I'm sure you can share my story,
but don't expect a lot of people to care about this...

I'm some time ago, with pain in my heart moves from a trailer to a house.
My children were bullied, they were wearing too heavy a cross.

I also felt severely discriminated when applying.
My postcode was checked.

Of course I can't prove this,
but my former residence managed to praise me completely out of the market.

You know what it is, and if I'm really honest, it's always been like this.
Travelers are not easily accepted and yes, they are sometimes even feared.

In the 19th century, there was no national regulation in the Netherlands and each municipality could determine its own trailers policy..
Their focus, on removal from the congregation, managed to translate an unrecognized love.

In 1918 a trailer law came, demands were made on the caravans and their residents, and in 1968 even the National Government banned the travel.
To my ancestors, centers in remote places, far away from civilization, were offered to meet their 'living needs'.

Relationship with local residents, at the time I call moderate, but even after the abolition of this law in 1999, there was still little positive.
No, on the contrary... there was even some kind of “extinction policy.”

Existing pitches were often disbanded when they were released and the placement of some new pitches was of course not a goal at all.

Fortunately, the Minister has now decided that this must end...
“Away with that extinction policy, our children carry their own dreams just like your children.”

Standing out of the house and on your own feet, but at the trailer camp.
Is that really such a disaster? ? ?

By the way, I say camp on purpose, because I would like to draw attention to this too...
Don't you think that this term, anno 2019, carries a little too much negativity.

CAMP, bah... it sounds disrespectful and I'm really not happy about it..
But you know; if you put it really, really well, the word KAMP is actually okay again.

Look, the word KAMP shows me a denial of my right to equal treatment, and my heart breaks to have to say so to you...
But I am forced to live in a house now, and I cannot explain my grief to you in words.

No, dear people... history and my own experiences have taught me painfully that my people, the trailers, are not quickly accepted and are hardly appreciated.

And why? ?
I want to keep my own culture so badly, I want to go back to my family, to the free character of a completely different way of life.
But there is a shortage of caravans and my wish lives with 3000 others in the Netherlands and it is not 'given' to them either.

I call my roots the perfect example of the holding company.
We take care of each other, the door is always open and at the table, with the food someone can always reach.

REALLY TRUE! Whether people know you or not at all.
And that is why it is so unfortunate that people often only see our 'image problem'.

Travelers are still too often shaved over one comb.
If a pot plantation is found with us, then our entire centers are lost!

Between every people is chaff.
But for example in Vossemeer or in Poortvliet they don't look at the neighbours and I find that incredibly annoying and MAF.

Most of my people work hard for their money,
but is that counted if you are very honest?

You know, fortunately, there is a little more improvement and our living culture is being protected little by little and above all, thank God more and more protected.
Yes, fortunately... we are seen more and taken care of by many congregation.

I can't get used to a house, I literally go crazy between those four concrete walls and I mean this really, really not wrong... I have absolutely sweet neighbors.
But, I have to feel freedom!
I need wheels under my house...
My blood is crawling where it can't go, I don't feel at home.

I want a campfire on the edge of the field.
I want grass and weeds — if it's not kicked down — to my knees... yes, I'm well-off.

I want a place where everyone is welcome, whether you're sick or old, we help each other!
No one goes to a retirement home here, it's part of our culture to arrange things like that... we're one big family, is that weird?

It still feels like people want us gone, deliberately eradicate us.
I can't help but think back to 40-'45 when the opposing party managed to interfere with our culture so gruesome.

Now we are living in 2019 and the Ombudsman agrees that we, trailers residents, can retain their own cultural identity that deserves protection under various international and European treaties, but the question remains, will we ever, actually receive it?
I, I, unfortunately, live between four walls, but I keep longing back for my roots until I die.

I pray every day that all prejudices against my people may disappear like snow before the sun.
And that there may be a new start, a start as our wonderful creation once began a long time ago...

Freedom, peace, love, togetherness, respect and so much more...
But... for now I'm partly due to lack of trailer space between four oppressive walls, along with my children and it really, really hurts me a lot.

by: a Voice of Thoughts
#trailerdwellers #trailer