December 28, 2006
The American Gypsy
Dear Family and Friends,
I wish you a wonderful, non-materialist and non-consumerist holiday
season, Christmas, and a happy New Year, and I wish you magnificent
times with family and friends! Despite some difficulties, I find
myself unbelievably blessed this holiday season and happier than
I have been in a long time, and I wish the same for you and your
family this year.
In my last newsletter I mentioned
that my situation regarding staying in the Roma-Gadje Dialogue
Through Service Initiative (RGDTS) was somewhat tenuous due to
funding difficulties facing my sending church, the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.). In the past two months, it has become clear that,
unfortunately, I will not be able to stay in my current position.
I was granted an extra few months to wrap things up and help the
other people working with me make the transition to working without
me, but we could not work out a way for me to stay on longer than
that at the moment.
I know this is perhaps not the best time to ask for support,
but if you would like to support my mission extension (since I
need to raise money for that as well), I would be exceedingly
thankful and appreciative. You can send your tax-deductible (if
you’re in the United States) donation to:
First Presbyterian Church
20 North Dixie Avenue
Cookeville, TN 38501
Please remember to put “Grant Lovellette Mission”
on the subject line of the check.
I will be staying in Europe until the end of February. I will
then return to my hometown, Cookeville, Tennessee. I will continue
to offer my support to the RGDTS until the end of June.
In spite of the initially unwelcome news that I must move on,
I have since come to look forward to moving on (at least in some
respects). In the spring, I hope to visit many of you in the United
States whom I have not seen for quite some time, which is quite
exciting! I’m also looking forward to seeing my parents
(I saw them for a grand total of five hours in 2006) and to meeting
my first nephew, Alexander, who was born this year but whom I’ve
not had the chance to meet yet.
As to where I’m going from here, the current plan is actually
to come back to Budapest in August 2007 to do a one-year
MA program in nationalism studies at Central European University.
This program seems to be a logical extension of the work I’ve
done for the past three and a half years and will be relevant
to just about anything I see myself doing in the future. After
that program, I will probably do a two- or three-year program
in public policy, peacemaking/international development, or international
organizations before starting to work again. I’ll spend
part of this spring figuring all these things out, when I have
more free time and when things are a bit calmer for me.
Finally, a little bit about my work. It is now official: I am
The American Gypsy, according to the Roma (Gypsies) I know here.
(I’m certainly not the only one, as there are upwards of
one million Roma in the United States, but I’m the only
one they know, so that makes me the American Gypsy.) However,
I am very Caucasian and was not born into a Roma family, so how
did I become the American Gypsy?
In March 2006, I went on a study trip to the Netherlands and
Germany with a group of Roma mentors who participate in the RGDTS.
We went there so that these Roma mentors could meet the partners
in these countries, learn about our projects there, and more effectively
recruit Roma volunteers to participate in the program.
One evening while we were in the Netherlands, we went to the
home of one of the Dutch partners to have dinner. We arrived there
rather late, 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., so her 4-year-old son was already
in his pajamas and getting ready for bed. One of the Roma mentors
on the trip is a talented musician, so we played, sang, and danced
some, and then the Dutch partner left to take her son to bed.
While he was getting ready for bed, brushing his teeth, washing
his face, and so on, they chatted about all of these new people
he’d just met. While chatting, she asked him, “Which
Roma did you like the best of the ones you just met?” He
thought about it for a minute, and (not knowing what made someone
a Roma or not) replied, “The American one.” When the
Roma mentors downstairs heard this story, they literally fell
off their chairs laughing, and ever since then, I have been known
in Budapest and elsewhere as “The American Gypsy.”
Videos
To share part of this experience of being The American Gypsy
with you I’d like to three videos (despite the risk of humiliation!).
The first
video shows me teaching a group of Dutch schoolchildren a
little traditional Hungarian Roma dance. The
second one shows a close-up of Gyuri, the Roma musician with
whom I have recently been playing the wooden spoons and singing
a good deal. The
last video shows Gyuri and me playing at a train station in
Germany (we had missed our train and needed to kill some time
while waiting for the next train to arrive).
The most fascinating thing about being the American Gypsy is seeing
how different people react when they hear someone else call me
this for the first time. Upon hearing this, many Roma and Eastern
Europeans look at me with a rather pained expression on their
faces, obviously expecting that I will be (and should be) offended
at being called an American Gypsy, which then changes to either
pleasant surprise (for the Roma) or confusion (for the non-Roma)
when they see that I am proud and happy to have been to some small
extent adopted by the Roma I work with. Nonetheless, being proud
of this identity has been a useful means of dialogue with both
the Roma and non-Roma here.
Practically, this has all translated into my having spent more
time than I would have ever thought possible playing the wooden
spoons lately. One wouldn’t think that playing the wooden
spoons is a crucial part missionary work, but to use an old (yet
true) cliché, God works in mysterious ways and is always
ready to use us in ways we never would have imagined ourselves.
I’ll end this Christmas letter with the same ditty from
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow I sent out last year. It is still frightfully
relevant to our world today, and I found nothing better I wanted
to send out.
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play
And mild and sweet the words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought how as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had roll’d along th’ unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bow’d my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong, and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
‘Til ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime,
Of peace on earth, good will to men!
May peace be yours (and ours) this holiday season, and forever,
Grant |
