Thank you for downloading from the BBC.

For details of our complete range of podcasts and our terms of use, go to BBCWorldServis.com slash podcasts. The Roma have an anthem. It's called Jalem Jalem and it evokes the long journey of the Roma,

a word which literally means people. I'm Delia Radu and come with me over the next hour on an eye opening journey, a journey across Eastern Europe and through time. It's a journey I first made 10 years ago and now I

want to find out was changed for some of Europe's poorest people, the Roma, also known as gypsies, and I'm starting in my homeland, Romania.

I'm finding myself again after 10 years. Between these very steep slopes of

clay and sand this is where the Roma community of Ignacibiui live and the area is prone to landslides and people know that but people have to live here.

Like the Roma of Ogna Sibiu in Central Transylvania, many of Europe's 12 million Roma live on the margins of society.

For centuries they faced persecution,

and genocide.

Their ancestors came from India.

As a result, many of them have dark hair and skin,

much darker than some of their European neighbors.

They've lived in Europe for centuries and yet they are still seen as outsiders.

Almost three quarters of them live beneath the poverty line.

In 2005 I visited many Roma homes and communities.

I wanted to find some of these people again and see how their lives

turned out. On the outskirts of Ogna Sibu is an area called the ravines, where the houses are

sandwiched into the hillside. An elderly man has offered to be our guide to the area.

I'm looking for a woman called Petruza Paraskiva,

who a decade ago survived a landslide in the area.

This is what she told me then.

We had chadon. I'm fosengropato. is what she told me then. Look I was buried alive here at the foot of this

...