Hello people! I’m sorry that I haven’t written in awhile. For my next entry, I wanted to write about how young Roma people here in my town, Pazardjik, get married. Many people say that young Roma men kidnap young females and force them to marry them. For example, a man kidnaps a woman from her school and takes her away with him. Actually, more often than not, the young couple wants to get married but their parents will not allow it. When they escape, they have to be away from the town for at least one day and one night so the people can start looking for them. Of course, the friends of the boy and girl know that they have ran away and they know where they are. Once everyone in the neighborhood realizes that the couple has escaped, it is assumed that the girl is no longer a virgin and she now has to marry this boy. When they come back the two sets of parents meet and if the girl says that she wanted to escape and she wants to stay with the boy, then it is okay. If she doesn’t want to marry this boy, she remains with her family. However, it will be harder for her to marry later because she is viewed as having already been with another man. When the couple decides to get married, the family of the boy prepares a nice romantic room where they will sleep after their party celebrating their engagement. The tradition is to put a white sheet on the bed of the young couple and in the morning they check to see if there is blood on the sheet, meaning that the girl was a virgin. Virginity is very important in our culture. If they’ve already slept together for the first time on the night that they ran away, they may also bring a sheet to prove that she was a virgin. The important thing is that this is the first man that she has had intercourse with. The elderly women in the community are very wise and have specific things that they look for in the blood to make sure that it is authentic and that the girl indeed has lost her virginity that evening. The next day they display the sheet surrounded by flowers, paint the girl with Henna, dress her in new clothes, and throw a party. It is also customary for people to give gifts or money to the girl after coming to celebrate.

Well, this is most the tradition, but when I get married I won’t do it like that! Maybe because I’m older and I would like my mother to know who I want to marry, rather than escaping with someone.

Hello everyone, I thought it might be interesting to explain to you a Roma tradition of ‘stealing’ your wife which, is not understood by many and affects schooling and education.

Here is an example – In a school age a young boy and young girl (8 – 9 grades) are hanging out together. There is nothing wrong here, right? Their relationship becomes very strong, lovely and deep. In most cases their parents know about their relationship. There are cases where parents do not agree about the chosen girl or boy, but this doesn’t affect the relation of the youths. Sometimes they become closer and closer. Up to here nothing wrong, right?

Now after a year relationship (if the youths don’t break up the relation) there comes the difficult part. The couple being together so much time now on, of course affects their schools. They start missing classes, not attending at all school activities. Or some drop-out from school. That’s fine – every teenage has to pass through it and to experience it and of course to overcome it. But it comes another stage where the couple would like to have sex – yes right, sex! But as you may know in Roma community the sex before marriage is impossible. The girl should be virgin until marriage; otherwise her image and her family’s image will be crashed. All the community will blame them. Also for the parents of the girl it would be very shameful since their daughter did sex before marriage. So when the couple (just know that there are only 16 years old or less) would like to have sex in most cases ending with marriage. I’m saying married because once they had sex; the girl should marry this boy. And that’s how it comes the part where the boy has to ‘steal’ the girl. They just get out of the town where the live and staying one, two or more nights, depend on the situation at home. Their girl’s parents start looking for them, asking their friends where they are in order to take their daughter, because she is small or the boy’s family is not good enough for their daughter.

It’s accepted when the girl gets married that her parents and the boy’s parents will have a big celebration where the whole community gets together to dance and to learn if the girl is virgin. If she is not,, there is no celebration. There are few cases where they still celebrate but instead of hot Rakia (a traditional alcohol in Bulgaria) cold Rakia is provided. This signifies that the girl is not virgin. Once the couple is together and the celebration and wedding has passed, typically the couple do not continue school.

Pakiv is a Roma organization that Emil is involved with and one that I had many positive experiences with while in Bulgaria. Their network of active Roma throughout Bulgaria and the Balkans is extensive and impressive. As a group they have activated many groups of Roma and have crusaded citizenship within the Roma community. Their members are much needed role models for the Roma community. Please take a look at their first newsletter (in English!)
PENewsletter and Pakiv web site

According to Pakiv – Our mission is to strengthen democratic practices and effective fulfillment of human rights by promoting participatory approaches to development in Roma communities. We seek to influence policies for social inclusion of disadvantaged (Roma) groups by stimulating processes of critical reflection, learning, and exchange on local experiences and practices.
Our objectives are:

It is important to stress that PEN is an open structure, which brings in other young Roma and non-Roma activists and organizations. One of the major aims of the network is to promote critical reflection and to serve as a platform where members create joint projects based on their interests. It is a space where people from different backgrounds share their views and take concrete actions on issues related to Roma, such as income-generation, education or health issues.