All posts by Natalie Lefevre

Each one of the children had their own character: Bam was really sweet but was easily upset.
Commentary

Caring for the rejected

Volunteering for people living with HIV/AIDS in Thailand.


In the summer of 2006, I started a degree in international studies. I had a great time exchanging ideas with like-minded people. I was learning a lot of theory on how to change the world, but I was missing something. How could I avoid becoming a bureaucrat who didn’t know the people whose needs I was supposed to be championing? To prevent this, I decided to do grassroots volunteering over my winter break.

While Googling websites, I came across the Camillian Social Center in Rayong, Thailand. The website’s description stated: “The Camillian Social Center in Rayong is confronting AIDS in the 21st century through prevention, treatment and care. We believe that prevention, treatment and care go together to reduce the potential for the transmission of the virus.” I knew instantly this was where I was going. I had always been intrigued by marginalized and excluded groups in society. This was my chance to help. When I told my family and friends how I was planning to spend my break, they stared at me either in disbelief or in admiration, as if I was risking my life.

When I arrived in Bangkok, I was excited because of the adventure that awaited me but, I hate to admit, I was also a bit scared. I had done some traveling by myself before, but never in a country like Thailand. That’s why, after trying in vain to explain where I wanted to go to the doorman of my Bangkok hotel, I chickened out and instead of taking the bus like the locals, I rented a taxi to go straight to my destination. Disappointed with my unnerved self, I decided not to give in to my fear anymore during the rest of my stay in Thailand.

And so the adventure begins

I was both excited and nervous when we arrived at the center. We passed through a gate and entered a big courtyard with some trees and a pond in the middle. In front of the buildings, several people were enjoying the shade in silence. Some were in wheelchairs, others in hospital beds. Here and there a person was sweeping the courtyard. As soon as I got out of the car, the taxi driver took off. He obviously did not feel at ease around sick people.

A really tall woman named Cindy came to welcome me.  When she came closer, I realized Cindy hadn’t always been a woman. It was amazing how feminine she looked. At first, I felt a bit uncomfortable and was afraid of saying or doing something to insult her. But Cindy was quite open about her sexuality and she soon became the one I chatted with the most.

Cindy directed me to a building on the far end of the courtyard. Inside a big dining room, about twelve children of different ages and a few European men were having lunch. Cindy introduced me to Father Giovanni, the founder of the center.

Father Giovanni and his children

In 1995, Father Giovanni established the Camillian Social Center for the rejected: homeless people living with HIV or AIDS. Although he is a priest, he talks loudly, using lots of gestures and is not really a champion in subtleness; Father Giovanni is a rebel priest. Against the strict Catholic principles, he does not preach abstinence and heterosexual monogamy as the only way to prevent HIV. On the contrary, he kept joking about the homosexual orientation of some of the residents.

The children had just finished their lunch and were anxiously waiting to introduce themselves. Father Giovanni explained that most of the children from the center were at school but these  were not welcome in any school because they had visual signs of their HIV-positive status. 

Although HIV causes AIDS, a person can be HIV-positive for many years before experiencing any symptoms and developing AIDS. The HIV virus weakens the immune system until the serious damage results in the onset of AIDS. This is marked by the emergence of severe infections that would not develop in an individual with a healthy immune system. In theory, people don’t die from AIDS, but from one of the infections that were made possible by the absence of an immune system.

He called one of the girls over to him. “How old do you think she is?” he said. I guessed around four years old. “She is turning nine this year,” he responded.  Pim was brought to the center by social workers after her grandfather had died. She had been taking care of him for years. The only food she had during those years was instant noodles once a day. She had only arrived to the center quite recently and the medication made her sick.

Over the weeks I was there, Father Giovanni told me all the children’s stories and most of them were as sad as Pim’s story. Kaimuk was 15 but looked like a 7-year-old. Chom was blind and contracted HIV as a result of a visit by a Dutch tourist to a “massage saloon.” Because she was blind, Ed was bed-ridden before she came to the center; at the age of 4, she had never learned to walk. AIDS had made all of them orphans and left them HIV-positive.

My first Thai friend

In the mornings, I worked at the Palliative Care Unit, or PCU, from 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. Two patients were assigned to me, one of which was Pung. He was about my age at the time and I could tell he used to be quite good looking. He had these huge brown puppy eyes that spoke more than words ever could. They always looked so sad. His body was wasting away and seemed to belong to an 80-year-old instead of to a 23-year-old man. It was heartbreaking to look at him in this condition. Pung might have made some bad decisions in his young life, but it was not my task to judge him.

