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(once again sorry for late post, I planned to blog this up
this morning (Thursday) but I couldn’t get a connection)
So, day 4 was split into 2 halves. The morning was spent at
the church painting and the afternoon was spent visiting the Roma community.
We managed to completely re- paint the main church hall,
including the ceiling, which was a good old combination of fun and hard work!
We had people with long rollers do the ceiling, short rollers doing the walls,
paintbrushes doing the edges and several people re-painting a storage cupboard.
It was a veritable episode of “Changing Rooms” if ever I’ve seen one. :)
After lunch, and a good deal of washing and cleaning up, we
gathered together to hear Mairi (pastors wife) talk to us about the Roma people
before we went to visit them. She told us that the church has been going to see
them for about 18 months now and is well respected among the community. We were
given an idea of their living conditions and what type of things to expect
while we were there and how to behave etc. Then we set off for the Roma camp
just a little way up the road from the church.
It is very hard to explain the Roma camp and so hopefully
we’ll be able to put some pictures up so you can see it for yourself. For me
personally it was initially quite a surreal experience because I felt like I’d
seen pictures of poverty and deprivation before, but realising that I wasn’t
part of a photo or a documentary made it something that was impossible to
escape. We’ll have more about the Roma in the video we plan to make, but to
give a brief description, they live in a cross between an old demolition site
and a rubbish dump. They are very resourceful, using everything they find and
have built tent-like houses using bits of wood, plastic, material and some
corrugated iron that the church gave them last month after a fire demolished 15
of their houses.
The people were pleased to see us and the children
particularly enjoyed the balloons we brought along. They were very happy while
we were there, which somehow made the experience even more thought provoking.
I think when you look at poverty on the telly, you can feel
a range of emotions but somehow you’re always in control of it. When poverty looks
back at you in front of your eyes, it’s very difficult not to feel a bit
embarrassed on a human level and you’re left with images that, I personally,
won’t forget.
After coming back from the Roma, we had our ‘devotions’ time
to help us reflect on what we’d seen and spent a short time talking and praying
about it.
In the evening we went back to the hotel and played a couple
of card games etc but (some of us) tried to get a well needed early night!
Going out for the day on day 5 so will hopefully blog back
in the evening or following morning :) - Dave
Sian, Nikki and Jake: Yesterday we went to the Roma village. It was an experience unlike one which we
could have predicted, unlike things we had seen before. We made up boxes of
food and stuff to give out to families who were extremely grateful for them; it
was very unusual to see these reactions over things which we take for granted.
When we
arrived the first thing we saw was a group of people, two women and several
young children. All of them were covered in mud, and some were running around
barefoot which we found surprising as the ground was dirty and covered in glass
and litter. The only water the Roma have to wash in is the water beneath the
village and is brown with filth. It’s really shocking seeing the conditions
they live in, but they all seemed extremely happy with our company for the
afternoon; even the men and women joined in colouring and the children were
enjoying playing with balloons and stuff. The experience was surreal; like Dave
said, something you see on TV, but to be there is so different. It’s hard to
write down quite what it was like.
When we left we had a group picture with the Roma and said
goodbye.
Some pics -
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