An Eye Opening Social Survey

This past week we were given the oportunity to work alongside 2 social workers while they took a social survey of the gypsy community located just about a mile from the city center.  Each day starting 2 and sometimes going till 6, we would walk from house to house (or throughout an apartment building) to ask each family about their children and their homes. We learned from our past two trips to Romania that the community was impoverished, but without seeing it in person we had no idea about their actual living conditions.

The picture above is where about 300 people live and its called the "ghost apartment" because there are stairs, windows, and even some walls missing. Each family has only one room and there could be up to 8 people living in it with only a couch or two and maybe a stove. There is no running water and the heat mostly comes from a wood burning stove.

Venturing out to "houses" It becomes very apparent how close these gypsy communities are to Romanian neighborhoods, yet they look completely different. The communities were cautious of us at first but after doing a couple of surveys, parents were lining up to talk to us and some even allowed us to hold their babies.  Our hearts broke as we found some of the homes of the children that we have been teaching and children that we have met in the past trips. We had always known that it was bad, we just didn't know how bad it could be.  The picture below is of a little girl that absolutely captivated us with her beauty while we were walking around and her mom allowed us to take a picture of her.

We finished the survey on friday and drove to TM for the weekend. There we were able to put the data into the computer and make some stats about the families.  Saturday night we went to a free outdoor concert, featuring the band Smiley. Interesting fact about the lead singer- he is the host for Romania's Got Talent! It was just the kind of fun break that we needed after having such a long and tiring week. Sunday we rested and traveled back to Tarnaveni. Ready for week 3!