Kmetz

President Bush recently appointed a new US Ambassador to Slovakia , Vincent Obsitnik. He is able to speak Slovak. He was born in east Slovakia near where my father’s family came from. His parents brought him to the United States as a young boy. He had an outstanding career with the Navy, IBM, and Litton.

Tatiana started a second country line dance group in another village. She has become a close friend of the mayor through this dance group. The mayor is part of the dance group. She had arranged for the Ambassador to visit her village and she wanted the group to dance for the Ambassador as a surprise. She also wanted me to be there with Tatiana to meet the Ambassador.

Here is more background information:

The Mayor of the village is a woman, Judith Trnikova, recently widowed. She is a lawyer by profession. Her village, Sarovce, is comprised of 40% Roma (gypsy), 30% Hungarian, 30% Slovak. She has aggressively pursued programs to improve the life of the Roma people. Her efforts have attracted the attention of the European Commission which has granted funds to support the programs. Other ambassadors and foreign ministers have come to visit this little village as a result. Monday’s visit by the US Ambassador was just the most recent of many high-level visits. The Mayor brought the Ambassador to visit a culture center for the gypsy people. It seems to serve as a school as well, to help bring the children up to a higher social level.

These pictures are from his visit last Monday to the gypsy culture center in Sarovce. In one picture you can see the Mayor arriving with the Ambassador and being greeted by me. The Ambassador graciously posed for a picture with me. The other pictures show the country line dance group (including the Mayor) performing for the Ambassador, and the Ambassador with the gypsy children.

The Ambassador seemed to really enjoy the dance performed as a surprise for him. Afterward, he asked for the music to be played again and he proceeded to dance with each of the women in turn. I added a picture of him dancing with Tatiana. He spent more time talking with me than I expected.

The person using my camera was an interesting fellow, too. He is working as a recruiter trying to find jobs for the gypsies, and working with potential employers to accept and train gypsies for specific jobs.

Mike