Hatred: The Upside…, By Whitney Farmer – Un Pop Culture | @MDWorld

August 22, 2012 Whitney Farmer 6 Comments

Whitney works at a rock music venue on the beach in L.A.. She has an MBA, and went swimming today.

We left the Gypsy camp with two of the older students to go into Royan to go to the bookstore. There are a few near the waterfront there, and since we had spent some time in the open air classroom, we had a better idea of what the students could use.

After Michel dropped us off, it meant that only females were left. Girl Time began.

We found the world atlas and washable pens that were on the list. Then we decided to shop at one of the endless boutiques that make euros from females. Our ages ranged from 12 to 62, but we walked in under a common purpose of wanting to hunt for pretty things together. And we were One.

I had no makeup on except some leftover brick red lipstick that I had put on hours ago before starting to teach English to the kids. It helped them follow the shape of my mouth as I said “Hello” and “Good Morning” to the class who sat voluntarily in chairs set up in the middle of the field in the sun. The only concession that was made to the elements was to turn the chairs so that the light didn’t shine in their eyes. We weren’t trying to be tough on them, but it was all we had and the best we could offer. And they were the most enthusiastic students I have ever seen. Every morning after, I would be greeted by, “Hello” and “Good Morning” with sweet songbird voices.

In the store full of junky jewelry, I noticed in the mirror that my hair that was piled on top of my head would probably never be able to be combed through again. And I noticed that I still had a little heart sticker on my cheekbone that one of the little girls had put on me, over a mosquito bite that I had suffered the night before. It was to remind me not to scratch it, but she also said that it made me look like a movie star. I decided to definitely leave it on.

In the mirror, I also saw something else happening behind me.  The salesforce for trashy jewelry had been mobilized to protect their assets against the two Gypsy children who we had brought into the store. The twelve and thirteen year-old girls who were already helping revive my French with their patience didn’t seem to notice that each one of them had been assigned two guards who kept them within striking distance at all times. They continued to be young girls who wanted to play dress up. One had the violently blue eyes that were a giveaway of the bloodline that had fled from Northern India centuries before following some invasion. In America, her eyes could make her famous. But here, they kept her from attending school, or put her in the back of every classroom or chased out of town. The other girl had the dark dark eyes and the dark dark skin that also were a sign of her people, but perhaps from the ones who had fled Egypt and given rise to the name ‘Gypsy’.

They put on matching heart-shaped sunglasses and asked me to take their picture. The result was magazine-worthy. All Gypsy kids are taught how to take a great picture. ‘Vogue’ is probably a Gypsy word.

As we drove out of town, I started to feel more relaxed again. The kids never gave any sign that they had known that they weren’t welcome in the store. And Michel never told me about the profane shouts that were thrown at him that the other women in our group had witnessed. As the car drove past the fields of sunflowers and drove again into the camp, kids came running from all directions for another session in the sun of “L’École des Gypsies”. We were going to learn about science and some more math, plus learn some more English words.  These were all things that they had requested, things that stirred their imaginations. There was no official curriculum to follow because officials barred them from attending official schools.

During class, some of the students surprised me by showing me their cursive writing. And some of the older ones knew the map of France very well because they were used to being vagabonds, being pushed across the entire living map. One asked me why it was warmer on the equator than it was at higher latitudes. Wanting to make sure that he understood that the combination of the number of sustained daylight hours annually and the effect of the angle of sunlight through the atmosphere created the effect, I asked Michel to translate for me. Maybe there is more to his answer than that, but I wasn’t prepared for the depth of the pop quiz that he gave me.

After awhile, the students became regular squirmy kids. Class was dismissed and some returned to their trailers. But some decided to work off the energy with their own creation: recess.  They opened the door to Michel’s car, put a hip-hop CD in, and began to dance. They showed the Americans their moonwalk and their robot and tested us to see if we disapproved of their music. We walked over to their circle, listened, and began to dance. We jumped into the middle and redeemed all the club moves that had been learned and practiced in a shallower and stupider time of our lives. The kids froze for a moment, and then their dancing started again.

After awhile, we were called to dinner. The kids raced back to their caravans and we sat down under the canopy on the new folding chairs that Michel had prayed to God for so that he could accommodate all of his guests comfortably. That day as he drove out of town and the sound of cursing had finally faded away, he had found them on the sidewalk where someone had left them like debris for anyone who wanted them. They matched the current dining set perfectly. We had linguine with steamed mussels for dinner, served with fresh baguettes and talked about how much Michel enjoyed In-and-Out Burgers when he visits America.

That night, we slept not in just a five-star hotel, but as Michel said under all of the stars. It’s the place you sometimes end up when everyone hates you.

Quote of the Blog from Robbie Robertson: “Music should never be harmless.”

Image of a fleur-de-lis ring  that I put on the end of a braid that I did for one of the young Gypsy women who came with us to the train station to say goodbye, courtesy of my cell phone.