Sunday, October 23, 2005

Different Fridays, Different Dances

I’d never seen a disco in a school lobby before. Nor would I guess that most rational people have seen one either.

But I’ll admit to a certain curiosity, and that’s why I set out a little after nine last Friday evening (the 14th of October).

Locking the door behind me, I heard my name, a rather unusual occurrence here in Heves. Even if they all pronounce it like "Zseremi," it still makes me smile just to hear someone acknowledge that I exist. Several students stood in front of the stately building across the street from my rather drab flat, waving wildly at me. I recognized them as students from the class 10B, one of four groups of sophomores at Heves High. I teach 12 of them German and 13 of them English. They are 15 years old, give or take a year either way, born just months before the fall of socialism in Hungary.

By simply dancing, the class 10B was about to become my tour guides on a trip of understanding who Hungarians are and who Hungarians were.

They eagerly invited me into the building, usually it's an after-school program for kids. I'm not sure of the original purpose, but it's one of the most classical buildings in Heves. Despite the hammer and sickle above the door, there's a giant golden chandelier above the great room on in the inside. For this one night, the yellow relic would host 10B's class party, an alternative of sorts, to the much larger disco in the school lobby. Zoltan brought his whole computer, the hard drive had thousands of songs. He set it up in one corner, right behind the speakers. Coca-Cola and potato chips were in the other corner. In the middle, all the students of 10B, dancing away. Traditional Hungarian folk songs blended into Britney Spears' take on "Satisfaction." We danced merrily to both, although they had to teach me the dances to the former. They took great pleasure in requesting Green Day's "American Idiot" in honor of their English-speaking American teacher. Even if they didn't know all of the words, they understood the chorus and the tenor of the song. I took no insult to any of the lyrics.

As they danced the night away, I joined in when I wasn't lost in thought. There was a lot to think about, you can understand parts of the Hungary of today from just watching these kids. Some kids appreciated the folk songs the most, they danced as feverishly as their grandparents must have generations ago. They looked silly to me, dancing in Nikes and t-shirts. And other kids liked American rap songs the most. I laughed because I knew they could not identify half of the lyrics on a vocabulary test. But whichever genre they preferred, they were fluent in both. They could blend old and new, find a balance between the two. And regardless of whether they enjoyed the music, they danced.

Klaudia, a German student, was tired. They work the kids hard in school here. Good kids, like Klaudia, have high expectations placed on their shoulders and must tackle mounds of homework each day and on the weekends. But at the same time, there seems to be a disheartening lack of encouragement for the unmotivated students. It's not unusual for me to have ten kids in a class not turn in an assignment. I'm left wondering if they didn't understand or simply don't care. Or perhaps they all just did happen to leave it at home, like they claim.

The kids seemed a bit older than their age. Smoking breaks punctuated the dance, and it was relatively acceptable in the Hungarian culture. Thongs, worn any which way except discreetly, screamed of a more overt sexuality here than there. Two young sweethearts were kissing in a corner, surrounded by the peers, and nothing seemed amiss. Some of my students here seem more sheltered than American youth, in an understanding-the-world-around-us manner, but it seems like they are encouraged to begin living at a younger age.

I almost felt bad escaping before the end of the party. They were so happy to be dancing, in that moment, and they were pleased to have shared it with me. I learned from them and smiled. I said goodbye in three languages, before disappearing into the night. I never made it to the other disco that night, I'm sure it would have been boring in comparison.

A week later, one Friday after I had first seen them dance, 10B was dancing again.

Almost a half-century ago -- one year less than fifty years ago in fact -- Hungary was a different place. On October 23rd, 1956, Hungary boiled over. For more than ten years, since the Red Army had swept Hitler and his Hungarian allies out of Budapest, the Soviets had held Hungary under the thumb of internationalist communism. Moscow dictated economic, political and cultural control over Budapest. (Here I must apologize for the brevity and crudeness of this review of Hungarian history.)

