Why am I running?

As I run in the heart of Skopje, Macedonia, I hear the shrill powerful voice of a Roma man cutting through the air, "Staro! Staro!" Old stuff he wants as he spurs his hor

se on in the sweltering sum

mer heat. His cart either empty or piled high with a rusty washing machine, old tires, or flattened cardboard boxes.

As I run through the city, I see the Roma climbing over the dumpsters, filtering through the mass of pork bones and stale bread for plastic bottles, cardboard boxes, food, anything recyclable, edible or usable. Rigged up motorcycles, hauling bags of bottles bigger than an SUV sputter through the city. At the stoplights the mothers with the babies thrust a hand to a car window while the teens splatter windshields with dirty water and swipe them with a rag.

As I run I pass a father and his toddler napping face-to-face in the grass in a shade-filled

courtyard of a high-rise apartment building. Then one day they aren't there; children play soccer in the grass. Further on at a stoplight I see them, the father begging at the car windows, the

child a sleeping potato sack over his shoulder.

I run along the Vardar River, a fast-moving, trash-filled river. Mallard ducks paddle through rusty oilcans, candy wrappers, skeletons of bicycles. I run past a dumpsite along the river where Roma children "sled" down the piles of rubbish on pieces of cardboard, their hilarious laughter bouncing over the mini-rapids.

I run so these kids can go to school. I run so instead of begging, they are learning.

I run for the Roma.