The Boyash

Description

The Boyash people are simple and their way of life has existed in its present form for generations. The children of the Boyash don’t want to continue carving spoons or making brooms, the modern world beckons. Jobs in the big cities with better pay and modern comforts are far more appealing than a week spent hawking the simple wooden tools of their grandparents, sleeping in ditches and huddled against buildings in the centre of Romania’s bustling towns, their wares spread out in front of them in bags and blankets. The wooden spoons, kitchen tools, brooms and other household implements the Boyash produce are not as valuable as they once were, selling for less than $1 CAD each.

In a new and rapidly changing world, a world the elder members have to accept the harsh reality with equanimity. “We ran out of time,” says one man. It’s an odd thing to say standing in a place that time seems to have forgotten. A horse-drawn wagon zips down the street, open kitchen fires roast vegetables and children struggle to push a cobbled-together go kart up a small incline. It seems unlikely that time was ever much of a consideration in the village and that life would continue much as it always has. But even here, even as we speak, life for the Boyash changes. And with that change, the spoons and brooms are slowly disappearing.