This one is for the children

After photographing my grand parents and family in Romania, I took the interest of snooping around the building a bit and photographing a few of the people living there. I noticed the large amount of children who were either homeless or poor. Many were of Gypsy origins, and had no place to live. 

Many of them were taking to the streets from surrounding homes and finding all sorts of games to play. They were constantly interacting with their surrounding and gave myself a lot of attention. They asked me what was I doing photographing the area? Wether I was able to take their picture for them and wether I was going to let them use my camera to take a few pictures? I was surprised that they were already so adapted to the digital world and kept asking me to show them the pictures I took at the back of my film camera. 

Traveling around I saw many of these young children who didn't seem to have their families or guardians around them. I found out that there were many children who didn't have families in that area and that many families who were also living on the street were taking care of them. They were forming custom communities based on need and what surrounded them. 

In this picture there were two girls building a fort out of cardboard. They were playing a game together, preparing them from the rain and yet still having fun with things they found. Their family was very protective of them and came to interrogate me, trying to find out wither I was friendly or trying to harm them somehow. They were a bit violent and very quickly I found myself surrounded by ten to twelve uncles and fathers who were very angry. It took me about Three hours to calm them down and convince them that I was only a student and not the Mafia threat they mistook me for. Apparently there were foreign gangs who came into Romania from other countries and kidnapped children, murdered them and sold their organs on the black market. 

That news to me was both shocking and stopped me form being able to document as much of Romania as I wanted to. I was never able to find out who or where did all this happen from, but I did confirm the fact that child kidnapping was a common problem in my half country.