Yesterday we went to our first gypsy village here in Romania. The long walk to the village – some 5 km away (possible exageration, I still have yet to master the metric system) from where we started ended in a .5 km climb straight up a long steep road lined with gypsy homes. The stretch passed gypsy men women and children sitting outside, trying to escape the baking sun in the shade. Some children were washing in the neighborhood faucet (some completely naked – a sight that's become common when entering gypsy villages) others ran up to us yelling "goodbye" which they understood to mean our greetings and held hands with the women of our group. We finally made it to the peak where a playground that had seen better days was waiting for us. The objective of the day was to play with the kids at the playground. The team knew we would be doing this, so we rehearsed skits and planned to play some games that seemed successful in the past gypsy villages we visited. But this gypsy village was not anything like we'd experienced before…
As we tried our first game, I noticed a group of young boys off a little ways watching us in a huddled group. They were probably 6-10 years old and to my surprise were all taking pulls from a bottle of beer. After they polished off one bottle, another appeared and they left us drinking heartily. The games only interested about 5 children so we decided the "hokey kokey" might fair better. The boy who stood next to me had to put his fake cigarette away – which he had been "smoking" (quite realistically) since we got there – in order to hold my hand.
Eventually we abandoned all our planned structured activities and took to playing with the children. Throughout the next two hours, we witnessed several fights in which the boys and girls would hit and kick each other with full force. For no reason whatsoever 3 boys around 7 years old ganged up on a little girl of the same age. They started kicking her wherever they could make contact; one boy's foot connected with her eye after which she collapsed bawling. If we hadn't have stepped in, they would have continued their attacks. Even with an adult present to comfort the girl, the boys would still run up and hit her in the back until I stood in a foot away from the girl to ward off any others. At another point I had to pull a boy off of another, holding the crying boy down and hitting him.
The time we spent there continued in the collision of two worlds – the world of joyful children running around and playing on the swings to the world of screaming violent monsters drinking and beating each other. The change would come as if someone flipped a switch on the back of the kids' heads. Until now I have merely described what I saw – completely unbiased depictions of what I observed. Now that you all have a vague picture of what i saw, I can add my thoughts to the situation.
Shortly after I witnessed the first fight and consumption I withdrew socially from everything around me. I stood, almost unable to will myself to move, just soaking in reflection. I jumped on a rollercoaster of emotional thoughts. As I watched a little girl naked from the waist down running around with a smile of pure joy on her face, I got angry. The innocence depicted by that little girl – so innocent that she wasn't ashamed of her nakedness – symbolized the natural state of those kids. A state stollen from them. The innocence and joy quickly being stripped off their tiny bodies. The vultures of the world don't give them a chance to find the life flowing through their veins. They rip and tear every inch of flesh they find – leaving walking death where a child once stood. As they grow, they find themselves unable to move in the way they were made to. Without the muscles and skin, they crawl around the floor clutching at anything they can raise themselves even an inch off the floor with. Sooner or later, they find themselves hovering over fresh victims who's skin they can feast off.
So goes the cycle of humanity. Those kids aren't naturally violent. They learn it. The pastor told me that they act in such a way as they see at home – where parents scream and fight, get drunk, smoke, and abuse them. A child is a blank slate and if the only mark you make upon them are deep scratches, it is the only mark they make upon others. This cycle will continue until someone stops the hand that scrathes and gives it a brush.
I doubt i will ever enter that village again, but I pray that one day, a new generation will see a different way. That they will drop the nails they scratch with and start to paint on each other instead.
Rereading this blog, it appears to me unfinished. But thats how I feel, so I will leave you with the song i am listening to as I write this
