Remi got the call. It was time to go. Il avait une photo à faire sous l’autoroute mais sur la Rhone. It doesn’t matter that it is Friday night in a professional photographer’s world. And so we loaded up the equipment and went. Me to lend a hand as I do from time to time. Albeit a tad unwillingly as I was in the midst of typing something else but I let it go and go.
Under the bridge that is an overpass, on the banks of the “other” side of the Rhone, there is a camp of gitanes this summer. They are different from the other Roma also living outside of town but linked in having a life tightly woven together and yet set distinctly apart. We pulled up fast as Remi was catching at a particular moment and then stayed as it was missed.
I saw so much.
Burnt cotton candy twisted hair topping a smudge-faced girl in a pink jumper. She draped herself belly-down along the guardrail to watch us with bored eyes. Dogs being forced out of puppydom by a band of chasing boys. A four year old wandering pantless amongst the weeds. Lanky men with their arms folded behind their backs, walking slowly over to the Rhone to let their gaze follow the drift. A movement that was repeated like the pull of a clock. Camper doors slammed repeatedly to follow a verbal point then silence. And then guttural voices rise again. Then fall. A shiny black Labrador strained at the end of his leash, paws in the air, barking at all who crossed a line known only to him. A platinum Amy Winehouse haired teenager with eyeliner to match drifts over with her little brother in tow to look over our shoulder. She has a furry blanket wrapped around her, she nods so he will ask us, “What are you doing?” They make sullen flip flop slaps as they go but a matriarch made of leather glides silently up behind us to offer a religious medal, something we know to refuse but in doing so with kindness, we are welcome. Across the Rhone, the children’s friends are called out to with corny jokes as their family bathes in what I had thought was les egouts, the sewers but Remi assures me is the runoff from an underground canal. They knew that and are camping out at the coolest spot in all of Arles. So many degrees below what we feel just ten minutes walk away. And because we are directly under the overpass, we don’t hear the cars at all. Something I can’t say in the least for our apartment, which at times, feels like we are being assaulted by sound that is not our own. Two young but not so young girls come back with a sac from the mini-market, baguettes poking out the top. Dinner is made and ate on a table leaned against the massive concrete pillars, quietly with just the tindrom of cutlery. No parents involved.
The light is its light in Arles, proud macho town. So we all watched it. Our Friday night. As we left a woman that we had not seen raised her hand in a silent aurevoir.
This photo was part on an ongoing story that he is working on for the local Antiquities museum and National Geographic. I think I have posted about it before but a long time ago.
Wow, I had to read this post twice.
I have always had so many questions about the daily life of this other world that exists here in Europe, and have never been given many answers. I have just relied on my imagination and guestimations. How were you able to witness as much as you did?
Thanks for offering little slices into a world that many of us are intrigued by.
A fascinating scene; magical, mysterious, a little sinister and all bathed in a beautiful light. Perhaps most mysterious for me is the call to Remi.' Il avait une photo à faire sous l'autoroute mais sur la Rhone'. Have you posted about this call before? Gallivanta
Same as here, Loree. The "immigration issue" is hugely divisive in France too–it makes me so sad. Thank you again for your fine post.
That last photo is Amazing. You've captured a magical light. We have no Roma here but we have our own outcasts. If only we tried, kindness would break down so many barriers.
The idea of the tension between such freedom and tight boundaries really rings true to me. It certainly is hard to imagine a future beyond that community for the young women that I saw and have seen in town. There is an interest in exchange but only for a short period and then it is dropped like a hot rock, whether from lack of interest or "otherness" I couldn't tell.
Merci Marielle. I felt fortunate to have had that time as a "fly on the wall" so to speak!
When we were travelling, I really tried not to judge the tribes and traditions that we encountered. It is all relative. That said, Remi has busted me on some judgemental comments closer to home recently! So yes, good to open up, see with clear eyes.
Joan, you ARE political! In such an important way. Please do send along whatever links you want–you know that we both see eye to eye and I have so much respect for your thoughts!
Leslie, he is an amazing man and his comments were so simple and yet went right to the heart. I was so grateful that he made those comments.
Fascinating and beautiful. I could circle around this other-world, via your poetic words, forever. In St. Maximan I had a fleeting friendship on the edge of a Roma camp, where a young woman seemed pulled by both worlds: her own and the one I returned home to, each time our brief encounter ended. Pushing my stroller back to the village after the daily walk, I wondered what the other's future would behold. Outside, the sky could be her limit, but back in her camp motorhomes now surrounded her, like four-wheeled boundaries. Such a mystery.