Majo Piskor: The meaning of my days is to fight. Fighting for anything. Because without struggle comes no victory.
Majo is 17 years old and comes from Michalovce. This year he will graduate as a pharmaceutical laboratory technician. He enjoys school but would like to be a teacher. I thought that he is quite busy with school. After all, you have to study to graduate. And even more so, in this pandemic situation where there is more not going to school than going...
However, apart from school, Majko is part of the Palikerav book club, where he is a book reviewer and lecturer. He has read so many books that he can't say the exact number. But it's in the hundreds. He also writes poems. He even works at Kaufland to help his mom with the family budget . He has three younger siblings for whom he is a role model. And to make matters worse, he recently returned from France where he attended a seminar on inclusion.
I don't know about you, but my brain explodes when I think of a 17-year-old boy who can do so many things...
Majko is not a boy who is 5'80 and has big muscles. He is a slim boy with a kind face. There is a great humility and modesty about him. He doesn't show off. He talks about the things he has accomplished with sincere gratitude. I would say he has little pride in himself.
He got to the seminar on inclusion in France thanks to Renata Pankievič, who approached him. "I went there through the SKEJ Slovak Esperanto Youth organisation, which was looking for young people. It was informal education in the form of workshops, presentations, etc."
Apart from being a book club, Palikerav had one project - PlikeravSchool, which was dedicated to helping children during distance learning. They tried to educate the children in an online way. It wasn't easy, especially because of the technical facilities, as they were working with children living in settlements. "Renata, for example, sometimes had ten children at home on one laptop watching a lecture."
As a lecturer, Majko discussed with children in Palikerav, for example, the Slovak language. Majko also experienced a language barrier when teaching Slovak language, as he does not speak Romani. However, he had a person with him who translated. Otherwise, he works with children who know Slovak. "I try to use non-formal education. I use games, activities... When we were discussing The Little Prince, I gave them a task to draw him. How they imagine him. And I read to them. A great activity to review reading comprehension."
When he started to tell me what he was doing, I had only one question - why. Why doesn't a 17-year-old boy play football? Why is he dedicated to inclusion?
27,30 "Three years ago I was standing in front of Kaufland and I saw little children going from car to car, from person to person, asking for change for food. It made such a strong impression on me that I said to myself, this is what I want to work with and this is what I want to help. I want to show people that even if this child is literally begging, they don't have to be stupid and they don't have to be the dregs of society."
But I want to know more. Not that I don't believe his story with the kids in front of Kaufland, I don't. However, I know that his motivation certainly stems from something more personal.
When asked about his childhood, he simply says: "It was a black and white rainbow." A black and white rainbow? What does that mean? "There were brighter and less bright moments in my childhood. Ultimately, I had a nice and joyful childhood.
The bruises you will remember the most are those inflicted by someone close to you. Bruises. A black eye. It wasn't always easy and cheerful. You'll remember those for a long time. Maybe forever. They will affect you for a long time. You'll long wonder why it happened. What I took from it is that I never want to be like that. It dragged on with me for a long time. I absorbed it for a long time. Until I finally had to seek professional help. It's fine now. It's after experiences like this, when I process something unpleasant, that I write a poem. I call them spitballs because it just falls out," where is the joy he mentioned? "Sunday visits to my grandmother's house, when my grandmother gives me a schnitzel and a salad and stands over me until I finish it. Weekends at my grandfather's house, fixing my broken bike and laughing about it. Walks with my mom in the park. The playground...
After his parents divorced, he had to become a sibling - a father. "I set an example for them and I love them more than anything. They are the closest people I have. They are the people who will always be there for me, just as I am for them."
His goal is to graduate high school, get into college, and keep pushing kids forward. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him. A man with that kind of character will make a great teacher.
Miloš Biháry: It's harder to represent yourself in anything when you're Roma. You have to be a hundred times better than a non-Roma to get noticed
Miloš Biháry is a boy from Trnava who is dedicated to classical music. Among other things. He is a virtuoso pianist. He has a lot of awards, concerts, experience... In addition, in 2012 he founded the band Miloš Biháry & Jazz Funk Brothers.
He was late for the interview. Long enough. Apparently he had a broken alternator, which I have no idea what the... But when it was fixed, he finally came. He came just as I imagined a virtuoso would. Matching coat, jacket, vest, bracelets. Yes, bracelets. It wasn't until later that I learned that the bracelets were more than just a fashion accessory...
Of course, I listened to his work while preparing for the interview. And I liked it. Lately it happens to me that when I listen to Roma music, I don't even know what song it is at the beginning. Because they sound very similar. But this one sounded completely different.
