That day I was sitting at my computer watching a show called the Ami G Show. That episode was attended by many celebrities, and a boy named Matt Kamberi caught my eye.
Mattie Camberi wrote an autobiographical book called "The City of Pain". I liked the title of the book, I found it on the internet and started reading.
At first it seemed like an ordinary book describing the life of a boy without parents, but in the end everything got complicated. When he was 9 years old he was kicked out by his parents and remained on the street until he was 13 years old. Since Meti was a member of the Roma population, everyone thought that his parents were forcing him to ski as he earned, no one knew the real truth. He was forced to beg and do some easier work in order to survive. He calls one of these jobs the "Deliverer." Why a delivery guy? He delivered packages containing things like, stolen jewelry, drugs and even weapons. He was told that these were ordinary jobs and that he took the items to the police for a search, which he of course fell for as a child. In the evening, he entered the restaurant that was about to close and asked them to give him some of the leftovers to eat, but the waiter said in a loud tone that they were carrying this "Gypsy" from the restaurant. Little Matty didn't know what to do and went to bed. He dreamed of Roma children from Emilmet, of a father he hugged in his dreams, and of a mother who was a woman for one night to provide food for her children. So the nights, months, and even years passed until Mattie was able to enter the orphanage. He thought his torment ended there, but it didn't. He started going to school, it was completely new to him, somehow it was easier for him to go out on the street again and start begging but he didn’t give up. Day after day, Meti was getting better and better at school, everyone praised him, especially the Serbian language teacher. Mattie had such a wonderful style, handwriting, he knew how to compose a text that no one in school would understand except the teacher who was appalled by that text. After a couple of years, winning multiple lyrics awards, Mattie has grown into a real guy. All the time Matty went to school he wrote a diary, a diary about his turbulent childhood from a mother who had to do everything to feed them, about cold winter nights on the street and later turned that diary into a book called "City of Pain". Today, Matty is a smart guy, he finished high school and enrolled in law school.
This book awakened in me many emotions of love, happiness, sadness, pain, nostalgia but all of it beautifully connected into one whole. It simply inspired me not to be selfish, to always be smiling, cheerful and to stay away from the streets, bad vices, to study school as much as I can so that one day I would become as famous as Mattie Camberi, who is very dear to me. Despite all his events, Kamberi remained positive, unspoiled and an inspiration for many children who heard about him.
Eldin Ajukic