Small university riots blossomed into an overthrow of the communist government. Imre Nagy was placed in power to form a less Soviet government, and Russian troops were asked to leave the country. For several days, the Russians backed out as they discussed a course of action. Khrushchev's autobiography states their eventual position well, even if we might find it a bit biased: "It would be inexcusable for us to stay neutral and not help the working class of Hungary in its struggle against the counterrevolution" (417). Moscow went on to send tanks and troops marching through the streets of Budapest, killing 20,000 and forcing the exile of 200,000 more. Khrushchev's pen called it, simply, the "liquidation of mutiny in Hungary" (431).

"Radicals" in Hungary and the West found themselves up in arms. Hungarian nationals scaled the Statue of Liberty under the cover of darkness and hung a Hungarian flag from her torch, as a symbol of solidarity. But like in Berlin, the American strategy of containment left Warsaw Pact internal affairs to the Soviets, and refused formal aid for the freedom fighters. And the West was using any leverage it did have on the Suez Crisis, the Egyptian nationalization of the Suez Canal and resulting disarray, which happened the very same week as the Hungarian turmoil.

Thirty-three years after that first revolution, communism fell for real in Hungary. Instead of celebrating Revolution Day on November 7th as in the past, the new government assigned October 23rd to be the day to commemorate those who fought, struggle, and died for Hungarian freedom. A recurring theme in this part of the world.

School didn't start until 9:00, an hour later than usual, on Friday the 21st. (The 23rd was a Sunday, so the school planned ahead.) All the kids were corralled into the gymnasium and forced to stand. VIPs like me were given a chair in the front. The basketball hoops generally go unused in this part of the world, the nets have long ago fallen off, but on this day they were draped in green and red banners.

On a temporary platform put together for the day, an assortment of students read poetry. I didn't need to speak Hungarian to know most were dreadfully nervous. But afterwards, the kid of 10B came forward. Half were dressed in jeans and a white-collared shirt over a black t-shirt. Zoltan was one of those. The other half, including Klaudia, were dressed in jeans and red t-shirts. It wasn't hard to guess who would play the good guys, and who would be the bad guys.

They stood facing each other, as two different armies of sophomore dancers, until the music began. It reminded me most of 1980s new age electronic music, which is fitting, because the ceremony -- and the holiday itself -- was created from scratch in 1989. The dance began as marching, but was quick to evolve. First the white students advanced, but were pushed back by one red dancer. White advanced again, but was pushed back by three red dancers the second time. They were resilient, and pushed forward again. Five reds pushed them back across the stage again the next time, but again they pushed forward. Finally seven red dancers pushed them back and surrounded them. Strong-willed and resilient, but overwhelmed when faced with brute power. The dancers and Hungary both. They twirled and boxed and swung around. They fought with dance steps. By the end, all the white shirts were on the ground, the red shirts parading merrily above them.

The dance was interesting for its visuals, it tells a rather clear story about the history of the country. And even more significant was the concept of the ceremony itself. Here was a school, most-assuredly an institution of the state, teaching a certain version of the history of a people, a completely different version than 15 years ago. Imagine July 4th, under a different government in America, replaced with a celebration of the Haymarket Riot or some other episode of history, as the quintessential moment in history.

Monday, October 17, 2005

The Green Club

The Green Club was founded today with four charter members! Three fun kids from my 9A class, and an older police student I'd never met before who was rather agreeable to having fun with us in English! I gave each of them personalized membership cards. Either they thought it was really cool or they did a good job of knowing I'm desperate for friendship and playing along. We played four square, it's new to them here. By the end, we had added a categories rule. Beginning with the king or queen, everyone had to add an English word in a certain category each time you hit the ball. We played with colors, books, movies, musicians, car brands, jobs. In my opinion it was good fun. As we said goodbye, I gave each of them an American dime. They thought it was cool, and I am not beyond paying 20 forints an hour for friendship.

