A €2 Plastic Bertrand pink vinyl LP is found at a stand amongst many other crappy stands and sold by a gypsy woman whose wide, tanned and rough hands say a lot about an itinerant lifestyle more than likely stripped of basic comfort.
The gypsy settlements outside of the local villages, never too close to other habitations, remind the passer-by of the long history of a shunned community.
As a child, in my grand-parents village, right behind a big maison bourgeoise and next to the edge of a vast vineyard, stood a trailer that was the object of my curiosity. I was told by the other kids to be wary of the gypsies living there. That's my oldest memory of being brainwashed. We wandered several times around that trailer trying to catch a glimpse of a different people, a different lifestyle. I saw two of them once, and while feeling both exultation and fear, i left the scene taking something away with me: the guilty pleasure of having gotten close to something i was supposed to stay away from, and the fertile imagery of an unknown and mysterious world.
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