The last of Craica

"Marco? Are you okay?», Gabriela says to me in the kitchen.
«Yes, everything is fine, I was dozing off»
I look at my cell phone, it's 10.30.
The outside temperature marks -15°.
My imagination tries to associate something alive with that temperature, but nothing comes to mind.
«Today we go to the children, but not to the Centrale [ed., the educational center of the Somascan fathers in Baia Mare].
Let's go to Craica, to the Roma camp. If you want to understand our children, you have to start from where they live".

We are in the middle of Transylvania, in northern Romania, in Baia Mare, famous for Count Dracula, the Pálinka, distilled from 50 degrees, the typical inlays of Maramureș, the manufacturing companies and the Roma camps. And last but not least, one of the biggest European disasters after Chernobyl, which took place in 2000: the collapse of a containment dam and the loss of thousands of cubic meters of heavy metals (especially cyanide) in groundwater and rivers. Rivers like Craica, which runs alongside an old railway where freight trains used to pass until a few years ago. Today, one hundred Roma families live in the abandoned spaces of the company that sold those raw materials. Anything goes there.

We don't have time to get out of the car when dozens of people of all ages start coming out of the buildings. In front of us the river Craica, which is more of a garbage heap than a river. “The water they extract in the field comes from there,” says Gabriela.

It's very cold, I use the neck warmer as a hat and I button up as much as I can. From the windows of the barracks I see fires lit inside the rooms, then three children who are still sleeping, cuddled up like puppies to warm up, while in front of the barrack a little girl is doing the family's laundry.
Gabriela nudges me with her elbow and says:
«She is Urâtă»
And I: «Urâta? Doesn't that mean ugly?"
It's her nickname. Madalina actually has beautiful eyes and a beautiful face. They are the only things I can see why she is
fully covered. And she is not
for the cold.
Madalina is 10 years old, she is ashamed to death and her clothes are a second skin, a shield to stay away from the eyes of the world.
She is dirty, her clothes have been the same for days, her hands are worn like those of an adult woman and so Urâtă would rather disappear than feel judged.

Madalina should be in school but she doesn't go there, like 95% of the children in the camp. Among Roma, early school leaving is very high. They don't hold a candle to other clean kids with new backpacks and caring parents. Not for them, none of this exists.
Not to mention racism. Some schools have gone as far as offering Roma activities separate from all the others, including birthday parties.

With a paradox: these children continue to be enrolled in school registers even when they drop out of school. Simply for the money. The government continues to pay the expected fees to the schools even if the children, like Madalina, are no longer there.

"It's not Madalina who should be ashamed," I say to Gabriela. «Now do you understand why with Father Albano we created the Centrale? If we don't do school, who cares about them? They'll never get out of here."

Doing school, especially in a context of this type, is not just teaching to read and write, but being a family, giving a chance: the beginning of a miracle that can only happen because someone takes care of someone else.

It also applies to those who help. When we have a healing experience we soften, we let go of the suffering of our past and we acquire a confident look at the future, we understand that the world can also be different from what it is we have known up to that point. But changing means walking, it's not something that happens automatically. We need a lot of patience and many healthy relationships that make us feel loved.

As we walk through the streets of Craica, at one point I feel a tug on my jacket.
Sergio is one of the children who slept on the mattresses that I had seen at the beginning of my visit.
He is 6-7 years old and everyone calls him Gajeu, the word used by the Roma to describe those who do not look like them in terms of complexion or physiognomy.
Sergio is blond with crazy blue eyes.

«Marco, Marco!! Mă ții în brațe?» (from Romanian: Will you take me in your arms?)
«Of course», I reply quickly, without realizing that he is without underwear and his pants have stuck to everything.
I ignore it: I'm inside this reality and it's worth embracing it as it is. However, it is good to keep some precautions.
At least I have a hat and lice should stay at home.