"My goal is to make the music sound different. The reason the songs sound similar to you is because today the piano itself will play the chardonnay. The performer just plays into it a little bit. We tried to go a little bit into gipsy jazz with Vanessa Sharkozi. We go into gypsy stuff, but we play it in a completely different way. Both Roma and non-Roma like it."
Milos is not really a musician who only plays weddings, parties and celebrations. He plays classical or jazz concerts where the clientele consists of ambassadors or ambassadors. He has even played in the Slovak Philharmonic or on big stages around the world. "When I played in the Slovak Philharmonic with the symphony orchestra, it stuck in my mind that it was a great experience. It's a solo performance with the orchestra. They don't even do auditions or anything for that. You have to win a couple of competitions, which are respected in the music world, you have to make a reputation, and then the programmers of all these institutions invite players.
I've played in Amsterdam myself and in the surrounding towns like Alkmaar and so on. I played classical piano concerts there and I had a week-long workshop there. It was an interpretation course with Professor Matti Raekallio from Julliard. School in New York, which is the most prestigious school. I then had concerts on his recommendation. It only lasted a week, but it gave me an insight into how the world plays. I've done a lot of competitions, though, both international, in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and it's made all the difference.
In the world, they don't speculate at all about interpretation in the sense that I'm going to play these two bars piano, this forte, and now I'm going to think about it in a very "speculative" way. No. They play everything quite simply. They start from the "speculative" and they translate it into as simple a way as possible to keep the music simple. Here they play exactly the opposite. But that's the ideal. To make the music simple to listen to, to digest deliciously. The performer may know about those interpretative matters, but he presents it to the lay audience in such a way that they say they like it, but they don't know why. It's just the pure emotion of the music." Delicious music. Until today, or in Trnava terms, after today, I only used the word "delicious" when I was eating.
When talking to artists, I have always been fascinated by how their work came to be. Often they are funny situations. One told me that this piece came to him while he was standing in a traffic jam, or taking a shower, shoveling snow... How is it with Miloš? "In the album Dont worry Bihary, which I have with my band Jazz Funk Brothers, where there are only our compositions and two arrangements by Mozart and Chopin, the compositions came to my mind at different times. The song Unexpected Moment came to me at midnight when I was watching TV. I'm watching, I was falling asleep too, and suddenly serious things are ringing in my head. So I pulled out my electric piano, headphones and quickly jotted down at least some markers so I wouldn't forget it by morning. Well, by morning, the song was up.
Or the song Amsterdam. It came to me in Amsterdam. It's during those courses where I deal with the rough classics, Mozart, Bach... And then I'll come to this intro and something will sound in my head again. I quickly picked up the dictaphone and then worked it out. It's very much about spontaneity."
Just out of the blue it starts in your head? "Yes, I can hear the music in my head. I'm already pushing something that's already going to be something in my fingers or on the piano. Sometimes that message hasn't come to me yet, sometimes I'm looking for it, that what I'm actually hearing. I stop playing and just close my eyes, look inside myself, and those ideas sound again. That's how my arrangements and all my work is created.
The worst is when you've already started it and you hear it and now you have to write it out in sheet music. That's the hardest and the most time-consuming. Although we do have techniques that you can type it on an Ipad and it will immediately generate a PDF that you can print out. It's not as difficult as it was for Mozart, who had to write every note in pencil until morning, but the process is still tedious. But the primal stuff, that's automatic. I hear that this will be the double bass, this will be the violin, etc.
Even mathematically you can compose things. One part is both music and mathematics. But that's for other pioneers, I'm not into that. But it can be done. Calculated bars, calculated motives, but then the music sounds a bit static. Without emotion.
I put emotion into music. From everyday life. Joy, laughter, sadness, some sorrow... That's what's in the music. Even if you're doing a piece that someone else has composed a long time ago, you're putting your emotions into it, from your experiences. Whether they're sad or happy."
I don't think anyone will be angry with me if I say that Miloš is a really successful piano virtuoso. But has he ever had any difficult times in his career? Was there any obstacle in front of him on the way to success? "Representing yourself in anything is harder when you're Roma. You have to be a hundred times better than that non-Roma to get noticed. If you're average, they'll say 'so it's a gypsy, it's in their blood'. Even in the hardest times, you have to find hope in whatever is close to you. If we abandoned each other, it would be bad. You have to motivate yourself or let yourself be motivated. Especially at a time when you're coming to the end of a phase in your life. I too experience such classic performer doubt things. Well, I'm very motivated and supported by my parents, my brother, and my piano professors.
As for criticism and stress, if the criticism is constructive, I try to improve. But if it comes across as arrogance and has nothing to do with constructive criticism at all, then I guess I just need to let it fizzle out and not worry unnecessarily.
