Compelled to wed at 15, Gypsy bride buries hope of being doctor

VOLUNTARI, Romania -- Engines grumbling in the Balkan twilight, giant semis roll past the truck stop and its overflow of wedding guests.

Gears grind as the trucks leave the highway ramp and head northeast toward Bucharest, laden with goods for the capital's growing middle class -- Japanese electronics, German roadsters, French cosmetics.

Oblivious to this parade of a changing Romania, partygoers at the roadside restaurant are celebrating a remnant of the old Romania.

It's a Gypsy wedding, and the 15-year-old bride is mourning shattered dreams of studying medicine as she steels herself for a life more medieval than modern. A schoolgirl just weeks ago, she soon will be little more than her husband's chattel.

After years of backwardness, most of Romania appears to be on the mend. Roads long the bane of the Balkans are fixed, rest-stop toilets are generally clean, and membership in the European Union is set for 2007.

At the Corina truck stop, where diesel fumes mingle with the smell of barbecue, the colorfully clad wedding guests also seem a part of the new Romania -- on the surface.

Black Mercedes limousines are parked outside, and heavy gold chains glitter on necks and wrists. Roused by frenetic clarinet licks, the dancing crowd pumps hands into the air and sways to the sounds of Gypsy folk -- an eclectic mix of Romanian pop and traditional Gypsy music.

"Long live my husband. I've got the perfect wife," the sweaty singer wails, alternating between the roles of newlyweds extolling their partner's virtues.

Grins split the faces of the parents of the bride and no wonder -- poised and pretty, she's a dream in white satin, huge gold earrings and faux pearls piled high in her hair.

But Narcisa Tranca's smile is forced and her mind seems far away as she obliges requests for a dance. Her wedding is a rite of passage into a role she dreads -- cleaning, cooking, working in the fields and having babies. Her husband will decide on everything.

"I'd like two girls and two boys," says the groom, Marin Rupita. Asked if his wife agrees, the 18-year-old grins and says: "I don't know. I haven't asked her yet."

School? "Not once she's at my house," says Marin, who hasn't seen a classroom from the inside since fourth grade. "She'll be busy with housework like the other women in the family!"

Just weeks ago, Narcisa was in high school in her town outside Bucharest, an A-student with dreams of studying medicine. She pleaded with her parents to let her continue her education.

No, they said. That is not the Gypsy way.

"I wanted to be a pediatrician," she says. "I told them again and again, but my parents just wouldn't listen."

Her father, Marcel Tranca, says that had he not agreed to the marriage, the alternative would have been worse: Narcisa's abduction by potential suitors who didn't want to wait for negotiation.

Finishing school 'useless'

Now the best she can hope for is that her parents will manage to persuade their new son-in-law to live in the Bucharest area, rather than his home village about 200 miles away, so she can go back to school. Negotiations with the clan are under way.

Though she could have completed eighth grade before her wedding, Narcisa left school several weeks early.

"It would have been useless to continue," she says. "As of tomorrow, I'll just be stooped over a pot or a broom all day anyway."

Narcisa's world is as old as the 14th century, when the ancestors of what now are an estimated 8 million European Gypsies started arriving from India.

Discrimination and clannishness created a gap that persists to this day. Millions of Gypsies scattered across Europe, particularly in the former communist states, are overwhelmingly disadvantaged in education, job opportunities and status.

Governments in the east now are pushing to do away with that divide, partially in recognition that it threatens their chances of meeting the standards of equal rights for joining the rich club of the European Union.

In a TV spot paid for by the European Union, an old Gypsy takes his accordion, transforms it into a school bag and gives it to his grandson. The ad fades out with this message: "Roma children want to go to school."

Asked whether it is time to put priority on education for young Gypsies, one of Narcisa's uncles quickly says, "We have to."

"School takes a long time," Marin Mihailache adds. "We're at the survival level."

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On the Net:

European Roma Rights Center: www.errc.org

Site on Gypsy culture:

www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/patrin.htm