Scavenging for goods

As it is Friday, I wanted to work little bit on this blog, before I will go to our usual Friday meeting of editors and contributors.
Do you have those days sometimes? When you want to do something but there is something else to prevent you from doing that? I think we all have those days, probably every day. But this time it wasn’t the release of my favorite TV show or anything like that. More like hardware problems. My mouse broke. I’m using a laptop so I could switch to touch pad, but somehow I don’t like working on touch pad. I prefer an old fashioned mouse, or rat as I call it.

I decided to make a quick trip to a local game shop. Maybe they will have a computer mouse I could use, I thought. Unfortunately they didn’t. Well it is a game shop but you never know. What surprised me was all that junk laying around the streets. But not like rubbish after usual Saturday night in the city center. I’m saying authentic piles for all sorts of stuff. Chairs, wardrobes, bottles you name it. Some of it was actually good stuff.

And it wasn’t just on my street. The hole district was covered in those piles of stuff. Of course, where there is free stuff there are lotsof people who want it. And this case wasn’t different. I instantly figured out what all this is about. People just are getting rid of their unwanted stuff. I already heard about that. Apparently it’s a big thing in Germany. My friend told me that in France something very similar takes place twice a year.

Basically people on a particular day in a particular part of the city, leave all their unwanted stuff outside. Everybody is free to take whatever they want. At the end of the day, a truck comes and collects all the leftovers.  I've never seen anything like it in Poland or in Asia. I think it happens only in some countries in Europe. Or even in just a few cities. I don’t think that we would see such a scene in a small countryside town.

As far as I know you can sometimes find very useful stuff. If the stuff is valuable (like a fridge or a TV), there is a custom to cut the plug off it if it
is not working.

The thing is that there will be probabley be gangs collecting the stuff, so even if you spot something nice that would suit you, they won’t let you take it. This was exactly the case here, in Budapest. Lots of gypsies scavenging those piles. Places they didn’t cover had a “watch gaurd”. It’s usually some kid or older woman.

It’s quite funny how you hear how those people barely can make a living. Having no job and so on. When it comes to such an event, you can see them loading stuff on trucks and cars while drinking beer. Where do they get the cars? And drinking beer while admitting that your kids don’t have things to eat or clothes to wear isn’t fair. Is it?****

Anyway I actually needed a traveling bag. I’m going back to Poland in few months and I need one. I just thought to myself that rather than spending money on some rubbish language, witch will be used just once, I can just get one from the street. But it’s not as easy as you might think. Gypsies have all the area covered. I noticed a really nice language and asked a nearby Gypsy woman if I can take it? Two guys come to me and demanded 20€ for it! Man, I was shocked. I understand that they won’t give it away for free. But 20€. They had just been before me and got it for free, so I don’t think that’s right. It wasn’t a new one either. I just laughed at their faces and went away. I probably could just take one travel bag just like that but I kind of value my life too much to do such a thing. There was police patrolling the place and I’m a big man. What would they do on the street? But it’s not worth it to argue in the middle of the street about some old piece of luggage. If they been there before me and found the thing earlier than me then that’s that.

Not only were theGypsies  looking around for things. Older folks wore wandering around with their shopping bags on wheels and many other people. Some of them didn’t look poor at all. Surprisingly I didn’t see any homeless people around. You could think that such an event would be a gold mind for homeless people. But apparently it isn’t. Maybe they are afraid of the gangs or they been here earlier during the day, and I didn’t see them. Don’t know.

Few of those people probably make a good living out of this. Most of that stuff looked exactly the same like the stuff you can find on flea markets around the city. If you think about it, having a big family and a mini-van or any other car, you could make a business out of it. Just gather the stuff. Sell some of it on e-bay. Rest at flea markets.  Probably many people do that. But if you look closely, most of the scavengers are Gypsy origin. But when you go to the market you barely see them among the merchants. And I’m not only talking about well-established markets or even antique stores. Once I was on a huge open air market and I didn’t see any gypsys there. It was a strange experience. I was there when everything was almost over and apparently some of the merchants who didn’t sell their stuff were just throwing them away. There were trucks prepared to collect all the rubbish after everybody went home.
I saw them throwing away old books wrapped in the same blankets that merchant was selling them on 15 min before.

I’m not entirely sure how all this exactly works, but I find it fascinating. I can just imagine that there are small fortunes made on this. Hierarchy seems to be very important issue amongst people who are interested in gathering. I think it would be very interesting to have an honest conversation with one of those people who are living off of it. From my experience and what I see and reed it would be hard to find honesty there. When you see them appearing on any TV news they are usually complaining how their life is bad and how poor they are, but why saying that they seem to be drunk? Maybe cutting down on beer would be a partial solution to their problems. I don’t know. I will look for some documentaries on this subject and post them here if I find something.

**************The author's opinions here do not reflect the opinions of everyone on the writing or editing staff.