The stress depends on what I'm playing. But once I sit down at the piano, concentrate, and realize that there's nothing else to do but play, the stress goes away. Because if I distract myself with these sensations, it would probably turn out badly. I'm even more alive after the gigs. I guess it's the energy. I send it out to the audience and they send it back to me with applause and other abstract things and suddenly I don't feel tired and I have energy and joy."
I am very familiar with stress and things like that. I can easily be a master at stress. But whenever I have a difficult discussion or conversation, I have my talismans and someone else has their rituals too. "These bracelets bring me good luck. I've been scolded by a professor for doing it this way when I play classical music. I take the rings off because that would be really rude, but I keep the bracelets. And I don't play the day before a concert. I'm resting or going to a party. But then again, even if the muscle memory works, I can't come to a gig broken. Everything in moderation," laughs Milos.
And where in the world did he play well? What concert does he like to remember? "Experiences and trips have resonated in me. I really cherish being invited to various prestigious concerts. Everything is etched in my memory. Gro are experiences and experiences. And I translate that into music. In the world, I played well in Rome. That audience was terribly appreciative and was terribly active. When I played something and they liked it, they did incredible things. They clapped, they stood up, they were all very appreciative. The feedback wasn't that "congratulations, this was fabulous," it was that "thank you so much for the experience and for letting me listen to this," so they were thanking me for playing for them. They weren't congratulating me on my success, but they were thanking me for the music that they had been given as a gift and having a nice evening. That warmed me up so much. I realized I was doing it right and sincerely and that emotion rubbed off on them."
Miloš never stops pleasing us with his music and he never stops winning prizes. Recently he won the first place in the international competition Intercomp and became the absolute winner. Even the dean of the Music and Dance Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava awarded him a public commendation. May he only hear serious things in his head more and more often!
Janka Plešková: I was in a fairy tale that I was in America, even though I only saw a tree and a fawn on the road. How many Romani people made it to America?
Janka is 18 years old and comes from Banská Bystrica. She is a proud Roma woman who has done a lot for her young age. She made it to America. She was there as an exchange student for 9 months. She did her high school diploma in America and now she is doing her high school diploma in Slovakia. At a Spanish bilingual high school. She also writes poems and co-authored a book of poetry. Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn't it? It sounded like a fairy tale to me too, but if we look behind the scenes, it doesn't look so fairy tale...
It's a normal day in high school. Janka is sitting in class, trying to listen to the teacher's explanation. Suddenly, she sees her phone light up. An unknown number is calling her. At first, she doesn't pay attention to it. Obviously some mistake. But when she looks more closely, she sees that it is not a Slovak number. They are calling her from America....
"I was so stressed at the time, from travelling, the plane... I didn't even think about the corona. I had travelled before, but never alone. I never had to speak English. I've never flown so much that I had to transfer to several other flights. And now it was. So I was more stressed out about that than I was about the whole corona thing." I fully understand this stress overriding the fear of the virus. And when you add to that the fact that Janka was only 17 years old at the time, I tip my huge hat to her.
"In America, studying is quite a bit further back than it is here. But on the other hand, the teachers there are much more helpful. They want those students to learn something. They want to help. They want them to achieve something great. On the contrary, here in Slovakia I feel that teachers don't do anything for free for the pupils. Many times it happened to me in Slovakia that I didn't understand something in chemistry. But the teacher was not willing to help me with it. In America, I didn't understand it because it was still in English. But there the teacher wanted to help. He suggested free tutoring. After his office hours. And in two weeks I understood everything I didn't understand in Slovakia.
In America, no one addressed the fact that she was Roma. "I had one funny experience. When I was flying, a woman got on the plane. From her accent, I concluded that she was Mexican and she started talking to me in Spanish. By the fact that I know Spanish, we spoke in Spanish. So, when I told her I was Slovak, she was completely out of it.
"It's often negative. Sometimes I'm afraid to go out alone. One time we had very negative people in Banská Bystrica and it was very dangerous for young girls to go out at night. My parents didn't even want to let me go out because they were afraid of attacks on Roma, which were very common at that time. My parents had experienced something like that in the past. Especially my father. There were fights, verbal insults, intimidation like "I'll catch you"... It used to happen to my Roma classmates from primary school.
