Gitanos (part 3)

Moving right along:  I´ll tell a little bit about what I´ve observed of gitano culture.  Please bear in mind that this is an outsider´s observation:  I am not gitana.

One of the first things that comes to mind is family values.  Part of this has to do with children.  It is said that gitanos (Spanish Gypsies) love children, and a couple without children is something that is almost unthinkable.

But let´s be accurate:  people in Spain generally, whether gitano or not, seem to love children with more care and tenderness that you ordinarily see in the United States.  It´s especially noticeable with fathers.  In the United States, most often when I see a father pushing a baby in a stroller, he has the look of someone who is doing a noble thing, or of someone who is being somewhat put-upon.

But in Spain, at least at the present time, fathers seem to feel it´s a perfectly natural thing.  It´s no more unusual than a mother pushing a baby in a stroller.

As for many of us, gitanos have far fewer children than a generation ago.

Gitanos go even further.  I will give a couple of examples.  I know of someone (gitano) who left his home and went off with his pregnant girlfriend to a country in which he didn´t speak the language, because his girlfriend, from a country other than Spain, was going back to her parents´ house to have the baby-and the father couldn´t stand the idea of not being present when his child was born.

This same father is still living in that foreign country with his girlfriend and the baby - now child of a year and a half - even though he still doesn´t speak the language, has few contacts there outside of his girlfriend, his baby son and in-laws, and has pretty much nothing in common with the people around him.  He does this because he can´t bear the thought of being separated from his child.

I´ve seen other cases in which a young father, looking at his baby, was obviously completely filled with love...far more love than you saw in his face when he was looking at the baby´s mother.

So yes, I do think it´s part of gitano culture to feel profound love for children.

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NOTE:  We are currently filming a documentary about flamenco which stresses the importance of gitanos to that art form - hence, these posts.  Learn more about the documentary on its web site www.FlamencotheLandMovie.com.