lament
An Ode to My Washer Back Home

When first I packed to leave for Prague,
I thought I'd brought enough.
But even so, the point was moot,
For my suitcase was stuffed.

Ten pairs of socks, about twelve shirts
Some kahkis and some jeans.
Some underwear to round it out,
That's all I thought I'd need.

"I'll find a laundromat," I said.
"I've used those things before."
But how convenient when I found
A washer in my dorm!

So when the time had fin'ly come
For me to do laundry,
I strolled downstairs, but unaware
I needed to get a key.

Getting the key: a simple task.
Just ask at the front desk.
But for one thing I overlooked:
I still cannot speak Czech.

Though my gesturing and pleading
Were met with no success,
A fellow student's translation
Aided me in my quest.

With key in hand, I made my way
Down to the laundry room.
I threw my clothes to the machine
And thought they'd be done soon.

I took a shower, changed my clothes,
I even shaved my face.
I thought it had been long enough,
But still I had to wait.

I checked again at half past four,
Was it done? Nowhere near!
But rather than just sit around.
I went and had a beer.

An hour later, still it washed,
This machine so foul and vile.
I think somehow I must have pressed:
"Never-ending spin cycle."

But finally, my clothes were clean,
And me, I was tired.
And I could not muster the strength
To bother with the dryer.

So now I'm sitting in my dorm,
Clothes hanging like damp flags.
A part of me can't wait to get
Back home to our Maytag.