"In America, I lived in a state through which the main line of the white meat trade passed." Oh, my God! Janka! When she said that, it nearly knocked me out of my chair. "Kidnappers who steal women and children. It often happened that they took a young girl who was walking home from school. They did it in a subtle way. They'd stuff a narcotic into a business card and offer a job. When somebody takes it, they get a whiff of it and they're drugged. That's very often how they fool teenagers when they come from, say, Wallmart and offer them a part-time job. We have this bulletin board at school where there are lost kids and there were people lost for a year, six months... There were also men cutting their achilles. People there often have Jeeps- high cars. So they would hide under the car and cut their achilles. When a woman was getting in, they would cut her and the woman couldn't move. We were often careful how we got into the car. And we locked ourselves in." Mhm, American life. The white meat trade, the cutting of achilles, the dangerous business cards. And wait! Aren't guns allowed in America? "The sad reality is that kids under the age of 15 have killed themselves in school. With a gun. My host family got a gun, too. So I asked them not to teach the kids how to use it. Because then those kids can easily misuse it. Which the parents don't realize. The worst part is that they're playing huge Catholics. Huge Christians. I've dealt with them in a way that I wonder how Jesus and God is going to forgive them if they kill someone for inadvertently walking across their yard? They go to church every Sunday and they don't take killing as a sin...
Janka had a very poor one, compared to our Slovak one. "But I had to adapt to the youth there, because they can't go to parties and generally consume alcohol until they are 21. My peers there work on the farm on weekends or in Wallmart, which is like our Tesco."
I have travelled there a lot. I was there for 9 months and I travelled through 10 states. Which was a dream for me because I always wanted to travel. But without my parents. Which I was about 50 percent successful because I traveled with my host family, who were like my parents. Even though maybe North Carolina kind of disappointed me a little bit, the bigger states like Florida, California...those surprised me a lot. I've been to San Francisco for the Golden Gate three times and three times I've fallen into the sea. I wanted to take a picture of a wave and it took me." Clearly, for a cool photo, a girl will do anything. "San Fracisco is beautiful. I had freedom there. I was there with another exchange student and we went through the nature, the sights... I turned 18 in Florida. Who can say that?" WOW! Eighteen in Florida. You're right, Janka. Not just anyone can say that. "I was just high," Janka laughs. In America, drinking alcohol is only allowed at 21. "I'm not used to that style of celebration. It was so gentile, unromantic. At least I think that's how it is at a Gadzo party. We had a light dinner, cake and a glass of champagne. That was all the alcohol. But it was nice because I had a friend there - an exchange student from Russia. I had a photo shoot on the beach in a black wedding dress with a huge train that I bought at this vintage store. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It was interesting. I've always wanted a black theme for my 18th birthday. Black and gold highlights, shooting on the rocks and in the sea, which I didn't fall into this time," she laughs, dreamily reminiscing about the good times.
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
This situation will be repeated several more times. It always ends with the phone ringing because Janka can't answer it. But it becomes more and more strange for her. American number. She calls regularly. It won't be a mistake anymore.
"I was so stressed at the time, from travelling, the plane... I didn't even think about the corona. I had travelled before, but never alone. I never had to speak English. I've never flown so much that I had to transfer to several other flights. And now it was. So I was more stressed out about that than I was about the whole corona thing." I fully understand this stress overriding the fear of the virus. And when you add to that the fact that Janka was only 17 years old at the time, I tip my huge hat to her.
"In America, studying is quite a bit further back than it is here. But on the other hand, the teachers there are much more helpful. They want those students to learn something. They want to help. They want them to achieve something great. On the contrary, here in Slovakia I feel that teachers don't do anything for free for the pupils. Many times it happened to me in Slovakia that I didn't understand something in chemistry. But the teacher was not willing to help me with it. In America, I didn't understand it because it was still in English. But there the teacher wanted to help. He suggested free tutoring. After his office hours. And in two weeks I understood everything I didn't understand in Slovakia.
In America, no one addressed the fact that she was Roma. "I had one funny experience. When I was flying, a woman got on the plane. From her accent, I concluded that she was Mexican and she started talking to me in Spanish. By the fact that I know Spanish, we spoke in Spanish. So, when I told her I was Slovak, she was completely out of it.
"It's often negative. Sometimes I'm afraid to go out alone. One time we had very negative people in Banská Bystrica and it was very dangerous for young girls to go out at night. My parents didn't even want to let me go out because they were afraid of attacks on Roma, which were very common at that time. My parents had experienced something like that in the past. Especially my father. There were fights, verbal insults, intimidation like "I'll catch you"... It used to happen to my Roma classmates from primary school.