Eger, Part II

Beautiful weekend in Eger! Liz, Kat and I toured the castle, ate marvelous pizzas and enjoyed the cobblestone streets before meeting up with Kyle. After our hostess returned to Eger, we saw her apartment and ate a delightful meal.

By nightfall, we were jazzed to make our first pilgrimage to the Valley of Beautiful Women. The nights are getting colder here, and we think the tourist-geared wine cellars of the valley are entering their low season, things were pretty quiet. I fear they might even close for the winter, which would be a shame. Each cellar comes complete with its own atmosphere, its own hosts. Different wines to sample, different music to listen to, simply delightful.

After many samples, we walked back into town to see to eagerly-anticipated "lava tube" dance club. The guidebooks simply rave about the unique clubs, one even called it one of the top ten sights in Eastern Europe! Such an odd connotation, we each apparently had our own vision of what a lava tube is. Liz envisioned a clear dance floor, with orange molten lava below. Kat pictured a glass tunnel with lava flowing above and around us. I feel I was more pragmatic in expectation, I thought we would find long tunnels of shiny, black obsidian - smooth and cold to the touch, with significant echo problems. All of our expectations, though, were met with disappointment. While it was rather unique to be dancing -- or blaspemying the night away, as we were directly underneath Eger's ornate basilica -- in no way did we feel like we were doing anything other than visiting another dank Hungarian club. Sure, there were different levels, but none met our grand expectations, however silly they were.

Guess it helped us appreciate the Sunday morning stroll through recently picked vineyards on the hills overlooking Eger the next day all the more.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Oh Say Can You Sing?!

"Gólya vagyok." Literally translated, it means "I am a stork."

Put into context, though, it better means I am an uninitiated freshman. Today, I learned that first-hand.

Gaines was the first to figure out, hundreds of kilometers away, that today has something to do with storks, in schools all across Hungary. In Mezobereny, they also make the newest members of the high school wear pajamas.

I had heard nothing of the sort until yesterday, when 7A began telling me stories, in German, about what they would have to do today. I understood storks and aerobics. Only because they were gesticulating.

When I got to school today, I thought I was late, as there were hundreds of kids milling around the front gates. Nope, turns out the walk to school today would just include a gauntlet.

I dodged the first set of pranksters, then realized that new teachers were subject to the same games as were the kids. One girl threw a homemade paper necklace around my neck, complete with a pacifier at the bottom. Gólya vagyok, it read. The second heckler was a boy with a plastic sack. I hopped in, at his urging, and finished my commute with a minute-long potato-sack hop. The third gag was a gaggle of girl, complete with lipstick tubes. With careful penmanship -- not their lips, mind you -- they drew a G for golya and a heart on my cheeks.

The fourth stop was the chicken. A real live chicken. They keep them as edible pets in these parts, but I'm not used to that kind of fun. Do they bite? Do they peck? Do they claw? Do the chickens have large talons? I refused to pick it up, as the kids insisted, rather stood next to it and said, "I love you, chicken" in English for a digital camera.

The fifth step was a giant game of twister, except with a spider web above. Wonderful, wonderful fun, and there are good pictures, too. By this time, 7:50, almost all the students had gathered in the main lobby - a large open corridor that extends upward three stories with open balconies.

Academics, today, took a back seat to the gigantic sound system in the main lobby. Before school, and between every class, a DJ spun fun music. In large part, it was spectacular.

I tried explaining homecoming to a class of ninth-graders. Then I tried with a bunch of seventh-graders. It didn't work, so I cancelled the remaining three classes I had. All three classes were with 11th graders, the kids entrusted with planning the day, and it didn't seem feasible. I didn't feel bad about it, instead I smiled and said, "Hungary."

During first and second period they made the new kids dance. Between second and third period they made them sing. Between third and fourth period they blindfolded the poor kids and made them eat mystery substances. (Eerily akin to me sitting in front of a Hungarian menu.)

