Cimitero Degli Inglese

After reading the article on the Cimitero degli Inglese that I posted in the Rom entry on the 30th, I was inspired to journey up my street and find it. The cemetery is also known as the Island of the Dead, because it is a raised hill in the middle of a busy roundabout. However when I got there and met my friend Christine the cemetery was closed, disappointed we decided to walk around it and come back another time. However, as we turned to leave Julia, the nun from the article, walked out of her building and opened the large iron gates, letting us in. She was excited about our interest in the cemetery and not only let us in when it was closed, but gave us a tour complete with stories of the people who were buried there and the people who work there.

This is the main path leading up and around the cemetery

The tomb of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in the middle is a broken slave shackle symbolic of her works against slavery

When Christine and I mentioned our work with the Rom and the article we had read she brought us into her library where we saw beautiful books produced by the Rom. One book was a vocabulary book, with terms helpful for doctors and health, that used pictures, Romanian, Italian, and Romany, the Rom's language. However the discussion also lead to the challenges facing the Rom and she told us that because of the animosity towards the Rom when the article we read was published the government stopped her from being able to give the Rom work. It was incredibly upsetting that this article that could have brought positive attention to the Rom and their stories resulted in negative consequences.