"In America, I lived in a state through which the main line of the white meat trade passed." Oh, my God! Janka! When she said that, it nearly knocked me out of my chair. "Kidnappers who steal women and children. It often happened that they took a young girl who was walking home from school. They did it in a subtle way. They'd stuff a narcotic into a business card and offer a job. When somebody takes it, they get a whiff of it and they're drugged. That's very often how they fool teenagers when they come from, say, Wallmart and offer them a part-time job. We have this bulletin board at school where there are lost kids and there were people lost for a year, six months... There were also men cutting their achilles. People there often have Jeeps- high cars. So they would hide under the car and cut their achilles. When a woman was getting in, they would cut her and the woman couldn't move. We were often careful how we got into the car. And we locked ourselves in." Mhm, American life. The white meat trade, the cutting of achilles, the dangerous business cards. And wait! Aren't guns allowed in America? "The sad reality is that kids under the age of 15 have killed themselves in school. With a gun. My host family got a gun, too. So I asked them not to teach the kids how to use it. Because then those kids can easily misuse it. Which the parents don't realize. The worst part is that they're playing huge Catholics. Huge Christians. I've dealt with them in a way that I wonder how Jesus and God is going to forgive them if they kill someone for inadvertently walking across their yard? They go to church every Sunday and they don't take killing as a sin...
Janka had a very poor one, compared to our Slovak one. "But I had to adapt to the youth there, because they can't go to parties and generally consume alcohol until they are 21. My peers there work on the farm on weekends or in Wallmart, which is like our Tesco."
I have travelled there a lot. I was there for 9 months and I travelled through 10 states. Which was a dream for me because I always wanted to travel. But without my parents. Which I was about 50 percent successful because I traveled with my host family, who were like my parents. Even though maybe North Carolina kind of disappointed me a little bit, the bigger states like Florida, California...those surprised me a lot. I've been to San Francisco for the Golden Gate three times and three times I've fallen into the sea. I wanted to take a picture of a wave and it took me." Clearly, for a cool photo, a girl will do anything. "San Fracisco is beautiful. I had freedom there. I was there with another exchange student and we went through the nature, the sights... I turned 18 in Florida. Who can say that?" WOW! Eighteen in Florida. You're right, Janka. Not just anyone can say that. "I was just high," Janka laughs. In America, drinking alcohol is only allowed at 21. "I'm not used to that style of celebration. It was so gentile, unromantic. At least I think that's how it is at a Gadzo party. We had a light dinner, cake and a glass of champagne. That was all the alcohol. But it was nice because I had a friend there - an exchange student from Russia. I had a photo shoot on the beach in a black wedding dress with a huge train that I bought at this vintage store. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It was interesting. I've always wanted a black theme for my 18th birthday. Black and gold highlights, shooting on the rocks and in the sea, which I didn't fall into this time," she laughs, dreamily reminiscing about the good times.
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
One day it will pick up. He listens to a voice on the other side of the world. The look on her face slowly changes from one of surprise, amazement and pure joy to one of concern. She has won a scholarship to an American high school!
"I got to North Carolina. It's not at all like what we see in the movies. We think of America as big buildings, schools, but the reality is that the first big building I saw was about 300km from my house. I feel like it was like a bigger Slovakia. Although in places it was like a small village in the east of Slovakia. Realistically there was nothing there. Just nature, horses, wild boars, roe deer on every corner. The first week I was there, I woke up in the morning, opened the blinds, the curtains and suddenly a huge horse in front of the window. It almost shot me! Nobody told me that the neighbor's horse was running away! But it was an amazing experience."
Still seems like a fairy tale, doesn't it? But let's not forget that we have a coronavirus pandemic raging outside. At the time Janka left for America, the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning in Slovakia. "I left on August 23rd, and there were millions of dead in America. I remember that I shouldn't have gone because the former American president stipulated that he didn't want foreign students. So that stopped the whole process of equipping me. But about three days later, I got a call from the agency saying that if I could find a family, I was going. If not, I'll go next year... They arranged my visa and found me a family that very day. Suddenly I had a week to pack up my whole life and go. Go beyond the big puddle. My parents were very sad and scared as we were not at all prepared for me to leave in such a short time. But we made it through. They supported me. They always supported me."
Let's recap.
1. The second wave begins in Slovakia.
2. Millions are dropping dead in America.
3. Janka packs up at extreme speed and goes to America.
I would probably choose not to go anywhere. I'd be afraid that if I didn't get infected at the airport, I'd definitely get infected on the plane. And if not on a plane, then a million percent in America. But if I did that in Janka's place, I'd probably make a huge mistake...
CORONAVIRUS
"I was so stressed at the time, from travelling, the plane... I didn't even think about the corona. I had travelled before, but never alone. I never had to speak English. I've never flown so much that I had to transfer to several other flights. And now it was. So I was more stressed out about that than I was about the whole corona thing." I fully understand this stress overriding the fear of the virus. And when you add to that the fact that Janka was only 17 years old at the time, I tip my huge hat to her.