But between fourth and fifth periods, our 30 minute lunch break, not a single student left for lunch. Everyone packed onto the main lobby and the balconies. 7A started with their aerobics show, set to the song "I like to move it, move it!" They were a hit. 9B followed, to mild applause. 9D was a bit better in performance. It turns out, though, that they were saving the big guns for the grand finale.

The other new teacher burst out into the stage-like clearing and started twirling a baton. I cannot twirl a baton. And that's when I was grabbed from behind. It was one of my German students, he waved me down the stairs. A path cleared towards the stage. An English teacher whispered, "My students would like you to sing the national hymn!" Uhh, anthem? The national anthem? "Yes, yes, please go!"

I walked out. I was wearing my solar system shirt under a blazer. The announcer cried out "Tanar Jeremi!" I walked out, somewhat confidently, and waved. The children roared. "Blah blah blah Hungarian blah blah AMERIKAI HIMNUS!" the announcer shouted, they roared again.

"Szia sztok," I said with a smile and wave, offering a plural hello in Hungarian. They liked it. They hushed, in eager anticipation. There was nothing I could do but start.

"Oooh, say can you see?" I asked in sung verse. I'm not sure they could see. Probably ten people in the school could understand those words. I heard the nervousness in my voice, I'm not sure if they could.

"...by the dawn's early light." I gasped for breath. My voice was echoing nicely in the cavernous three-story hall. The kids were listening much better than in class.

"What so proudly we hailed..." I sang with a broad smile now. I hit the "prou-," the highest note I would have to sing on my shortened version, the apex, the climax.

"...at the twilights' last gleaming." I took a breath. I had no idea what comes next. So I made them laugh.

"Shatebi, shatebi." I deadpanned. It's Hungarian for etcetera. They liked it. They roared again. Things began to look up for my recording career.

"Oh say does that star-spangled banner yeeeeeet waaaaaaave?" I sang, with voice wavering just enough to make it vaguely musical. Deep breath for big finale.

"O'er the laaaand of the free?" I held it out. I was beginning to enjoy this shit.

"And the home of the brave." Wow.

Thursday, October 13, 2005

All Things Russian

War and Peace. I impress myself with how uppity it sounds. I am the first person to check the book out here in Heves -- in English, at least. It has been sitting untouched on the shelf since 1994, according to stamps in the book. I am currently on page 34 of 1,444...
Suddenly interested in Russian culture and related pursuits, my book-du-jour (or the next three months?) is

Last night continued a long trend of Oh-Fer on the soccer court. But, it should be noted that three of my shots came close and I made several defensive plays that elicited applause. My definition of "defensive play," though, is simply putting myself between the ball and the goal with or without strategy or forethought.

Tomorrow is a vaguely special day involving making fun of the new students and teachers. It involves storks, aerobics, singing and an evening dance, although that explanation came from a class of 12-year-olds, so it might be a bit off.

Discussing jobs and occupations this week with many of the kids. One of the girls, amidst a race to write as many jobs on the board as possible, scribbled "bitch" in big letters. I regretted to inform her that bitch is not an occupation. She insisted it was. I told her it wasn't. She thought for a moment, then said, "happy woman." I paused. "Prostitute?" Yes, she explained, in Hungarian the words bitch and prostitute are the same.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Ukraine (Part 2)


...Continued from previous entry. You've gotta read that or you won't appreciate how scary Ukraine is. Serious, folks, I remember asking Mariah if they would start to miss us on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday, and where they would start to look for our bodies...

By the third ATM machine, we had Ukrainian cash in our hands. Playing it safe, we selected one of the middle amounts of money -- 40 roubles, or whatever they're called here, our research hadn't extended that far. After doing some research, and my online bank account proves it, we had sadly managed to take out only $8.13 worth of money.

