What is the first thing that comes into
your mind when you think of your parents? What do they mean for you? What did
you learn from them? For what can we be grateful to them in our adult life?
Disadvantages – I have heard it way too
often, and often as an excuse for positive discrimination or feeling pity. In
my childhood, want and hardship were a natural part of life. I often run after
my mother – even when she was cooking – to ask for bread with sugar. I loved
it, just as I loved 'bodag', the Gypsy bread. I did not mind that my mother
usually baked it when there was nothing else to eat. My family had a little
garden so we had some fresh vegetables and fruits. Also, my parents did day
work to put bread on our table. My father worked as a bricklayer, my mother
made money as an unskilled worker. But I always said in school that she was a
housewife, her work was to look after us, her family. Many thought she was a
sluggard because we were just a Gypsy family.
As a child, I had no idea what
discrimination was. We did not know the word, but we experienced it each and
every day. I hated PE classes, we were always the last ones to be picked for
the team games. Nobody wanted to be with us and it hurt so much to be the last
one to stay and see on the face of the others that they did not want to be in
the same team with me. But they did not mind when I helped them out with the
good answer during German class and they did not fail. At those occasions no one
cared about skin color. Maybe that was the reason they did not hate us so
badly: we were always ready to help, despite all the humiliation and the
hurtful situations.
We were poor and we are still poor today.
My parents worked day and night to provide for us, to help us reach higher. I
am grateful to them for despite all the hardships, they raised us to be decent
and open minded people and taught us that a man is best characterized by their
deed, not their skin color. It is important to stand up and build a better and
more inclusive society together.
The blog entry was written by a participant
of Roma Heroes workshop.
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