But I still think in the context of how her parents felt. After all, their only daughter is leaving for the great beyond at a time when absolutely nothing is certain. "In America, the corona wasn't dealt with that much. We didn't have to wear veils there. But I wore them anyway because my parents told me to. I also always had disinfectant. When I followed that, my parents weren't so worried about me. I never got infected there, and I'd been on about 20 plane rides. I wore a respirator and a gown, so there was caution everywhere. I wasn't worried there.
However... One day my phone rang. It was my father calling. His voice wasn't as cheerful as it always was when we called each other. I sensed that something was going on at home. He told me that my whole family was infected. I wanted to go back to Slovakia, but my father wouldn't let me. He realised that this was my only chance for a better life...
"In America, studying is quite a bit further back than it is here. But on the other hand, the teachers there are much more helpful. They want those students to learn something. They want to help. They want them to achieve something great. On the contrary, here in Slovakia I feel that teachers don't do anything for free for the pupils. Many times it happened to me in Slovakia that I didn't understand something in chemistry. But the teacher was not willing to help me with it. In America, I didn't understand it because it was still in English. But there the teacher wanted to help. He suggested free tutoring. After his office hours. And in two weeks I understood everything I didn't understand in Slovakia.
In America, no one addressed the fact that she was Roma. "I had one funny experience. When I was flying, a woman got on the plane. From her accent, I concluded that she was Mexican and she started talking to me in Spanish. By the fact that I know Spanish, we spoke in Spanish. So, when I told her I was Slovak, she was completely out of it.
"It's often negative. Sometimes I'm afraid to go out alone. One time we had very negative people in Banská Bystrica and it was very dangerous for young girls to go out at night. My parents didn't even want to let me go out because they were afraid of attacks on Roma, which were very common at that time. My parents had experienced something like that in the past. Especially my father. There were fights, verbal insults, intimidation like "I'll catch you"... It used to happen to my Roma classmates from primary school.
"In America, I lived in a state through which the main line of the white meat trade passed." Oh, my God! Janka! When she said that, it nearly knocked me out of my chair. "Kidnappers who steal women and children. It often happened that they took a young girl who was walking home from school. They did it in a subtle way. They'd stuff a narcotic into a business card and offer a job. When somebody takes it, they get a whiff of it and they're drugged. That's very often how they fool teenagers when they come from, say, Wallmart and offer them a part-time job. We have this bulletin board at school where there are lost kids and there were people lost for a year, six months... There were also men cutting their achilles. People there often have Jeeps- high cars. So they would hide under the car and cut their achilles. When a woman was getting in, they would cut her and the woman couldn't move. We were often careful how we got into the car. And we locked ourselves in." Mhm, American life. The white meat trade, the cutting of achilles, the dangerous business cards. And wait! Aren't guns allowed in America? "The sad reality is that kids under the age of 15 have killed themselves in school. With a gun. My host family got a gun, too. So I asked them not to teach the kids how to use it. Because then those kids can easily misuse it. Which the parents don't realize. The worst part is that they're playing huge Catholics. Huge Christians. I've dealt with them in a way that I wonder how Jesus and God is going to forgive them if they kill someone for inadvertently walking across their yard? They go to church every Sunday and they don't take killing as a sin...
Janka had a very poor one, compared to our Slovak one. "But I had to adapt to the youth there, because they can't go to parties and generally consume alcohol until they are 21. My peers there work on the farm on weekends or in Wallmart, which is like our Tesco."
I have travelled there a lot. I was there for 9 months and I travelled through 10 states. Which was a dream for me because I always wanted to travel. But without my parents. Which I was about 50 percent successful because I traveled with my host family, who were like my parents. Even though maybe North Carolina kind of disappointed me a little bit, the bigger states like Florida, California...those surprised me a lot. I've been to San Francisco for the Golden Gate three times and three times I've fallen into the sea. I wanted to take a picture of a wave and it took me." Clearly, for a cool photo, a girl will do anything. "San Fracisco is beautiful. I had freedom there. I was there with another exchange student and we went through the nature, the sights... I turned 18 in Florida. Who can say that?" WOW! Eighteen in Florida. You're right, Janka. Not just anyone can say that. "I was just high," Janka laughs. Because in America, drinking alcohol is only allowed from the age of 21. "I'm not used to that style of celebration. It was so gentile, unromantic. At least I think that's how it is at a Gadzo party. We had a light dinner, cake and a glass of champagne. That was all the alcohol. But it was nice because I had a friend there - an exchange student from Russia. I had a photo shoot on the beach in a black wedding dress with a huge train that I bought at this vintage store. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It was interesting. I've always wanted a black theme for my 18th birthday. Black and gold highlights, shooting on the rocks and in the sea, which I didn't fall into this time," she laughs, dreamily reminiscing about the good times.