It wasn’t easy to understand Pung, obviously because I didn’t speak Thai but also because he couldn’t utter more than a few sounds. You just had to read his eyes to know what he was trying to say. Sometimes that worked out but it wasn’t always easy. The first time I helped him eat, he kept asking for nam. After running back and forth with almost everything I found in the fridge, one of the carers told me he wanted one of the milky drinks. When I finally gave him one, he smiled for the first time. It seemed as if he was saying,
“That was a good one, wasn’t it?” Ever since our milk adventure, he smiled at me every time I passed by. Even when we had to take him out of bed to change the sheets and he seemed to be in excruciating pain, he tried not to show it. I had just made my first Thai friend.

My first Thai heartbreak

Pung was the first person I checked up on in the morning when I started work and I usually dropped by after lunch when the children were napping. One afternoon, I wanted to cheer up one of the other patients who had been feeling very sick that morning. When I entered the PCU there was a screen hiding Pung’s bed from view. At first, I didn’t know what was happening. I went to sit with one of the other patients who spoke a little bit of English and then I realized that Pung was dying. From across the room I could hear him breathing and one of the carers was holding his hand.

When I’m on my deathbed and someone asks what I regret about my life, I will remember that I didn’t go to Pung to hold his hand while he was dying. I couldn’t do it. It was the first time I witnessed someone dying.

I knew when it was over; the heavy breathing stopped and the carer came from behind the screen. In my mind, he looked at me with accusing eyes: “Why didn’t you sit beside him? You were his carer for the last few weeks.”

I was advised not to get too close to the critical patients. When someone ended up in the PCU, chances were low they were leaving it again. I decided not to follow this advice. These people were rejected by their families, their friends, and their communities. No matter what they had done in a past life, they deserved to have someone care for them when they die. During the rest of my time there, I was next to several people when they died. Books cannot teach what this experience has taught me about life. It is hard to point out what it exactly has done to me, but volunteering with these people has undoubtedly changed my life for the better. It made me realize how lucky I am and inspires me to do everything I can to improve the lives of people who are not so lucky.

An 8-year-old woman

Among the children I also had my favorites and Pim was one of them. She had only arrived recently and was not adjusted to the medication yet. One afternoon, I was playing with the other kids when I noticed Pim in the toilets. Something was clearly wrong. When I went to check up on her, she was cleaning up her vomit. She was embarrassed when she noticed me. I offered to help her clean it up but she didn’t let me. I often had the feeling with her that I was the kid and she was the grown-up. After Pung died, it was Pim who comforted me. Now, when I wanted to take care of her, she didn’t let me. Not the fact that she was feeling sick saddened me, but that an 8-year-old girl was cleaning up her own puke. She should have someone to hold her hair while she was throwing up and tuck her into bed when she was sick. This was typical for all the kids there; although they still played like children, circumstances had forced them to be more mature than others at their age.

Love and hope in the time of AIDS

A lot of heartbreaking things happened at the center, but there was also hope. The oldest child, an 18-year-old, was one of the best students in her class and just got her first boyfriend. When she finishes school, she wants to go to university and come back to help at the center. A woman who had been close to dying in the PCU, miraculously got better and was working in the center now as a carer. A male carer, who used to be a violent gang member but was now one of the sweetest men ever, was married to an HIV-positive woman with whom he had a beautiful daughter. There was even a love story. Two of the residents had fallen in love and were caught together in bed. The gossip queens really enjoyed the story the next day!

Most of the residents in the center used to work as go-go dancers, masseuses, strippers, and escorts. They were some of the most fun people I have ever met. A male go-go dancer was constantly talking about his past adventures and liked to dress up extravagantly. A blind masseuse gave me Thai massages every afternoon, which were painfully relaxing. Although we couldn’t have a real conversation because of my lack of knowledge of the Thai language, we understood each other’s jokes and gestures. These people who knew the end of their lives would come sooner than others were making the most of what time they had. This attitude made them more fun to hang out with than most healthy people.

