Rodica is of Romani ethny, is 30 years old and she studied 3 times the 1st grade. She abandoned when she realized that her father was right: gipsies don’t take coronet.
From up the hill down
In Dancu, a village from the outskirts of Iași, the Romani people established starting with the end of 80’s „on the hill”. Their houses were the border between the village and the fields, and the villagers’ children weren’t allowed to pass there alone that „gipsies would take them”.
Furthermore, Romani people had enough children of theirs to want more, but the threat „I will take you up the hill to gipsies” was one which terrified all the children from the village. There were women with long skirts which raised the dust in the same way as all the little legs of bare feet children who played all the summer. Their clay-brick houses were dyed in many colours, but they didn’t have windows or doors and the beds or mattresses were outside in the summer.
Romani people “were going down the hill” for shopping and to go out. Always in groups. They never begged. Only in the summer when they saw an old woman in the garden they sometimes asked „a hand of vegetables for a borscht”.
Between the years of 1986 – 1990 the block of flats were built, and then the school from Dancu. Maria was married and had 3 children, and her family was one of the richest from the hill. They succeeded in buying a flat with 1 room at the ground floor of a block of flats and they thought that „they join the trend”.
Gipsies’ image washed with the T-joint:
As accustomed was the world from the village with the Romani people „up the hill”, those „down the hill” were „neither here nor there”. In the thin wall of block of flats this time. The neighbours were afraid that they aren’t clean, they are noisy, and they bring lice.
The money wasn’t enough as for a house, when the utility expenses didn’t have to be paid too. From the rich Romani people up the hill they became the poor down the hill Romani people, but they didn’t sell the flat. Maria cared about it and she wanted to join the trend.
Maria’s husband had day labours at the people from the village. This also did before. Now he took also their children who were already teenagers. He started repairing as well or constructions for those from the blocks of flats. Everybody from the neighbourhood knew them, everybody knew where they lived and how they can find them.
Maria was employed as a cleaner for many blocks of flats staircases. She cleaned well and the „administrator” kept her. She went to the staircases with Rodica, the girl, the youngest among the 3 children of the family. She played on the staircase with the children from the block of flats while Maria was going down with the broom and then with the T-joint from the top floor down.
Everybody knew „the gipsy Maria” who cleaned. In a few years she got used to keep the door closed at her flat so as to avoid that her neighbours would gossip about her house. Then she followed their example and started painting, cleaning the windows outside and beat the carpets at the beating place. The long and colourful skirts became black and they were covered then with the grey overall of a cleaning lady.
Maria washed with every step her own image and of the children. They were the clean Romani people down the hill by whom nobody was afraid of.
The first contact with the school:
She didn’t think at all to give the boys to school. „The boys have to rise and manage!” But the girl wanted her to study at school „because it’s good like this’’. The school teacher Marcica told her from the block of flats A10 who said that she takes her in her class in 1992. Maria did her best to gather some money for stationery and registered Rodica in the 1st grade. She talked to the school teacher for a piece of advice what to buy her for the schoolbag. She prepared her with a uniform & clean tracksuit for the sports classes. She took her to school one morning and she got used to wash the stairs by herself.
This way 2 terms passed in which Rodica had good grades at studying. She put her do her homework and she struggled to help her even though she didn’t know. Where they didn’t know, they called a neighbour. But not everybody was happy by the daring of the family to hope for a better future than the staircase cleaning and day labour. The parents of Rodica’s classmates seemed the most unsatisfied, but the school teacher tried to moderate them.
“There were children who treated me nicely – those who knew me from the staircases where my mother was cleaning. I had 2 friends with whom I also played outside and they knew me. The school teacher took care that the children shouldn’t tease her in class. During the breaks they shouted after me „gypsy girl”. I was glad when the school teacher heard one of them and she grabbed his ear. They calmed down after that.” Rodica
Maria went to all the meetings with the parents and listened to their dissatisfactions – most of them false. That Rodica brought lice that a pencil case disappeared and Rodica took it, that she fought with the boys. She didn’t raise her eyes from the written desk and she accepted everything she was told about her daughter, while the school teacher defended her.
Until one evening when, meeting the parents, a mother told her that her child complained that Rodica smells badly, smells like „gipsies”. She burst out and she started quarrelling with the parents reminding them about the garbage from their staircase, of every rumour and gossip about every family from Rodica’s class.
“My mother was so upset that she told them everything… barefacedly! Then she felt sorry, but she was too proud to step back. She didn’t let me study anymore and she took me again on the stairs.” Rodica
The 2nd attempt:
In 1993 special classes were made for Romani children from the community. The school teacher was the one who again told Maria to send the girl to school so that Rodica arrived again in the 1st grade, this time segregated in a special class for her ethny. The classes were in the afternoon, also at the school from the blocks of flats.
“I insisted again to let Rodica study at school. Maria didn’t want that, but I told her that it could work better that it’s easier.”
Marcica, school teacher.
The Romani people up the hill sent themselves their children to school. Every day at noon, groups of children giggling were going down the hill dressed in uniforms and with their schoolbags on their backs. The majority on bare feet through the dust, they were getting dirtier in class unlike when they left home.
“The 2nd time were only gipsies from the suburb in class. They teased me the first time… that I was too clean and with ribbons in my hair. The girls were asking me why I don’t have braids with coins, and the boys were laughing at me that I didn’t understand gypsy language. In our home only father was talking to my mum in gypsy language when they quarrelled for us not to understand.” Rodica
When cold came, Romani people didn’t send their children to school because they didn’t have any shoes. The class was dissolved that it didn’t fulfil the minimum number of pupils, and Rodica started again joining Maria to the stairs.
School segregation of Romani ethny children by creating groups, classes or even special schools for Romani people was a common practice until 2007 when an order of the Ministry of Education, Research & Youth forbade children’s separation on ethnic criteria.
(UNICEF Romania – Monitoring the application of the measures against school segregation in Romania – Research report elaborated for the organisation Romani CRISS, July 2008, http://www.unicef.ro/wp-content/uploads/monitorizarea-aplicarii-masurilor-impotriva-segregarii-scolare-in-romania.pdf)
From ‘’gypsy girl” to „a pupil failing to get her remove”:
Because Rodica was the only one who remained in the class which was dissolved, the next year they registered her automatically in the 1st grade with another series of children, at a normal class. She already got used that every autumn to live the emotion of the 1st school day.
“All the children were younger than me and they were brought by their mothers… My mother didn’t want to take me because I knew the way… she sent me alone with flowers for the school teacher. I gave her the flowers and I sat at my desk, in the same place by the window on which I stayed before.” Rodica
This time everything was routine for Rodica. She got bored during classes and she didn’t like to study anymore. She got tired of practising hand writing, the alphabet, and the numbers. During the breaks the children called her „washed-out girl” because they heard that she repeated several times the 1st grade. She was about to pass in the 2nd grade with a mention, but she wasn’t present for a new start of the school year.
“Ever since I started school I was thinking about the coronet because I saw the other children when they came from school at the end of school year. When the school teacher told me that she doesn’t give me a coronet I said that I don’t come anymore… Amy father was right: Gipsies don’t take a coronet!” Rodica
When Maria got sick and she remained in bed, Rodica – who then was 17 years old, took her staircases. After work she took care of her. Then her brothers went to Italy too, and after some time she was only her with her father. Now she is 30 years old. She didn’t get married and she didn’t have any children. But she plays along with the little ones from the stairs which she cleans.
N.R. Rodica insisted on remaining unknown because in her community the assumed reputation is a disadvantage, and prejudices are still strong.
This article can also be read here https://mplayground.wordpress.com/2015/04/06/3-x-clasa-i/
