Rome: The Romanian children had their Christmas festivity

The Romanian children from Rome gathered together to sing the traditional songs from home. In front of their parents, in the Aula Magna from the school Circolo Didattico “Alfredo Bajocco”, the children recited poetries in Romanian and sang the traditional Romanian songs for Christmas. The little ones come from all the parts of their mother country and are having the ages between six and eleven years old. They all read the story of the first flake of snow, to show to their parents now they read in Romanian.


The children follow the course of Romanian Language, Culture and Civilization (LCCR), supported by the Ministry of Education, Science and Youth, in collaboration with the Institute of the Romanian Language. In Italy, the project activates in the regions Lazio, Umbria, Lombardy, Piemonte and Veneto. At the school “Alfredo Bajocco”, the children learn the Romanian language under the supervision of the teacher Carmen Detrimona Balan, who also teaches at Viterbo and Orvieto. “The Romanian language is the most beautiful gift you give to your children. We must give them roots and wings”, started Carmen Detrimona Balan the festivity. Among t he little singers, there was an Italian child, Alessandro, who wanted to join the classes of this course. “He was going to the pool, but he wanted no more, he wanted to come here”, said smiling the grandmother of Alessandro. Full of pride, the little boy counts to ten in Romanian, and then he joins the group, to sing the traditional songs. The song “Mos Craciun cu plete dalbe” (Santa Clause with long white hair) was sang by all the parents, with the children, applauding for a long time. At the end of the festivity, “because we are all in Italy”, as the teacher Carmen Detrimona Balan said, parents and children together sang the Italian song “A Natale puoi” (When it is Christmas, you can).

The Italian teachers do not see the Romanian children as a problem. “The Italian language is very difficult; it has a lot of rules. As a behavior, the Romanian children are better than others. They are involving with a lot of seriousness in learning the Italian, they are really hard workers, and maybe the culture they are coming from made them be this way. But it would help also another course, to help the children who came in Italy since little time to learn the Italian.” said the teacher Patrizia Palombo, who taught religion to “a lot of Romanian children”. The Romanian children, according to their parents, made it through the integration in schools and in the society. “The Romanian looses ground, and the Italian becomes dominating. Look, the colors, when she speaks, she tells them in Italian, because she has just Italian friends and she almost uses no more the Romanian words”, tells a mother, whose daughter has come in Italy two years ago.

The festivity of the Romanian children took place yesterday, the 17th December of 2009, and the chorus was formed by 12 children of the 15 children that are usually frequenting the course at the school “Alfredo Bajocco”. Their little show lasted for an hour, after that the children went home to wait for the old Santa Clause.

Written By: Anca Elena Balan