Jean-Pierre is member of a French NGO dedicated to extreme poverty in France. He works closely with some nomad gypsy families who live in poverty near Paris. He sometimes brings them his laptop, a digital camera, a printer and an Internet connection and made some experiments with Skype and other software. They enjoy getting some news about Romania through online newspapers and websites. The young father of one of these families told Jean-Pierre how cool it would be if computing allowed him to get some recent pictures from his 5 years-old son who stayed in Romania. It has been 2 years since he last saw him. Another person is trying to get in touch with their mother who suffers from some disease in Romania.
When I read that on Jean-Pierre’s blog, I started trying to identify some Romanian volunteer who would visit that remote family with a digital camera, take some pictures and send them back to Jean-Pierre’s laptop via the Internet. I wrote a blog entry for this. I asked a Romanian colleague in the company I was working for at the time. I also sent a couple of emails to some Romanian IT services companies which offer offshore consulting services to French customers. Unsuccessfully.
Some time ago, a French guy in Bucharest contacted me in order to volunteer. Unfortunately, he was not located near the Romanian area where these families are, as Jean-Pierre explained us. So he could not help.
I don’t know much things about these families in Romania. As far as I know, they are in the area called Mehedinti, near the city of Girla Mare. I assume they are gypsies. Another Romanian colleague told me a bit more about this area. It is a very poor rural area with small mountains (up to 1000m high) near the Romanian border with Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro. He told me that the Romanian government had been saying for years that no such extremely poor and excluded gypsies exist in the country (until the European Union required from them that they recognize the importance of their minorities). From what I saw about gypsy families in the Czech Republic, I imagine that they live far from any town or village, without any sort of infrastructure. Maybe the road that leads to their place has no asphalt. Maybe they are in the middle of a forest, in some muddy place (Dilbert’s Elbonia anyone?). Maybe they live in a giant soviet-like sinister building in the forest where broken windows have never been replaced (this is the reason why they might be interested in linux BTW). They probably don’t have electricity nor any phone line. They most probably live on the fringe of society as their French cousins do in some way. I wonder how far such a picture is from reality. I hope I would be wrong.
Anyway, as I joined a new company, I investigated our presence in Romania still in search for some would-be volunteer. Our corporate directory randomly gave me the coordinates of one of our employees in Bucharest. I sent him an email like I would be sending a bottle into the sea. How surprised I am by his answer!
He tells me that he asked all of his colleagues about what we can do. One of them knows someone in this rural area. This local person is the head of a mountaineering club. He tells us that he is very enthusiastic about helping there. At the same time, my employer might be motivated by the idea of connecting some unconnected families in such a rural area and may support such an initiative. Or I am once again too naive. Anyway I am now investigating this opportunity internally. I also have to answer this mountaineer and try to understand a little bit more his motivations and expectations. I have to get sure that he does not think this would bring him any money because this is so far from what I am interested in.
There IS a wireless network coverage all around the city of Gîrla Mare (also known as Garla Mare) as the read areas show on this map. The network provider shown on this map is Zapp Networks, apparently using the CDMA technology (CDMA 450?).
More information about Romanian rural areas such as Garla Mare is available through NGOs.
An surprising article on some influence France has on the life of gypsies in Romania.
Yes, but this article was published on october, 2002. Roms gypsies I know lifed that… But now, government of Romania has changed because if process go to term, they are part of EU on january 1st, 2007…
I have some doubts that it will be really « europe » for poorest people… We know, for example in Netherlands, that people with social revenues have many difficulties to go and find job outside the country… A rest of Middle-Age where the poor were linked to their native village…
Dear French-readers, don’t miss Jean-Pierre’s latest news about the families he is working with.
I see this topic is old enough, but it still accepts comments…
I have French friends from France, Belgium, Switzerland and Quebec/Canada and I know their intentions are good when they speak about helping Romanians in need. However, while I also see in these comments some misconceptions about the « persecution » of Gypsies by Romanians, I’m wondering if there is a lack of understanding or just the pure hypocrisy I described in http://right-behind.blogspot.com/2007/07/romanians-and-gypsies-two-worlds-apart.html – Romanians and Gypsies – Two Worlds Apart.
I’d truly like to hear what do you say about the portray Le Petit Robert gave to our nation. « By mistake », they later said…
A bon entendeur et meilleurs voeux,
Christian
Your comments are welcome. Thanks for them.
I guess talking about « persecution » of Gypsies by Romanians must be exageration nowadays. Persecution must have happened but I hope it is over now. I prefer thinking there is some sort of social exclusion phenomenon happening (as with other minorities in other countries): as you suggest in your post, many non-educated, non-gypsy Romanians may feel offended when people ask them if they are gypsies because gypsies are often considered are thieves. The same thing would happen in France where older people may sometimes use the work « gitan » (gypsy) as an insult. And I assume that some Romanian gypsies themselves must try to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Romanian population, including for cultural or lifestyle reasons. Well, there must be some double-sided exclusion happening there. A similar phenomenon exists in France for French gypsies, French arabs and other minorities. My hope is that tolerance and education can spread across Europe and that people will learn and enjoy living together while keeping their ethnical and cultural wealth and differences.
Regarding the Le Petit Robert thing (happened in the 2002 version, right?), I can feel « the consternation and indignation » you describe in your post. What a shame for such a dictionary to make such a stupid confusion! This reminds me of debates about the value of the wikipedia compared to traditional encyclopedic dictionaries. Such a confusion would not last many days on the wikipedia.
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