Visiting a Roma Village

Today we got a tour of a local Roma village. Svinia is a few miles west of Presov, and the Roma section of town is about half a mile away from the Slovak part. One of Cindi's colleagues at the University arranged our visit with the local social worker, so we were escorted into the village by someone they knew. But we're not sure if we really needed an escort - we were immediately mobbed by children who all wanted their picture taken. And most of the adults were quite friendly too. My brother and I were the biggest things (literally) to hit the village in a while. These people begged my brother to take their picture and this is their best smile for the camera. The social worker told us that 900 people lived in this small village. At first we didn't believe her, but after visiting a few houses and apartments, I think she may be right. This whole family seems to live in a room about 10 feet by 12 feet. Total chaos seems to reign in the village. Here is a short video.
(This isn't working - is this a blogspot problem?)

Here (on the left) is the oldest person in the village - she's 67 and has had 18 children. (Cue Borat saying "This my mother. She oldest woman in village.") After we left the Roma village, we went back to the center of Svinia and visited the school. The school has one principal but two buildings - the Roma building and the Slovak building. Guess which one is nicer. Cindi got in a bit of math teaching action in a Roma classroom. Then we went over to the Slovak building where the principal has his office. He was quite hospitable, and broke out the hruska (pear brandy) for us. We were lamenting the fact that school principals in the US aren't allowed to have pear brandy in their offices. It would certainly ease the pain of a hard day of dealing with kids.