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
But the situation at home started to deteriorate... Then my father himself told me to come back. For my mother's sake. She was very serious. She was in a coma for 18 days. She had a six percent chance of survival." I can't even imagine the fear Janka felt. Mom had a six percent chance of survival. Mom! Janka, her daughter, is in America. Thousands of miles from home. Mom has coronavirus, so even if Janka comes home, the doctors won't let her see Mom. All the thoughts that begin with the two most terrifying words "What if?" multiply in her head at the speed of light. After this news, Janka composed herself. It didn't last long, though, because she realized that she was just beginning to fight a difficult opponent. With time.
"We didn't know what was going to happen. It was terrible. I quickly started arranging for tests, respirators, plane tickets... I packed up, thinking I might not be coming back. It took me 30 hours to get home. I didn't have time to look for a flight with as few connections as possible... I came back for a month and I couldn't do anything. Just wait. Pray. Hoping and believing that my mom would pull through. My mom and I are close and I couldn't survive without her. She's like my best friend and it would be very, very hard. If the worst happened, if I was in America, I wouldn't even make it home.
Fortunately, my mom got out of it and today she is functioning as before. Two weeks after returning from the hospital her condition is much much much better.." America was a huge opportunity for her to have a better life. Her parents encouraged her to come back once the situation at home had improved. That's why Janka went back to finish her studies in America.
HOW DO YOU STUDY IN AMERICA?
"In America, studying is quite a bit further back than it is here. But on the other hand, the teachers there are much more helpful. They want those students to learn something. They want to help. They want them to achieve something great. On the contrary, here in Slovakia I feel that teachers don't do anything for free for the pupils. Many times it happened to me in Slovakia that I didn't understand something in chemistry. But the teacher was not willing to help me with it. In America, I didn't understand it because it was still in English. But there the teacher wanted to help. He suggested free tutoring. After his office hours. And in two weeks I understood everything I didn't understand in Slovakia.
So the teacher approach in America is incomparable to that in Slovakia. Furthermore, everything there is electronic. Nobody uses textbooks or workbooks there. We were given school laptops for which we paid $30 for the whole year. We were graded not only on tests but also on assignments. For example, for an essay we had to write at home. So the final grade was for overall work. Not just for the papers."
Janka has "ONLY" an American high school diploma. "ONLY" in huge quotes. Now she's doing the Slovak one. She needed to take the transfer exams to start doing it. For which, naturally, she needed some materials to learn from. It was extremely difficult. Not because Janka couldn't learn. But because the teachers had only sent her a syllabus, according to which Janka had to find the materials herself. In Slovakia, the teaching was distance learning. So she was happy if her Slovak classmates had at least some notes. Janka managed, nevertheless.
HAS SHE FELT RACISM IN AMERICA?
In America, no one addressed the fact that she was Roma. "I had one funny experience. When I was flying, a woman got on the plane. From her accent, I concluded that she was Mexican and she started talking to me in Spanish. By the fact that I know Spanish, we spoke in Spanish. So, when I told her I was Slovak, she was completely out of it.
I was often mistaken for Hispanic. Which isn't exactly lucrative in America, because Hispanics experience racism there. But I always corrected them that I was a Roma from Slovakia. And a lot of them didn't know what a Roma was. They were very curious and wanted to know more about it.
For example, my host family followed a youtuber who was in Lunik IX, so they knew about the Roma. In the beginning I was even afraid to say I was Roma. But even though they had seen different videos about Lunik IX, they were interested in where I was from, who I was Romani after, what it was like to be Romani, and what it was like to be Romani in Slovakia. We kept listening to the song Gipsy by Shakira. They even took me to Virginia, where there's a town that used to be purely Roma. Which was very nice that they took me there and were interested."
WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE A ROMA WOMAN IN SLOVAKIA?
"It's often negative. Sometimes I'm afraid to go out alone. One time we had very negative people in Banská Bystrica and it was very dangerous for young girls to go out at night. My parents didn't even want to let me go out because they were afraid of attacks on Roma, which were very common at that time. My parents had experienced something like that in the past. Especially my father. There were fights, verbal insults, intimidation like "I'll catch you"... It used to happen to my Roma classmates from primary school.
It's negative in school too. It was hard to get into school and it's hard to stay there. Because it doesn't matter that I got A's, B's. I'll get a bad grade and they'll immediately say, "One more bad grade and you're out of here!"
