Some of the more romantic Gypsiologist claim that they belonged to the warrior class, while others, maybe more realistic, claim they were the lonely Dalits, or Untouchables, the lowest rung in the system and which held the most unhealthy and disgusting jobs; they were street cleaners, rat-catchers, and rag pickers.
Sure enough every Romanian city garbage dump has its misplaced community of Gypsies digging through the muck, pulling out recyclable metals, plastic bottles, building material and whatever else they can find. Was it in search of a better life that the Gypsies left India? Yet some 1000 years and 4000 miles later and many are still picking through people�s waste.
I rode into dump at Somersheni, just across the Cluj city airport. Not forgetting what had happened to my motorcycle with the musicians I parked her in the locked garage in a near by hotel. Armed with a bag of treats I walked in.
As I was coming upon the community I could see the plumes of black smoke rising out of their chimneys (they often burn rubber and plastic). There was a group of women and their children, and some of the elderly, scavenging through a heaping pile of construction debris at the edge of the community. They were digging in with their picks and with their bare hands pulling out old wire and metal scraps. Like human filtering units they pull out all kinds of bits of useful items: flammable materials for the fires, building materials, anything of use, but it�s primarily the iron that they seek and which they sell to the recycling plants for roughly four cents to the pound. A normal day the man will come home with about a 100 lb. load, almost four dollars worth. It�s a hand to mouth existence.
I was recalling people on the other side of the tracks telling me again and again, �the Gypsies don�t work, they don�t want to work�, and while I was watching them work, work hard, work for scraps. I was anxious to see what they were living in and so for a price I managed to convince one of the girls to pause in her labor, show me around and introduce me to some of the people.
Here in Scavenger Town they live no better than animals in a barn, in some cases maybe worse. The homes are constructed of a huge assortment of materials: mud and straw, but mostly scraps of wood, sheets of metal and plastic pulled out of the dump. They have shadowy insides with cold mud floors covered by a patchwork of scrap linoleum and cardboard. When it rains the water rises at their feet while at the same time it drips down out of the roof.
His cheerful wife Ramona passes a steaming hot pancake rolled with jam. She was making them for the children. She already had a dozen finished and the batter for three times more. �But how many children?� I had to ask. She gestured to the opened door and the swarms of kids outside enjoying the afternoon sun. �When they come I like to have something for them,� she replied. �They have to have something.� A rustling between the layers of plastic in the ceiling raises my stare. Ramona shivered, �it�s the rats,� she yelped.
�Pardon? The rats?�
Nodding, �uh-huh� with a terrified look in her eyes. �I wait till the roof collapses and they fall out of the ceiling like a bomb.�
�They are big here,� Mihai interjects. �When Baby Josif sleeps my wife stays awake and watches over him, she�s afraid they will eat him.�
After 5 hours of noisy non-stop Gypsy music the 21 young contestants finally appeared on stage, barefoot, scandalously clad in yellow, blue and red oriental dress, but mostly red; they have a saying here, �if a Gypsy is wearing only a little red than she is not a real Gypsy�. The band started up � and like a spell � the girls began violently shaking in a frenzied orgy of oriental dance.
Anywhere else, such unrestrained hip shaking would raise eyebrows, but here it was all quit normal; even the losers shook, stepping forward, giving the crowd one last speedy wiggle before walking off.
I was thinking of the scandals back home- the Miss Nevada disqualification, Miss USA�s dinking problems, and then there was Miss New Jersey unexpected pregnancy. (Miss Piranda does not disqualify for marriage or children) Miss Gypsy 2007 went scandal free. Though odd was the number of fair skinned, even blond, some blue eyed women yearning to be this year�s Miss Gypsy. Only seven of the twenty-one were true Gypsies. There was a statement that the organizers wanted people to hear - Gypsies don�t discriminate.
By midnight It all came down to two dancers left: Elena Niculescu and Raira Arcan, but their lascivious dance was just too hot for the panel of judges to form an agreement leaving it to the crowd�s hoots and hollers to make the final decision. To her own shock and sheer joy Miss Niculescu received the sash and was crowned �Miss Gypsy 2007