Gypsy Punk

Parkesy boy (as I call him from time to time, due to his youthful charm and Backstreet Boy-esque good looks) and I went on a very eventful trip to Vienna this weekend. The ancient Austrian city seemed too clean and beautiful to be real. It was almost utopian with its imperial architecture and overly friendly people. But this is a subject to be discussed on a later date.

On the railjet ride from Keleti Station in Budapest to Austria I had a very interesting encounter. A very smelly man hopped on the train at one of the beaten up old stations in the outskirts of Hungary. He was a pretty interesting sight on the expensive train full of well-dressed passengers and expensive cups of coffee (the Euro really hurt my pocketbook). The man scurried through the cabin and sat in the seat directly across the aisle from me. With a jittery smile he asked me if I spoke English. I replied, “yes” hesitantly. The guy reeked of booze and it couldn’t have been past 9 am. I liked his style.

We went on to have a long conversation. He spoke very good English and was a genuinely nice and friendly dude. I helped him ride across the Austrian border by giving him alerts whenever a train employee was walking down the aisle. He would quickly flee to the bathroom and hide until the riff-raff had passed.

The man explained to me that he was a Romanian on the move to France. He didn’t have the money to ride the train so he hopped it at remote stops until the conductor’s assistants would kick him off. The guy had his whole life in his bag and was making his yearly migration to Paris, where he claimed he had a job lined up. We talked for quite some time until he got off at one of the first stops in Austria. “I just had to make it through Hungary”, he told me. He said that Hungarians hated his people, where as the Austrians and Swiss treated him well.

            This man was a member of an ethnic group that most people call Gypsies. They are widely dispersed throughout central Europe, and are often extremely disliked, especially here in Hungary. The common stereotype is that they are homeless and roam from place to place, and they often live in an unassimilated manner, on the outskirts of society. I had heard a lot about Gypsies since living here in Hungary. The local people seem to strongly dislike them, and the current government blames them for many of the countries issues (very much like illegally immigrating Mexicans in the US). A teacher of ours stated that the current Hungarian president ran for office promising to rid Hungary of their pest problem (ie. get rid of the Gypsies).

            It was very cool to hang with one of these people for a while after hearing so much about them. I personally had a great interaction with this particular Roma. I got along with him pretty well, and we had some interesting conversation. I wished him luck on his journey, and I hope he makes it to France soon.

            Anyway, on the next field trip for class we took a two-hour train ride to Eger, Hungary, to visit a local Hungarian prison there. The town was beautiful. The prison wasn’t exactly as pleasant. However, I don’t think there are many prisons that I would be too eager to walk through. They’re certainly not the most uplifting of places.

            We got a chance to take a tour of the prison, and were led by its governor. He was a very young person to be so high up in command at such a large prison, but within minutes after meeting him it was easy to understand why. Not only was he a very intelligent character, but he also truly seemed to care about the inmates of his prison.

            Eger is a pretty ancient village located in the Hungary’s wine country. The governor told us that the people of Eger were not always very pleased to have the prison in the middle of their town. The walls of the jail were intimidating and impenetrable, with massive barbwire linings to keep the prisoners in and the locals out.

The governor had started a program that was changing peoples’ minds about the inmates. He, along with the other guards, would take well-behaved prisoners out of their cells and into the town for community service projects. They had built playgrounds, cleaned roads and rivers, and had generally improved their relationship with the local community. The program had also helped each convict take steps to reintegrate into society, and improve their personal feelings of self-esteem.
What I drew from this trip was that the reason the prison warden had experienced so much success with both his inmates and the local community was because he was empathetic and open-minded. When he spoke of the convicts I could tell he cared for them and didn’t see them as animals, as many other people in his position may have. He had sympathy for the prison’s bleak atmosphere and overcrowding. He even expressed genuine feelings of hope that the convicts were capable of improving their lives following their prison sentence.

          
            It may be important for the general populace of Hungarians, along with their government, to try and have a more open-minded perspective when thinking of the Gypsies. Not every culture is the same. I’ve seen first hand how different two seemingly similar places like Hungary and the US can be. I’m not sure if Gypsies can truly be blamed for the problems that this country is experiencing in its youthful, post-Soviet capitalist economy. It’s easy to see the negatives with certain groups of underrepresented, poor people, such as Mexican immigrants or traveling Gypsies. But there are good and bad people of every ethnicity, and some Gypsies are pretty rad.

So leave your minds open for business fools!

And I’ll keep messing up abroad,

Love,

Mamas Boy