When I found out that I had been given a scholarship in America and told my class teacher, I asked her not to tell my classmates. Because I knew I had a lot of classmates who wanted to go to America but didn't have a chance. They know English, but people don't see them on the internet as much as they see me, for example, and so on. Of course the first thing she did was to praise me in front of the class that I was going to America and that I was going for a year and through this agency. The reactions I got were that I was making things up. How could a gypsy get to America for that long? My friends were in turn but very happy and they knew before my parents did."
In America, I explained to them that we were perfectly normal people. The Hispanics understood that because they are very similar to us Roma. They also lump them together. I also told them that it was important how I reacted to negative innuendo from the environment. People are very puzzled that I don't react back aggressively. I gave that kind of advice to my Hispanic classmates as well.
WAS IT SAFER IN AMERICA?
"In America, I lived in a state through which the main line of the white meat trade passed." Oh, my God! Janka! When she said that, it nearly knocked me out of my chair. "Kidnappers who steal women and children. It often happened that they took a young girl who was walking home from school. They did it in a subtle way. They'd stuff a narcotic into a business card and offer a job. When somebody takes it, they get a whiff of it and they're drugged. That's very often how they fool teenagers when they come from, say, Wallmart and offer them a part-time job. We have this bulletin board at school where there are lost kids and there were people lost for a year, six months... There were also men cutting their achilles. People there often have Jeeps- high cars. So they would hide under the car and cut their achilles. When a woman was getting in, they would cut her and the woman couldn't move. We were often careful how we got into the car. And we locked ourselves in." Mhm, American life. The white meat trade, the cutting of achilles, the dangerous business cards. And wait! Aren't guns allowed in America? "The sad reality is that kids under the age of 15 have killed themselves in school. With a gun. My host family got a gun, too. So I asked them not to teach the kids how to use it. Because then those kids can easily misuse it. Which the parents don't realize. The worst part is that they're playing huge Catholics. Huge Christians. I've dealt with them in a way that I wonder how Jesus and God is going to forgive them if they kill someone for inadvertently walking across their yard? They go to church every Sunday and they don't take killing as a sin...
But then again, we don't need to think about what could happen... For the first few months, I didn't realise there was anything like that going on. I take it positively that I got there. I was in a fairy tale that I was in America, even though all I saw was a tree and a deer on the road. How many Romani people made it to America? For so long? Could have lived and studied there?"
STUDENT LIFE
Janka had a very poor one, compared to our Slovak one. "But I had to adapt to the youth there, because they can't go to parties and generally consume alcohol until they are 21. My peers there work on the farm on weekends or in Wallmart, which is like our Tesco."
TRAVELLING IN AMERICA
I have travelled there a lot. I was there for 9 months and I travelled through 10 states. Which was a dream for me because I always wanted to travel. But without my parents. Which I was about 50 percent successful because I traveled with my host family, who were like my parents. Even though maybe North Carolina kind of disappointed me a little bit, the bigger states like Florida, California...those surprised me a lot. I've been to San Francisco for the Golden Gate three times and three times I've fallen into the sea. I wanted to take a picture of a wave and it took me." Clearly, for a cool photo, a girl will do anything. "San Fracisco is beautiful. I had freedom there. I was there with another exchange student and we went through the nature, the sights... I turned 18 in Florida. Who can say that?" WOW! Eighteen in Florida. You're right, Janka. Not just anyone can say that. "I was just high," Janka laughs. In America, drinking alcohol is only allowed at 21. "I'm not used to that style of celebration. It was so gentile, unromantic. At least I think that's how it is at a Gadzo party. We had a light dinner, cake and a glass of champagne. That was all the alcohol. But it was nice because I had a friend there - an exchange student from Russia. I had a photo shoot on the beach in a black wedding dress with a huge train that I bought at this vintage store. I didn't even know there was such a thing. It was interesting. I've always wanted a black theme for my 18th birthday. Black and gold highlights, shooting on the rocks and in the sea, which I didn't fall into this time," she laughs, dreamily reminiscing about the good times.
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR POEMS AND OTHER GOALS?
"I also went to church a lot in America, which may be reflected in my poems. I mainly write poems when I'm sad and getting into some kind of depression. Which didn't happen to me very often there, as Americans are very hectic. They don't have anything planned. Sadness caught me during the Christmas holidays. A time when the family is together. Which I didn't get to do then and even though my family and I called each other, I missed them. I was writing poems at the time, the loneliness inspired me.
I would like to try being an exchange student in Spain. I've been there once before for a month and I really liked it. But I would like to go there for longer. I don't know if it will be next year because I have one more year of high school left, but maybe I'll go there during college."