UNIT 1 LIFESTYLES

GYPSIES

WARM UP
What do you know about gypsies? Share your ideas with the class.
PRE-READING
I- Read the sentences about gypsies. Decide if they are True or False.

There are two types of Gypsies.

Gypsies are from Spain.
Gypsies are usually discriminated.
Gypsies kids dont usually go to school.
Gypsies women marry as children.

READING
II- This is Roxy Freeman. Read her description of her life as a gypsy. Check your ideas from the Warm Up.

Roxy Freeman and her brother Rollin practising

flamenco in 1990. Photograph: Tam Carrigan

My upbringing was unusual, but not unique. Until I was eight my family lived on the road, travelling around
Ireland by horsedrawn wagon. I was one of six children, with three more half-sisters, and our family was
considered small. Having 12 or 13 children was common among Travellers in Ireland.
I was 22 and never spent a day in a classroom in my life; an alien concept for many people but common in
Gypsy and Traveller families. Many, like me, never attend school, while others are illiterate because formal
education is not a priority in our culture. Instead of going to school, my siblings and I were taught about the
arts, music and dance. Our education was learning about wildlife and nature, how to cook and how to
survive. I didn't know my timetables but I could milk a goat and ride a horse. By the age of eight or nine I
could light a fire, cook dinner for a family of 10 and knew how to bake bread on an open fire. Our life was
always lived outside; working, playing and socialising was all done around the fire or in the woods and
fields. For many years we had no electricity, no television, no radio; nothing electrical. We didnt have many
toys. And we played cards thank God for playing cards! If it wasn't for them, I would have no
mathematical ability whatsoever.
Although I didn't go to school, some of my siblings did. And like so many other Gypsy children, they faced
bullying. Often I went to their school and found them in floods of tears because children were rude at
them. Gypsies and Travellers are the only social group that it is still acceptable to insult. In part, I think this
is because our levels of illiteracy and lack of social involvement; if people are unaware of what is being
written about them, they're not going to dispute it. And if they don't dispute it, it will carry on.
When I was a little girl I dreamed of living in a house on a cobbled street, because in wagons and
caravans you never get any peace. You live on top of each other, privacy is non-existent and the only place
you find solitude is by hiding under a tree or walking across a field. As a child I would wander off alone
whenever I got the chance and spend the afternoon watching birds and picking flowers.

UNIT 1 LIFESTYLES

GYPSIES

Adapted from: http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/07/gypsy-childhood-prejudice-education

Glossary:
Upbringing
Childhood
Horsedrawn wagon

Alien
illiterate
siblings
Floods of tears

Strange
Not know reading or writing
Brothers and sisters

rude
unaware
dispute
Carry on
Cobbled street

Bad person
Not conscious
Disagree
Continue

III- Check the True or False sentences in I. Are they all answered by the text? Were you right in your
answers?
POST-READING
Write (tell) some sentences about what you know now about the Gypsy lifestyle.