30th May

We have taken another leap. A different kind. I am learning new things to get along with our car. It seems I have been being overprotective. Now I know, I need to give it some air... but this isn’t the leap.

Children’s day came and passed. I don’t know if it is an international one, but definitely a local one. You could think that we didn’t bother ourselves with it but it isn’t true. When all things considered. Ernest and I – as planned – yesterday departed for Budapest.. Jen and Liliom were left behind at Szeged ( I almost wrote Oulu here). Lili couldn’t really come with us because she needs her final, stage practices before the ballet performance on Thursday. I had to come to bring the car to be checked over proper by some trusty workshop. Especially that we are gonna take it abroad for a considerable length of time. It would have been foolish to leave Ernest behind, Jen could have done no packing during the days whatsoever, time wasted for everyone.

Lili at first thought it was an unfair deal. Later she realised that she would have a few days without having to accommodate the mad needs of a 2 year old toddler. Besides, Jen promised her sewing machine learning experiences and perhaps other special events. And she could play sophisticated games with detailed toy layout without having to worry about imminent end. So a children’s day in a sense for days to come.

Ernest was rather nervous on Sunday morning. We were packing the car and getting ready to go. He is always worried he might gets left behind. Eventually we were sitting in the car getting good bye kisses from the other two. The realisation, that we were going, in our lada, just him and I… in that instant he lived children’s day.

After about a third of the journey he fell asleep. Not much later I picked up a man walking by the side of the road. Apparently he was going from Romania to Budapest, mostly walking because it is hard to hitch a ride here, and he will definitely find work in Budapest. He didn’t speak Hungarian, only a couple of words. A couple of words of English, Romanian, Russian, a Roma dialect from Romania. Our conversation exhausted after about three minutes, then he too fell asleep. A bit of a disappointment of a hitchhiker.

This morning taking the car to the service, driving on the dirt roads leaving from my mum’s place, at the first corner I picked up an elderly couple. Drove them to the nearest bus stop on the main road (actually not the nearest but the one near to Cora, more buses stop there). They were most surprised to be offered a ride by someone so young. Young people usually don’t bother themselves with helping others nowadays. Maybe I am just not so young anymore. Maybe I find it natural to give a ride to people, considering, I have travelled enough in other’s cars.
Our time here since we arrived is rather pleasant. I don’t get to do much though as the car is gone, and Ernest need to be kept an eye on in the garden. I filled up the little paddling pool with water for him, he gathered some flower-heads and petals into it and spent much of the day between the pool and the sandpit. Occasionally chasing some of the animals etc…

Before I post maybe it is time to explain what the leap is!
it is our car use, we travelled with our car, last time we went to Szeged it was a journey with a stranger. It felt different now. It was a travel with a car we now mean business with. We are adamant to take each other to places we go. It was comfortable. and funnily this is one of the most comfortable cars to drive I have driven recently.

March 14th

Recently I have been getting some kindly placed feedbacks that sound something like this ’reading nice life in Szeged is good...’ And accustoming myself with the stats page on blogger I realise it is true, people do like to read fun stuff, not so much not so fun stuff and politics definitely puts many of you off. It has been a difficult week and there have been some difficult experiences. There is politics and considering tomorrow’s pompous display of central European nationalism to come…
But lets not get ahead of ourselves.

We put Lili on the train on Saturday afternoon with some classmates of Jen, my sister was waiting for her on the other end. She is spending a four days long weekend at my mother’s. Just as well, the rest of us aren’t the greatest company. I wouldn’t go into Ernest’s case now, that is for another time but I got ill too on Saturday although I managed to sleep it out within a day and Jen has fallen ill as well. It seems we picked up the bad stuff somewhere along the way.

Still recovering but letting Jen have a rest Ernest and I went for a walk yesterday afternoon. Only a week ago it was around minus 10 in the mornings and we were happy if it was above zero in the afternoon now it gets up to 20 on the sun during the day. Even easy-going fellows like us are still perceptible to put on too much clothes when going out.

After the park Ernest decided on going to our regular café but now sitting on the terrace. On the street down at the end of the square an ambulance screamed by. It was the ‘new born special unit’. I had to fight off my tears. I was still in a messed up state.

After leaving our regular café we started walking home walking by the other café, on the corner which I just call ‘the café on the corner’ although it has a ‘proper’ name too. The terrace was full and the waiter was not so gently trying to help a man away from a table, I noticed it only a moment before the man toppled over the waiter and fell on the ground so I couldn’t have told if there was any ‘grievance’ between them or it was a genuine accident. He fell hitting his head on the stone, the waiter walked away hurriedly.

