Ask the gypsies if you can take photos. Of the children playing in the truck; by the clothesline. Promise you will bring back photos. They can only say “No,” I think to myself as I turn my Jeep into the dirt road leading to their camp site on Skopelos Island, Greece. I walk in boldly camera slung around my neck.
A group of three or four men and women, six children sit around a large plastic table in the shade of the olive trees. Before I can state my business, a swarthy man comes forward with a smile and a chair. “Kathesai” sit down, he commands placing an iced coffee before me. Then the questions begin: Where are you from? Married? How many children, the latter a burning question for all Roma women, I later learn.
I start to take photos as we talk. Although the young girls are shy, they seem to like being photographed. Mitsos, the friendly one, asks the questions, does the talking. He’s compact and muscular, not your stereotypical dark handsome gypsy but outgoing and full of fun. While I’m snapping away, he tosses a garland of garlic round his neck and fashions a crown of olive branches for his head. He poses, I take photos and all the family laugh and shout.