The ‘good-bye, I’ll be back as soon as I can’

I had become fond of all the people there: the dying, the children, the carers, and the other residents. Each one of them was unique. I also would never forget the ants in my room and the dogs outside. Every day I fought my own war against both. It was part of my morning ritual to kill the ants with a bucket of water, but they kept coming back. The dogs were worse. Every morning when I left and every evening when I returned, they were barking and running toward me. One of my housemates gave me an umbrella in case I had to defend myself against these monsters.
But in the end, I still absolutely hated saying goodbye; my last day was torture. I had promised to come back in six months, but I knew some of these great people were not going to be there anymore.

It took me another week after I got home to adjust to “normal” life. It annoyed me that people were complaining about minor problems, while these people who were so much worse off were making the best of each day. It’s a common problem for people returning from volunteering in developing countries. It takes a while before you can put the experience into perspective and start complaining yourself about the amount of work you have to do that week.

After this experience, I was more convinced than ever about the need for development policies and efforts to focus more on the most excluded and marginalized groups in society. A country cannot make true progress if it leaves some of its citizens behind in extreme misery.

Want to volunteer?

More information on donating or volunteering for the Camillian Social Centre in Rayong: http://www.camillian-rayong.org/
Volunteering opportunities in new Camillian center for children living with HIV/AIDS or a disability near Bangkok:
Contact: faisal1rcr@hotmail.com
http://www.camillianhomelatkrabang.org/

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Roma mother and child begging. Photograph by Lori Scott.
News

Europe’s most hated people

The Roma


Every day on my way to work I passed by them. They were sleepingon the cold floor in a corner of the train station: a mother; a father; and twoyoung children in between them. They were still there when I finished work.While I was on my way to a warm apartment, a hot meal and a nice hot shower,these parents would spend another night with their children on a freezingfloor. There had been quite some solidarity lately with asylum-seekers who wereforced to sleep on the streets. Most of them had found a roof above their headsfor the harsh winter nights. But not this family; they could not ask for asylumand a bed to sleep in because they already are European citizens. They areRoma, often called Gypsies or nomads, and are associated with negativestereotypes such as theft, domestic violence, and being slum-dwellers.

My first experience with the Roma was about five years ago when Iwas living in Valencia, Spain. To go to the beach from my place, I had to walkthrough a dodgy-looking neighborhood that seemed rather to be located in a poorEastern European country than in a developed country such as Spain. There weremany dogs and half-naked children on the streets. The women were often yellingand the men looked at me in a threatening way. I wanted to get out of there asfast as possible. During my time in Spain, many people warned me of the gitanos, who werepickpockets and would threaten me with knives. They never did, however, and Ibecame intrigued by this European minority that seems to be excluded from“European integration,” lagging behind while their fellow countrymen aregradually joining European middle class.

It is widely known that many Jews died in the Nazi concentrationcamps, but less known is that also about half a million Roma were gassed.Unlike the Jews, the Roma continue to face serious threats and discriminationespecially in Eastern Europe but also in Western Europe. In 2008, young Italianmen set Roma camps in Milan, Naples and Sicily on fire with Molotov cocktails.In June 2009, 65 Roma living in Belfast were forced to return to Romania afterracist attacks on their houses. These are just the stories that have made it tothe news.

The only stories I read or hear about the Roma portray them aseither criminals or helpless victims. Why does no one wonder who these peopleare and why they are one of the most hated peoples in Europe?

 

“They prefer to be called Roma. That is how they refer tothemselves. There is not even a word in Romani, their language,  for gypsy or nomad. These names weremade up by others,” Biser Alekov of the European Roma Grassroots OrganizationsNetwork sighs. “Actually, only a very small minority of Roma are still nomads.Most Roma have settled down.” 

The Roma have their origins in South Asia, from where theymigrated to mainly Central and Eastern Europe during the Middle Ages. Theydeveloped a nomadic lifestyle as a means of survival, earning money throughseasonal agricultural work, repairing items, clairvoyance and door-to-doorselling. At the moment, they are the largest ethnic minority in the EuropeanUnion, with about 10 to 12 million members. There is no exact number availablebecause many of them live and work illegally in other European countries.

The Roma have never had an easy time in the countries that becametheir homes. During the Nazi years, many of them were gassed in theconcentration camps and in the communist era, Roma women were forcefullysterilized. But the worst was yet to come. At least during the communist years,the Roma were sometimes given land or social support. After the fall ofcommunism, unemployment and poverty prevailed in the Roma communities. “Youcan’t imagine what poverty engulfed the Roma in my village. After 1991, Irented the village pub and was the only employed Roma. Nobody else had a job.The people began wandering around, looking for work in the towns,” Akif, a Romacurrently living in Brussels, remembers. Many Roma decided to try their luck inWestern Europe.

