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Thursday, september 11th, I met this gypsy women in Skopje. She was sitting on the sidewalk of a big street, and she was shouting and screaming as if she gave a very personal performance. Nobody of the passers by gave her any attention. I was struck by her behaviour. Completely free, the street was clearly her natural habitat.
The moment she noticed my attention for her, she was happy to have some interested public, finally. She grew in her performing role, singing, telling a lot of things that I did not understand. She became more and more sad, concerned. Still none of the passers by gave her any attention. They seemed to be ashamed for what she was telling. Once again, language was acting on a second level for me. Names of children (I guess), mostly girls. Words like mobsters, passports, abortus, dinars and deportation.
I made up my own story about her. The next day I asked Jasna, one of the workshop participants, to translate what the gypsywoman told me. I decided to film Jasna while she was making a simultaneous translation. I will edit both voices on top of each other, as a testimonial and a comment.