Testimony Return to Testimony List Twice blessed When we are born into a Cigány family we are twice blessed because we are two times somewhat like children. When you are a child you need someone to look after you and protect you. The same is true when people get old. Sometimes old people forget things and they can become confused. They sometimes have difficulty keeping clean because their heads are less clear. Most old people need their family to help them at some point. You know, some gadje families don't look after their old people. They put them in houses where other people, who are not from their families, look after them. Would anyone give their children to strangers to look after? So why do people give their aging parents away? Some gadje, I know, told me they don't have time, because of their work, to look after their parents. This is such a shame that people cannot look after their families. Some of the gadje, who said this, were rich and it would seem to me could manage to look after their old parents. But then maybe they are ashamed to admit this. I find this difficult to understand, it is very sad, isn't it? I have even heard that some gadje old people die in these houses with no one from their family being present. Whenever this is possible, we always gather round when an old person is dying; they never die alone. To us it is a terrible thought that an old person could die without their family looking over them; a family often, in part, created by them, their brother or their sister. No, we could not do this. As Cigány we are twice blessed because we have the pleasure of looking after our children as well as our old. We are also twice blessed because we are looked after by our parents and then, later, we are looked after by our children. Yes, I think that, no matter how rich or how poor, we are twice blessed. Adapted from testimony from a Romungro woman from Eastern Hungary. Gadje signifies non-Cigány (non-Romani, non-Roma). Cigány signifies Gypsy, Romani or Roma.