Imagining Pata Rat

Pata Rat is a place that I visited in 2008 and so far it is still the same. It is a garbage dump, on which or close to which about 1.000 people live and out of which they make their daily living. It is a place which does not look like any place in the world I have been to. It is a challenge to common sense ideas of how groups of children, mothers, fathers and grandpas look like. It pushes the visitor into a condition of despair which is hardly comparable to views of different human experiences. It's Romania, yes, and Romania is of course not Pata Rat, but also Pata Rat. Saying this means just acknowledging public responsibilities and provide a partial explanation on something which is far from being imaginable until you get there.