Thoughts on a bus

Posts Tagged ‘homeless’

Thoughts on a bus

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

I wrote earlier about the importance of backup plans and today I got reminded of this on the bus trip from Berlin to Copenhagen. I overheard a phone call of a Spanish couple sitting next to me. They had booked a hostel some days earlier but never got the booking verified. Now when they called the hostel the booking didn’t exist, and after borrowing my laptop and using the free wifi on board the bus they realized all the hostels in town were fully booked because of a football match. They also tried doing a last minute search on Couchsurfing but without luck. A sms to my father confirmed what I already knew, that there were no possibility for me to let them stay in my fathers apartment. What happened to them after arriving to dark and rainy Copenhagen? Nobody knows, but I gave them my contact details to use if they got into trouble or needed help. Hopefully they could sleep in a couch or floor at the hostel that lost their booking.

Before you start traveling into unknown territory you can prepare against situations like this. First mentally, by visualising how it would be to sleep in a backyard, park or beach. If you think this would be overwhelming for you, then you need to make a backup plan. This would typically involve having addresses and phone numbers to other hostels, friends or just researching where you could sleep if everything is fully booked. Bringing a tent with you while traveling is very helpful in these situations, although it is usually difficult to find a decent place to put it up. Be careful with your backup plans though; if you like spontaneous travel, backup plans take away all the fun of improvising.

This situation also made me think again about the way I am living when I am visiting Copenhagen. I always travel here for short periods of time, usually a weekend trip. Because I have very limited of time in Denmark I spend it all with my family. This means, although I have traveled to this country for a countless number of times during the last 20+ years, it is the country in the world where I have the least friends. If the situation with the Spanish couple in the bus would have happened in any other country, where I have been before of course, I would have been able to help them quickly and without problem.

The situation is also interesting because when you travel and something happens, like you run out of money or you have no place to stay, you are really stuck and need to stop and think your way out of the situation. This is even more difficult in big and civilized cities then in smaller towns or more southern cities. It takes so much before somebody reach out to another person to help him, if it ever happens. My suggestion to you is to do more. Give money to musicians and artists on the street. Buy the street paper, paper tissue or flowers that the homeless people sells. If you see somebody lost, give them a hand in the right direction even before they ask for it.

Tags: Berlin, Copenhagen, Denmark, Germany, homeless, People
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Photographing the roma people of Serbia

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Last week I was in Serbia to take photographs for an article about the roma people living there. This was a great experience which included meeting a lot of interesting people who was living in these camps or trying to help them.

The main problem the Roma people in Serbia has today is that they have no type of identification. There is a possibility to go to another town to get this, but the trip plus the cost for the identification can be as much as 150 euro per person, which is of course impossible to save up to when you don’t even have money for your daily food. Without identification you are not allowed to get an apartment, hospital treatment or to work, which means no income. A lot of the people collects and returns paper though which barely gives enough money for food. The rest lives from food found in the trash.

The second problem is that the Roma people have no fixed place to stay and are unwanted everywhere. A lot of them move to Belgrade in the belief that it is easier for them to find a job there. Some tries to go to other countries with trucks, paying with their last money/jewelry/possessions, to find themselves get thrown back to Serbia again. When they arrive they get left outside by the police (that follows them from the country throwing them out) outside the Belgrade airport with no money, no information and no idea where to go. Most end up on the streets and after some time hopefully move into one of the about 150 Roma camps in Belgrade, which is houses of cardboard built up on a trash yard. After some years the government will destroy the camp to be able to build on that ground, and you will have to start from the beginning again.

Most of the Roma children don’t go to school because of the parents needing them to work instead, begging or collecting paper. On top of this they can’t afford to pay for the food the children need to buy if going to school. Also, if the children is born or have lived the main part of their life in another country they can’t speak or understand the Serbian language which will disable them in school.

The pictures below is from one of the camps I visited, this one in Belgrade. The spirit of all the people I met was very high and everyone being very positive and warm, although they have been informed that their camp will be totally destroyed to the ground within two months because it disturbs the view of a newly built modern house with expensive apartments, where by the way their old camp were placed before getting destroyed. They will probably not be told the exact date and the government will not allow photographers or other media people on the place when this happens.

The old camp was destroyed to make place for the building in the background. In two months time this camp will be destroyed for creating a better view for the people living in the new building.. No replacement living place will be offered to the people living in the camp.