osiol: Of the colleagues of mine from eastern... i mean central europe... Okay, let's say A8 countries! Of my colleagues from... over there, the Czech bloke and the Slovak bloke are Gypsies. They must be really good at stealing because I haven't noticed any theft yet.
The thing is, Czech and Slovak Roma don't take their children out of school at 12 and don't marry off their daughters at 14. Their women are allowed to cut their hair, wear trousers or short skirts if they so wish. They are literate, articulate, and if asked - usually refer to themselves as "Czech" or "Slovak", not Roma. BTW, they are very sarcastic about their Polish brethren with their traditional crippling lifestyle of no employment, no schooling, and teenage marriage plus obligatory long skirts and long hair for the ladies. "Roma" literally means "human". We are "Gajo" and can never become Roma. As long as there are people who see themselves as superhuman, any truly two-way communication between "Us" and "Them" will remain impossible. In the long run, they see us as pathetic and slightly comical. All spoken out of experience as community interpreter.
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