Shocked instantly, with Ernest sitting on my arm I was the first one trying to help, he was lying on his back. Only had time to try to see if he could understand/hear me and wonder for a moment why am I the only one there, how will I turn him on his side as he was losing consciousness. Fortunately a paediatrician – as I later found out talking to her – came and helped me with the move and as the waiter was coming back around, delivering orders and taking new ones we asked him if they have called the ambulance yet? ‘ah, no.’ he said ‘we called the cops’. The two of us practically yelled at him to call an ambulance.

I could do nothing more but I was shaken. I stood around, clinging to Ernest, feeling weird. I’ve never been looking into to eyes of someone who was slowly drifting out of consciousness. I watched the waiter. He was working, he was stressed, he was stressed already with work and he was stressed for what has happened. Eventually the paediatrician told him to wait for the ambulance where the fallen person was (she was rude, not gentle in her request, she was right although the manager of the café was nowhere to be seen to take charge). When the ambulance came he rushed back to work. The terrace has at least 50 tables, a busy day, only the two waiters.

I went into the café and told the manager to give the guy a break, he most certainly needs it. The manager just looked at me with big eyes, unable to understand what my problem might be. I walked off.

A brave new world it. On a Sunday afternoon a man falls on the street and the person who has been the closest to him when this happens, I am convinced an accident, does not have time to stop, think, help. I am sure the customers could have waited ten minutes. I am sure, I want to be sure. But no, he didn’t have the time, perhaps he didn’t have the will either. Maybe he knows this drunk, not paying for his bills, he has had enough. Maybe he pushed him a bit.

There was an atmosphere at the ‘place on the corner’s terrace. As if that man has not deserved empathy for he didn’t belong there, he shouldn’t have come there, a semi-homeless drunk and crazy Christian whit his silly little gypsy blessings written on scraps of papers. He deserved his faith…

Ernest and I went out for a walk again today. I wanted to go for a walk while he was asleep in the morning but since his recent sleepovers he wasn’t so keen. He heard me quietly getting ready and I could not go undetected. So we went together. More or less the usual route. We had cheesy treats today instead of the ginger biscuits.
We also saw the local communist party gathering for the pompous nationalist celebration. (more on that tomorrow). And we met him. He was there, with the communists. But then he seemed to have gotten bored of them and walked off. I approached him and we had a chat. Through me he now knows how he ended up in accident and emergency. I appreciated the blessing even if… but let’s not have a discussion on believes. ‘do take care of yourself!’

empathy

Intimacy

Travelling on the Budapest subway could be considered one of the least private places one can imagine no place perhaps for retaining even some degree of intimacy in our interactions. Yet it is not entirely impossible.
We only have been in Hungary for maybe a couple of weeks, it was still summer and I have not realised yet how difficult it can be to relearn a different context one shall use the language in.

Travelling on the subway our younger child, Ernest did what he does –just like his sister – so well and that is charming people around him. He is quick and efficient sitting in my lap looking up at people ‘forcing’ them to smile back. I was chatting away to him in Hungarian as I usually do while becoming increasingly entertained by the passing friendship he built with a young fellow standing next to us. I made an effort – eventually – to engage him in conversation and slightly shocked and puzzled stopped mid-sentence than made another effort now through the ‘right’ language though my speech did not feel honest. I was uncomfortable to start a conversation in Hungarian with a stranger.

Being surprised I started thinking about what might just has happened and begun paying far more attention to how I engage in conversations or avoid doing so. I came to realise that I was not at all happy to speak to people in Hungarian, feeling generally rather uneasy and uncomfortable when doing so. This is a condition that has become far better since but often I still feel distant through this language while also have a familiar closeness that feel now too close.

Of course nothing comes without its context for one doesn’t just decide for some reason or other to be in a certain way... For the past eleven years however I spoke less and less and with decreasing frequency except for my children whom with of course I talk and talked more as time passes. Therefore Hungarian has become an increasingly intimate language that is hardly if ever shared with anyone other than close family. Meeting the occasional other Hungarian perhaps helped emphasising its intimate value.

Suddenly everyone and everything around me shares the very language that has become a complex symbol and especially tool in the years spent in non-Hungarian speaking communities. It’s a learnt reflex to switch language when starting to speak to someone other than my kids yet it does not feel like one when one has always done this so. It feels natural and it is hard when one have no choice but to let go of so much associated value. The first tries sounded disastrous.

I still miss the intimacy and often still feel uncomfortable. This is natural, true, people connect through the medium of the language too and I need too , I am learning the tools and tricks again, speaking, communicating and slowly finding ways.
At times now, especially in contextualised or semi formal settings I am starting to enjoy speaking with strangers, meeting people. Other times I still feel too close although I am aware of the benefits they have to my language use as well as living life.

It is amazing how one can ‘forget’ a language that has felt so familiar and in certain ways still feels. Recently I have been writing emails in Hungarian and while I was aware of strangling the words and structures I could not help, I had to keep on writing knowing this is the only solution against this rust. Using language in a variety of ways.