Since the Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU,the economic situation of many of their citizens is gradually improving. TheRoma on the other hand continue to face discrimination in education, housing,employment, healthcare and other public services.

Although it has been ruled illegal in many Eastern Europeancountries, the practices of segregating Roma children in schools or havingseparate classes for children with special needs simply because they are Roma hascontinued. In these “special” schools, they receive poorer education and havevery limited opportunities for employment or further education. In Slovakia forexample, 80 percent of children in special schools are Roma.

When a group of Croatian Roma decided to fight the practice ofsegregating Roma pupils, they managed to convince the European Court of HumanRights that this was indeed discrimination. Besides urging the Croatiangovernment to respect the principle of equality, the Court also awarded theseRoma pupils with $4,500 each. Yet, many members of the local Roma community didnot share the euphoria over this victory. They feared that the situation couldget worse for them after the court ruling.

Because of the high degree of poverty in Roma communities inEastern Europe, many live in deplorable conditions. Some feel they do not haveanother choice than to stay in illegal settlements. Once every so often, theauthorities forcibly evict the residents from their makeshift dwellings withoutoffering them adequate alternative accommodations. This of course drives themback on the streets and new illegal settlements arise faster than thebulldozers can destroy them.

It is extremely hard for Roma to get out of this vicious circlewithout a steady job. Saliha, a Roma woman from Bulgaria who came to work inBelgium explains: “Even with higher education, employers prefer Bulgarianapplicants without investigating your qualities. When they understand that youare a Roma, they stop to trust you.” Akif’s childhood dream was to become apolice officer. But when he applied after finishing secondary education, he wasnot hired, unlike his Bulgarian classmates. He was never given an explanationwhy. Tunde Buzetzky, facilitator for Decade of Roma Inclusion, confirms thatthere is strong discrimination on the labor market: “If your skin is darker,the available job is immediately gone!”

The lack of opportunities in the East convinced many Roma to moveto Western Europe. But with the growing numbers of Roma, anti-gypsyism grew inWestern Europe as well. In particular, Italy stands out for its anti-Romaattitude. In 2007, the government adopted increased “security” measures againstthe “nomad emergency.” Police was allowed to “collect data,” includingfingerprinting, exclusively nomads. Forced evictions without prior consultationor proposing adequate alternatives became more frequent. The strong anti-Romarhetoric from politicians and vilification in the media further increased thestigmatization of the Romani people, which resulted in various violent attackson Roma throughout 2008 and 2009. But in other EU countries anti-gypsyism isalso growing. Eurobarometer, a public opinion survey, has shown that nearly aquarter of all Europeans would feel uncomfortable living next to a Roma. InItaly this is half of the population.

Meanwhile, the European Union is trying hard to integrate Romaissues in its activities and many non-governmental organizations have taken onthe advocacy of the Roma. Unfortunately, all these efforts have not resulted insufficient progress. Grassroots Roma organizations strongly believe that themain reason why these policies have failed is that they were developed withoutthe participation of the Roma.

They might be right. The Bulgarian municipality of Sliven has thehighest percentage of Roma residents in the country and one of the biggest Romaghettos with 20,000 inhabitants. It works actively together with Roma NGOs,Roma experts, volunteers and informal leaders on education, housing, health andemployment issues. “This place used to be a terrible ghetto, now it’s good tolive there thanks to the inclusion of Roma in policy-making,” Alekov adds.

“Another important obstacle is the continued stereotyping. Romanipeople have been hearing for a long time that they are worthless. They havestarted to believe this themselves. Good role models are essential to motivatethem to fight for a better future for themselves and their children,” explainsBiser Alekov. He claims that it is only a small percentage of Roma that arethieves, prostitutes or beggars. “There are many Roma all over Europe that areleading or trying to lead a successful life just like other Europeans.Unfortunately many of them hide their Romani background because of the stigma.”

