le Rom Katarina Taikon

I sometimes upset people without any intention, one example of that is Katarina Taikon. She was a famous Gypsy author, who wrote among other books a serie of childrens books about herself, Katitzi. The background is that when I was a child, the Taikons had a camp in my village every summer, I never dared go near it. They came to Sweden from Romania and Russia 110 years ago. The Swedish Gypsies, who belong to two different groups, Lovara who has horses and Keldarasha who works with copper remains from them. The Finnish Kale´ Gypsies came to Sweden 500 years ago and were deported to Finland in the 17th Century. Their language Romani Chib is one of Sweden's five minority languages. An other group, the Travellers came to Sweden with the first Gypsies around 1400. Their Language, Swedish Rommani is related. When I was studying, Katarina Taikon came to the school and talked to us, and I said the word Romani, and she was angry about that, it is called Romane´s, she said. I thought it was called Romani, and now the official name is Romani Chib. Later she got a stroke and spent 13 years in bed before she died. Her sister Rosa is a famous silversmith.le Rom is their name of their people, I learnt that from Katarina Taikon.
The Gypsies used to come to the village and sell stuff in people's homes, my Grandmother had a way to say that she wasn't interested which has influenced me too, good or bad, she said on her Kalix-dialect Häv er uti arbete! Go to work!
It is a problem every summer here in Tornevalley that people, very often Gypsies go to elderly people and ask for water and steal all their money, the news never mention the word Gypsy, only women in long skirts.