Panciu, where I understood something important
Last stop on our journey, and probably the best last stop we could have. The most interesting, thought provoking and beautiful place I’ve visited in Romania. It was Sunday, and Julia, Maria, Marie, Balou (Marie’s dog) and me had a long stroll. Panciu is a small town, but still widespread. We walked out of the town centre, up a hill, through a rural arm of the town, and then we found ourselves in a magnificent wide-open landscape. Houses and cottages scattered loosely, wine yards, little hills and slopes. I lay down in the grass and stared into the sky until my eyes started drawing little flies of light. When I sat up I was again impressed with the landscape. We sat there silently and peaceful till we got cold, and then we started on the way back.
Behind us, in a little valley, sounded music. This was the Roma village, where most of the Roma people lived. “They have very simple conditions,” Marie told us. She’s been working with a group of children from that village, and she has visited them and their families several times. “It is impossible to keep yourself clean if you live there. They don’t have running water and there is mud everywhere. The children are not going to school, the fathers are almost always drunk. They are very poor.”
One of the biggest issues I’ve had during my stay in Romania is if it is okay to photograph poverty. To me, real poverty is “exotic”. I’m very well situated. I can go back to Norway; I have a safe foundation as a Norwegian citizen. If I take a very good picture of some very poor people, will it change anything for them? We already know that Romania has the biggest poverty problem of all the EU member states. We know about the street children, social problems, and the discrimination of Roma people. If I take a picture of some gritty, poor Roma children, the picture may serve to remind the viewer of this sad state the children are in. But what then? Poverty is not hot news.
Anyway, I didn’t need to contemplate further on this, as Marie clearly stated that she would not take us there, to the Roma village. I dared ask her why, and she responded, “Because you do not go there unless you actually have something to offer them. It is not very respectful to go there just to stare at their misery. There are already so many people who come here to take perfect pictures of poverty”.
We walked up a dreadfully ugly staircase, which had a sign at the bottom, telling the name of the mayor who had seen the building project through. Marie told us that the town officials decided to build this staircase instead of laying a road from the valley where the Roma village lay. Later we met some of the children Marie works with. Although they had only met us once before, they ran into our arms and hugged us as soon as they saw us.
The really important thing that I understood during my stay in Panciu is that I’m not ready to become emotionally attached to children like the ones Marie are working with. I’m not mature enough, and I would feel that I left something unfinished when I return to Norway after the project period. Although I’d like to be such a person as Marie, I don’t have enough patience with people. The problems of the Roma communities are so intricate, so diverse. It is tied to traditions, history, culture, economy, geography and so on. It would take me years to fully understand the extent of everything.