We walked off to find a hotel, figuring that to be a better plan than the tent in my backpack. We walked toward the nicest of the buildings in town. The sign proved it to be a hospital, until our assumption was corrected by a man who said the English word "customshouse." But when we asked "Hol van hotel," he pointed just a block away and said, "three up." "Three stories up?" "Igan, three stories up!" Smiling, we turned and took off.

We walked into an automatic door and through a bank lobby, a dash confused. Accosting number four was an armed guard who pounced on us as we stood confused. He looked Russian, spoke harshly and was packing heat...fairly intimidating. We explained that we don't speak any of the languages he speaks, or at least tried to do that in the languages that we don't speak. When we asked "Hotel?" he pointed at himself. We were a little skeptical. He drew the number 93 on a sheet of paper. We only had 40 of the mystery currency, we took another trip to the ATM. Out of earshot, we asked each other if we trusted this dude enough to give him money, entrust our lives to him, etc. Lacking better options, we went back, but only after a beer to calm our nerves.

I held my hand out. I wanted to shake his hand. I wanted to know his name. I wanted him to know our names, too, so he would feel bad when he shot us. Luckily, he smiled. I was Jeremy. She was Mariah. And he was Janos. He took us upstairs to show us the big room and the little room. The first room was great. Private bathroom, two little single beds, a refrigerator - even a balcony over looking the courtyard! The finishing touch was a small set of china in a cabinet. We couldn't believe it when the second room was even better! A television and everything. We quickly cheapskated back to the original, hardly believing our nearly-first-world luck, and went back downstairs.

He pulled me into his office, he wasn't interested in doing business in the presence of a woman. We slowly filled out police registration cards in small block letters. We worked on a desk covered with a sheet of glass. Underneath the glass gleamed illustrations of and instructions for Soviet automatic rifles, pistols and other assorted weaponry. Sweet.

Next challenge, food. We lasted less than a minute in our first restaurant attempt, before walking out in confusion. We were pretty discouraged. The menu was in Ukrainian and the waitresses all answered negatively to our inquiries into their language abilities. Nothing. And we were hungry.

In desperation, we grabbed a guidebook that had Russian phrases. If necessary, we would understand the Ukrainian menu by using the similar Russian words. The second restaurant proved to be more hospitable, though. The waitress, upon hearing our language skills, called over a friend who, while not fluent in English or German, was comfortable acting out the animal actions and noises for beef, pork and chicken. I pointed to something, anything on the chicken page. Mariah pointed to a word on the beef page. And we added, "two coca-colas, please." At least some things, like coke, are universal.

After supper, we napped, like any good traveller would. We then set out for a hike and wandered into a high school disco. We deftly dodged the bouncers with the Hungarian equivalent of "We are American teachers." Even without any liquor, the students were dancing strong. We particularly liked "Don't Phunk with my Heart," and so did the kids.

And then it was time for a midnight hot chocolate, as the weather is cooling down here in Central Europe. We applauded ourselves repeatedly. We had survived several accostings, and we had perhaps even thrived. We had ordered beers and hot chocolates, enjoyed a hot meal, and had comfortable beds to return to. Life, it turns out, in Ukraine is good.

We awoke the next morning and the sun was shining. All the problems that could have been problems -- we couldn't read the timetable, had no idea when our train left, didn't know how to clear customs, didn't know we had to buy a surcharge for the return journey, and came remarkably close to missing the last train out of the Ukraine -- we miraculously solved just as they appeared.

Two girls, who spoke a wonderfully-broken English, helped us with the timetables. They dragged us from window to window until they found the answer. Then we spent the rest of the morning waving at them around town.

A nice English teacher, who was Ukrainian by blood but taught in Hungary helped us buy the supplement back to Hungary. He look really confused when the customs official turned us away and pointed to the ticket-window, but certainly less confused than Mariah and I would have been alone. We followed him, blindly. It's a good thing he was not going to Kiev.

And then in the line for customs, two very nice young men eased our worries. Both had studied in Kiev, one is now in an English-medium grad program in Budapest, the other works in Uzhgorod, a city we will visit in the future. We talked for a long time, it was very nice. We exchanged e-mail addresses.

I don't know for sure, but it seemed like they were about 25 years old. Just like me. I shook my head when I thought to myself that if the course of human events had gone just a little differently at one moment or another, I might not have meet these wonderful chaps in a Ukrainian train station, but on a battlefield of a world war.

So are the thoughts you think after a long 20 hours in a place as wildly different as the Ukraine. I'm happy to say that I fully intend on going back soon. I slept well Sunday night.

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Surviving...And Thriving...In Ukraine!

Last night, under the glow of my headlamp as I was walking home from the train station about twenty minutes outside of Heves proper, I cracked open a celebratory beer. And I did have reason to celebrate: I had ventured to Ukraine and lived to tell the story.

But I will not lie, there were moments where that outcome was in doubt.

Mariah -- a young woman of dazzling locks of blonde curls and just by chance a 2003 spring graduate of the University of Wisconsin -- lives and teaches just 30 km from the Ukrainian border. How spectacular it would be, we long speculated, to visit a country where one could very well put the article "THE" in front of the country's name and get away with it. That was the extent of our knowledge on the land, language and culture of this country, but we set out for the train station Saturday morning with smiles on our faces.

Behind the smiles, we were a little tired. The previous night had included, as is a recurring theme here in Hungary, free palinka. It's relatively easy to make friends here in Hungary. You ask, "Do you speak English?" And whether they do or don't, you've made a friend. Only one of them spoke English Friday night, the only girl in the group. Perhaps that was another significant factor in our new Friday night friendship: the 6:1 ratio of men to women in their party and the 1:1 ratio of Mariahs for every me in our party.

Zahony is the Hungarian half of the border crossing. After an hour's wait to catch the 15 minute train to Zahony, we had to wait another two hours for another train past Zahony, so we walked and talked and ate. And had just enough time to let ourselves get nervous: We really had no clue what in the world was going on.

Somehow finding the right train at the right track at the right time, we jumped aboard, dreams of crossing the border into the former Soviet Union aflutter in our heads. It was then that we began to be accosted.

First, it was the smiling grandmother, whether Ukrainian or Hungarian or Russian I have no idea. She smiled gleaming gold teeth and invited me into conversation with a vaguely sinister come-here gesture with her finger. She eyed my ticket and handed me a 200 forint bill (one dollar). She cooed, "billet, billet" or something that sounds something like the German word for ticket. I had no idea why she wanted my ticket, but I was getting nervous. The people seemed different here, I felt like I couldn't trust their benevolence. Beginning to panic at the fear of not understanding a damn thing, I refused to look at her. I sat in nerve-wracking silence. I think Mariah was even more nervous than I was.

We crossed the River Tisza, the international border. An armed guard, complete in camouflage, sat in a lookout post next to a guard dog. I made a joke about jumping out of the train and making a run for it. I don't think we laughed.

But Ukraine opened up in front of us. Buildings made out of bricks and mortar, not sticks, straw or stones. Mountains in the background. The train crawled on, no more than ten kilometers an hour. The gold-toothed granny still wanted my ticket.

Incident number two: a dozen well-armed border guards, military inspectors and customs officials boarded the train as we stopped. Not sure what to do, we sat. Apparently it was the right choice. Finally a woman with red hair shooting out from underneath a beret approached us. Given a choice between happy or unhappy, I would say she looked unhappy. But she was our best friend in the world, she had a pre-elementary understanding of the English language. Happy to have a "friend" in Ukraine, we handed over our passports. Then she walked away with them.

I think we tried to quell our state of mortification with a laugh. I can assure you it did not work. In desperation, I built a Hungarian sentence: "Hol van passport?" adapting from the critical sentence "Where is bathroom?" in all the necessary spots. A grunt, a groan, a gesture or a Ukrainian phrase later, we learned we need to reclaim them in customs.

Just three months ago, Ukrainian law was loosened to allow Americans easier access to the country of 40 million people. Previous to the change, Americans needed a letter of invitation and a tourist visa which cost 100 dollars. Now, the only prerequisite is enough daring, bravado or stupidity to attempt to enter the country. You're allowed to stay 90 days. We set our sights lower. I had a copy of the Ukrainian decree, printed off the State Department website, as proof in case they hadn't heard about the rule change at this little outpost. They looked at us skeptically when we stated the purpose of our visit: success was surviving Ukraine for an hour -- one night at the most -- getting back on the train and returning to Hungary. They thought about it a moment, then stamped our passports. We were free to enter the country.

We stood and gawked inside the train station. Pigeons flew through the rafters. Paint was peeling off of walls and ceilings. Stray dogs ran through the doors. Cheap plywood was nailed into place of more permanent solutions to the problems of the aging train station. Gypsy children spun coins on the ground. Every sign, timetable and notice was written in Cyrillic Ukrainian (not too different from Russian.) The grandmothers, now more than one, kept demanding to buy our ticket stub.

And two Americans stood and gawked in the middle of it all.

One man at last spoke broken English. He told us of the time change. It was now an hour later, 17:00. The last train back for Hungary left at 18:00. One woman spoke spectacular German, although she insisted that my German was wonderful, so she must not have known the difference between German of high and low quality. She told us a little bit about the country, but then dashed off.

We had no idea what to do, but an hour to do it. So we walked. It's usually a good solution.

That's when we were accosted again. This time, it was gypsy beggars, on at least three different occasions. Ukraine's GDP is a third of Hungary's, but the city of Csop (pronounced in any language like the English word chop) looked at about the same standard of living as any Hungarian city. After we walked out of the depressing train station, the city opened up into a beautiful courtyard. A beautiful new station -- reserved for domestic trains -- sat next to the dilapidated one. Several pastel baroque buildings lined the east and west sides of the courtyard and the southern end housed two blocks of sidewalk cafes and little shops. A quaint cobblestone road split the two halves. We walked through the square, then to the left. Past the downtown of two square blocks, the city seemed to be small houses for kilometers in each direction.

Half an hour passed as we walked, we were nearing decision time. Mariah put her debit card into a machine. No matter what she pressed, no money came out. I did the same, no money. Resigned by a lack of money to face defeat, we were ready to tuck our tail between our legs and retreat back to Hungary.

But alas, Mariah and I -- and our whole contingent of Americans here in Hungary -- are first and foremost adventurers in a land primed for adventure: Eastern Europe. We aren't content to write bitchy blog entries and e-mails about how hard or frustrating or lonely or difficult or nonsensical it is to live and to teach and to simply be here in a whole different culture, we would much rather find a bit of happiness.

The clock hit 6:00 pm. The last train to Hungary had left. We were willingly not aboard. We had stranded ourselves in Ukraine...the Ukraine...all in the name of adventure!

Friday, October 07, 2005

If We Don't Make It Back Alive...


Off this weekend to Ukraine. Or, if you prefer, The Ukraine, although I think that's wrong.

Yes, it is one of those countries that used to a part of the Soviet Union. In other words, I'M GOING TO THE FORMER U.S.S.R. TOMORROW!!!

Should Mariah and I not make it back (our goal is simply to touch Ukrainian soil and then rush back to Hungary before we die) please make a contribution to the Victims of Communism Program.

Expected destination? The border city of Uzhgorod. A former Hungarian city of over 100,000 residents, it's just a kilometer or two from Slovakia. Will be wearing running shoes and carrying headlamp, tent and Euros, just in case anything goes other than expected.

Thursday, October 06, 2005

The Brighter Side

A great two days at school! A sampling of the pleasures and humors:

- Boys openly practicing gymnastics...when was the last time you saw dudes in America standing around the parallel bars comparing moves?