In Craica, children compete to be picked up.
They feel brought to the throne and feel strong, as well as in desperate need of affection and healthy physical contact.
«If you like it so much, why don't you take it home?», a mother shouts to me a little further on with two backs like a four-door wardrobe.
I smile and she smiles too, but she wasn't kidding.

«Run», Sergio shouts at me, laughing, still sitting on my shoulders.
"I'm not a horse eh!"
«Maybe you're too old…», he replies.
He never said that.
I certainly can't lose a challenge like this and I start running like crazy.
Sergio clings to the hat as if it were a bridle and starts laughing as loud as he can, continuing to treat me like a thoroughbred Arabian.
The people who see us pass laugh, evidently making fun of us and in turn offering me their children to take home.
"Why do you keep only him? Take mine too!». And go, another round another race.

Playing with Sergio, I detached myself from the others in the group without realizing it. He wasn't very careful.
In a few seconds on the opposite side of the railway my gaze meets that of some 12-13 year olds who were smoking.
They begin to approach, Gabriela joins me.
“They are the Boschetari. A kind of gang».

After noticing us, they begin to approach us with the typical walk of someone who thinks they have a sort of local "power" (when in reality they still have a mustache that smells like adolescent hair).
Many times they are armed, so you don't mess with them.
Unfortunately here people use bullying as a means of communication. But that's no coincidence. Roma have been discriminated against for centuries. The "gypsies" were used by the rich for the humblest jobs and were considered less than zero.
Slavery takes away everything: from freedom to identity. Then comes the moment of revenge and the freed slave wants to take back what was taken away from him. At the cost of using force. Almost a way to restore justice.

When a mentality becomes a habit and then a culture it is really difficult to unhinge.
So places like Craica become places where violence is at home.
The boys and children are full of bruises and scars. Even the animals, the dogs, are angry and when their barks become excessive they are beaten.
Almost all girls and women have suffered rapes or sexual violence. Even in the simplest relationships they have not known affection and tenderness. But they know how to recognize them and are nostalgic for them.
I remember the day when we were doing activities with the children and two volunteers, Mattea and Toschi (a book should be written about them) very simply embraced and, as happens between lovers, they gave each other a very tender kiss.
Maria, one of the girls, realizing the scene, suddenly stops coloring and with amazed and serious eyes says to him: «Can you please do it again?».

Mama mia.
"Give us the sweets," shouted one of the boys who had come towards us.
Sergio gestures to go ahead and not stop there.
«But how many candies do they eat?», I say to myself.
On the floor is full of colored yellow tubes with Pluto drawn on the front of the package.
I pick one up and read “Adeziv pentru piele și cauciuc”.
I stop.
"But they're not candies! It's glue!"
"What's up? Do you want some'? It's cold and we're hungry, that helps»
I remain thrilled. If inhaled, shoe glue has devastating effects on the central nervous system, lungs, and ability to receive sensation.
In fact you get high and you no longer feel anything: hunger, cold, fear, anguish. Everything goes away, but the addiction is immediate.

As I continue walking, I start hearing distant music that gets louder and louder.
«Manele!!!!», exclaims Sergio describing the musical genre of the song very similar to Raggaeton.
He throws his arms forward and makes me understand to go in that direction.
We turn the corner and a bluetooth speaker pops out of a shack and a cloud of people dance carefree in front of the door.
Gabriela is also among them.
There is so much happiness in the air despite everything.
Sergio gets off my shoulders and runs to dance, together with the other children who are
in a circle they throw tufts of grass and laugh at
I can't anymore.
Despite that immense precariousness he still finds a way to smile in the face of a life that spares no hardship and effort.
Craica is a lesson that awakens consciences from indifference, but you have to disarm yourself to grasp it.
In this place forgotten by civil society there is a pulsating secret. As I walk back to the car, a phrase from Dom Luciano comes to mind: "Poor children are not the problem but the solution to the problem."
What if it also applies to Craica?


Marco Maccarelli
NP December 2022