Alekov believes that if Europeans knew more about these Roma, theywould realize that they just want to have a decent job, live in their own houseand send their children to school, just like everyone else. His fellow Romaadvocate Buzetzky agrees that “although it would be incorrect to say that thereare no beggars or petty thieves among the Roma migrants in Western Europeancountries, most of the Roma migrants get legal jobs, send their children toschool and have a decent life. There are groups living in illegal camps underdreadful conditions. Indeed in these groups, some people may be engaged inpetty crimes.”

George Soros, whose foundation helps to improve the situation ofthe Romani people, writes in an article for The Guardian: “The keyto success is the education of a new generation of Roma who do not seek toassimilate into the general population, but deliberately retain their identityas Roma. Educated, successful Roma will shatter the prevailing negativestereotypes by their very existence.”

Fikret and Sevinch are such successful Roma. They moved to Ghent,Belgium, in 1998. Twelve years later, they own a house in a Flemishneighborhood, and have their own retail shop and construction company. Theyconsider themselves successful immigrants but stress that they had to work veryhard to get where they are today. “When we arrived, I started to work forTurkish women, to clean for them and to serve them. My husband began work onconstruction sites. After five years, we received Belgian passports, but we continuedto do the same job. However, we enrolled in language courses, because you cando nothing if you do not speak the language. Later I finished a business coursewhere I learned how to set up my own company, how to manage the retail shop,and what documents were needed. That helped me a lot,” says Fikret.  She explains that the main hurdles tolead a successful life for less fortunate Roma are that they do not speak thelanguage and that they do not know the local rules and regulations of thecountry they are staying in. They also often do not have the right documents tofind a legal job.

Mladen and Saliha came to Belgium from Bulgaria in 2007 to offertheir son a better education. They are both working as cleaners at the momentbut they have many goals and plans for the future. Mladen wants to open a smallrestaurant offering Bulgarian dishes and Saliha is looking for a job as a labassistant in the food or chemical industry. They do however still feel it isbetter to hide their Roma identity for some people out of fear of losing theirjobs.

They are not alone in this. Many of their fellow Roma keep theirethnic background a secret. They go through life as Bulgarians, Romanians,Slovakians or Kosovars. The family of Assen, who has been living in Belgium for18 years, has not yet explained to the grandchildren that they are not justBulgarians, but also Roma.

A Roma background should be something to be proud of. The cultureis very rich and goes back a long time. Unfortunately, there are many misconceptions.Begging for instance is not part of the Roma culture.  Biser Alekov says that “it is a big business and the peoplebehind it are considered as criminals by the rest of the Roma community.”

 

It is also commonly believed that it is part of Roma culture toforce very young girls to marry older men. Historically, weddings didtraditionally occur at an early age, between 14 and 16 for girls, but this ischanging among most Roma. Biser Alekov even claims that it is discrimination ifauthorities do not take action against the criminal act of forcing minors tomarry adult men. He claims that in these cases, the argument of “it is part oftheir culture” reinforces the stigmatization and marginalization of the Roma.

In fact, the Romani wedding is full of remarkable culturaltraditions. If the parents have not formally agreed to a wedding, the boy“abducts” the girl for a couple of days. When they return, the wedding iscelebrated. For the finale of the wedding ceremony, the young couple retires totheir room to consummate the union while the guests wait for the result: theblood traces proving that the girl was a virgin. These bloody clothes weretraditionally hung on a high place, so everyone could see that the bride wasrespectable. Today in most cases, only a symbolic form of these traditions isstill practiced.

Family and community belonging are very important to the Roma. Yourarely see old people in retirement homes. Instead, they live with theirchildren and grandchildren. When someone dies, his family stays at his side forthree days and three nights.

Roma still do not have an easy life in Europe. They arestereotyped as beggars and thieves and are not given equal opportunitiesbecause they are “Gypsies.” Once they have succeeded in overcoming the obstacles,they feel forced to hide their true identity. However, there is no need to betoo pessimistic, as Assen says: “Many will find their way. They will have towork hard on non-prestigious jobs, but if the parents do this work today,tomorrow their children – who are studying and complete local schools – willhave more opportunities. That’s how it was with other migrants, and that willhappen with us too.”

I sometimes wonder what happened to that Roma family Isaw every day in the station. One day they were gone. Have they found their wayand has someone offered them a place to stay? Or did they return disappointedto their home country?

Dear Reader, In The Fray is a nonprofit staffed by volunteers. If you liked this piece, could you please donate $10? If you want to help, you can also: