Last week's hospital class left me in a bit of a shock. When I asked my students to ponder some culture different from theirs I expected some typical answer about a different country they've traveled to, but they actually told me about one that exists, quite independently, right in their city - the Spanish gypsies, the gytanos. When I say "in" I should say "on the margins of the city", same word used for "marginalized". They live in cardboard cities with their own culture, laws, and customs. I used to see one outside my bus window, it reminded me of District 9. They come into madrid to stand by the metro and offer you rosemary branches that will cure all ills and on top of that also bring wealth and fertility. These are usually short big ladies in long skirts with long black hair. You also see groups of teens in the park clapping flamenco rhythms, enchanting on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Also, even though they have their own traditional medicine, they come into the city to use public healthcare when it's necessary. This is where my students come in. Trying to just treat a patient, they also have to deal with a 20-person family, overcrowding a hospital room. Bringing food, sometimes even raw, to be cooked on a makeshift campfire right there on the hospital floor! Meanwhile surgeons receive threats to their lives as a kind of insurance for a successful surgery.
No wonder Spanish people don't like the gypsies much. These stories, as much as being a cultural curiosity, brought up some righteous anger in me too. Do you think they're paying into the social security funding the public hospitals? Coming from the US, especially California, and all our immigration issues, I can empathize.
Also similar is this fear of those with nothing to lose. I was corroborating this new information with my Spanish teacher Paloma, and she told me the following story. Her mother used to work in a school. A gypsy girl didn't come to class one day. The girl's entire family showed up to the school threatening her mother that she's dead if she doesn't find the girl. They said the girl wasn't home and therefore it was the school's problem. The police did accompany her to the gypsy city but wouldn't go past the entrance to the "house". She had no choice but to go in, alone, without protection. And what did she find? The little girl sleeping on a couch off to the side where no one noticed her before. Thankfully that's where that story ended, but who knows what could have happened to Paloma's mother in there. She risked her safety to avoid a potential threat to her life. You never know because it does happen. This same uncertainty is what prompts the receptionist at the hospital to go ahead and let the whole 20-person family through.
This is of course your standard mafia-style intimidation. But with the gypsies the fear is not just physical. Paloma always takes the rosemary and gives the euro. There are no death threats if she doesn't. But there is the evil eye and curses under the breath. She's not a religious person, but she still doesn't want to be cursed. And who can blame her? The gypsy culture has a certain mystery, a certain magic to it. After all, they are the guardians of flamenco, which, when I watch it sends shivers down my spine. Flamenco adds mixed feelings because many Spaniards do love it. Perhaps we can relate with our love for tacos.
When I reflected more on what is it that's been tugging at me since the hospital class, I realized that I secretly identify with them. They choose to live by their own rules, outside of mainstream society, uncomfortable, but free. Even when the government tries to "help" by giving them free housing, they spit in their faces by taking all the copper wiring and leaving the apartments abandoned. I don't quite go this far, but in a way I feel free as an expat to not have to obey the same social expectations, and to come and go as I please. So I understand and even admire the gypsies a little bit.
I wonder if this tugs at the spaniards too, this FU to societal structures. There are many rules, not for everyone of course, but for many. There's the not so optional Sunday lunch with the family. The job that you didn't want. The clothes that you must wear. Spanish and just general western expectations that are all so binding. I wonder if there's an unconscious or perhaps conscious envy of the gypsy lifestyle underlying the other more visible issues.
