Communism and the advent of plastic bags stripped them of their livelihood. So they stayed. They have prospered in nothing, save children. The ghetto has grown to 400 people, half of them under the age of 15. All those of working age are unemployed.
Families survive on small welfare payments and on what they can forage.
They have neither electricity nor gas. The only source of water is a pipe jutting from the mud from which everyone drinks and washes, not least the ghetto's much-loved dogs and horses. The living quarters are a few fetid blankets and pieces of torn plastic arranged over green branches hacked from a nearby forest. Daylight does not penetrate inside, though rainwater sluices in. She lies feverish in a filthy bed, a new-born child at her side.