Never Easy

Well, the mini-Roma festival and Nadlac days was
held. Here's what happened.

In prior articles posted this month, I mentioned that we
were going to have a little Roma festival on the Friday
night right before the yearly 'Nadlac Days'.

Also, it was going to consist of 4 dance troupes and one
musical group.

As the heading of this article states 'It's almost never easy'
... well ... it wasn't easy this time either. What happened was
one group showed up and that's it. The others ... of course ...
waited to the last minute to cancel or in one case ... didn't
answer their phone. The head of the musical group said that
they couldn't come because a friend got into an accident.

Despite that, they trekked on and of course, it was a bit
shorter than planned. The two dance troupes danced great and
... in the risk of being bias ... our dance troupe danced with
heart and showmanship. They could use a little more practice
but they have that showmanship that one can't teach.

Stefan, the Roma man in charge was disappointed, and rightly
so. He worked hard to organize the festival. But nothing is lost
as there are always things to learn for the next time.

Fast forwarding to Saturday.

The town's dance troupe was slated to be part of Saturday's
extravaganza. There were flyers placed throughout town
with the list of events. There were at least 10 dance troupes
(Slovakian, Hungarian, Romanian, German and Roma) and
musical groups to perform that day.

The activities began with a parade from the Mayor's
office to the central park.

Upon arriving and after a speech or two, the entertainment
began.

From the time the parade arrived in the park to the time that
the Roma troupe was supposed to perform was 4 hours. It was
becoming cold and I actually ran home to get a jacket between
performances.

All the time I can see the Roma dance troupe inch up for their
chance. I see that they are next in line and then all of a sudden
... where did they go?

Immediately in my mind came ... no, this couldn't have happened.
All the positive things that have happened to these kids could
be destroyed in a matter of minutes.

Like I mentioned in one of the prior articles ... after their trip to
Constanta ... they were transformed. They were self motivated, and
they practiced hard to be ready.

The mayor (to his credit) helped the troupe out by donating money
for these skirts for the girls. See picture below ...

What happened was that the man in charge of the events (he's
the man that's the boss at the town's cultural house) told Stefan
(the Roma man) that they would go on an hour an half later than
the original schedule. That sounds normal at events, sometimes
things like that happen. But ... and there's always a but (in this
case it was more like ... butt ... with two TT's).

The Roma troupe was supposed to go after the German Dance
Troupe. They were lined up and ready to go. They had been waiting
for a total of 5 hours at that time. It was cold they were hungry and
in a matter of minutes ... they would have done their 6 minute
dance routine ... then finished.

But no, the Butt that's the head of the cultural house told them
that they couldn't dance at that time and maybe if they waited,
in about an hour and a half more, they could.

As I was waiting for them to dance I looked around and saw
many, many Roma people from town in the crowd. When I
realized what had happened, I noticed that almost all of them left.

The part that angers me a bit is that ... they were the only ones'
put out of order. The rest of the acts went on on schedule.

What I am really concerned about is that the kids may lose their
ambition. It would be normal. What do we adults teach our kids?
If you work hard, you'll go places in this world.

And here and now ... what ... what do you tell these kids? I went
to their practices and I'll tell you, they worked hard. My heart
kind of cried for them.

For their effort what did they get ... second class treatment.

Tell me how do you convince them to continue?
These are impressionable kids, they are good kids too.

I have to say at this point that it is only the work of
one man ... the cultural house man.

Personally, I don't care about him, I care about those kids.

I went to Stefan's house and he was discouraged. We talked for a
few hours and I have to say that I know how he feels. For me this
isn't the first time I've seen this. I saw things like this in El Salvador
with the campesinos and in the village in Senegal with the Fulbe.

I know that the only way to overcome these things is to persevere,
stick with it and to continue to carve one's place in society.

But in the world of the impressionable young ... all it takes is one
instance like this to make them want to quit.

I am telling you that this Roma dance troupe has potential. They made
such a transformation in just under a month. They have natural stage
presence and energy that only the town's award winning
Slovakian Dance Troupe has.

I am going to use everything I can and know to encourage them to
continue on. I know that in time all these things will be in the past.

It's for these kinds of challenges that I continue on in the Peace Corps.