- An over-beer conversation with a colleague that included the out-of-the-blue phrase: "So, have you noticed anything about anyone?"

- Watching the principal dictating to a secretary while she typed on the computer. Can you imagine that such people still exist in this century?

- Gitta announced that she had a book for me to read yesterday. She was very excited. I asked her what the title was, envisioning a precious modern classic that I could savior for weeks. "The Mummy Case," she said and smiled. I hadn't heard of it, I was quick to reply. When we stopped walking, she dug it out of her bag. It's a Hardy Boys book she bought in England.

- Playing Lunch Lady Land for the kiddie-corps. I made them listen for food words in the song, then we played Connect-Four.

- The look on my face when I triumphantly announced that I had won Connect-Four, only to learn that in Hungary the game is called "Connect-Five," apparently.

- The look (this time of fear) on my face as I sat on the toilet in what I think was a unisex bathroom, hoping and praying that it was in fact a unisex bathroom.

- My brand new bankkartiya!!

- Talking for an hour (in English!!) with the cute student teacher who just arrived at the kozepiskola. She graduated from Heves High four years ago and is in her last year of studying education in Eger. She has wondrous eyes and wonderful English. I had to reassure her that anyone who speaks English moves to the top of my list of favorite people in the world. She lives not too far away, maybe I have a new friend to replace the pencil-shop girl. Just like Megan, she hopes to work in an altalanos (elementary school) when she graduates this year.

- National holidays that involve me sitting, watching, and not teaching English. Even if I understand only the numbers, it's still a fun way to go. Today we mourned the loss of 13 national leaders...in 1849. Therapy much, Hungary?

- My little 7A angels, those of the German-speaking variety, are always a pleasure to work with. They actually bubble with enthusiasm for life and speaking German with me. Today one little girl, the best speaker in class, attempted to build the overtly complex sentences "Ich liebe die Tiere!" (I love the animals!) But in the bubbling process, she got caught up on the "die" and instead spit out "Ich liebe dich!" I laughed and said, "I love you, too, Eniko" auf Deutsch.

- And finally, finishing off a 90 minute football match with the teachers...by drinking beer in the coaches office. Amidst the shot glasses and empty bottles already in the cramped room, a six-pack seemed like hardly a criminal offense. I'm not sure, though, if we were celebrating or commiserating. But never before have I enjoyed a beer while being stared at by a giant poster of Carl Lewis and others announcing the 1984 world track and field championships in Russian.

- And lastly after the finally, three day weekends! Boo-yah! Teacher meetings all day tomorrow, and I don't speak Hungarian! Woo woo!

Saturday, October 01, 2005

The First Tinge of Unhappiness


Pre-Script: Either this entry will mean a lot to you, or you won't find much interest in it. You should realize by the fourth paragraph or so if you really want to invest yourself in reading it. Thanks, either way, for simply letting me write it here, it's certainly a self-explanatory process, a work unfinished. The italics are text borrowed from my journal and/or the classic novel Frankenstein.

* * * * * *

Yesterday was my name day, today is October.

So started the first tinge of unhappiness I've let creep into my stay here in Hungary, a scribbled entry late Saturday night into my journal of all-things-important.

We had spent a lazy Saturday in Nyireghaza: shopping at the market, visiting an ESL bookstore, napping and soaking in a thermal bath. I was nice to relax, and the brownies were awesome, but I had forgotten that I must often play the role of instigator. Liz and Kat had an awesome time in Tokay, flush with wine and festival, but we had been tricked by the grey skies into feeling too lethargic to take the train ride.

After a wonderful pizza meal, we listened to a Hungarian singer sing some Hungarian songs in a small pub. But after she started to play Alanis Morissette, I think it was more likely that the whole place was listening to us, rather than her. We liked it muchly and sang loudly.

But walking home, I made a precious friend mad or sad or quiet or any permutation of adjectives unhappy. I became the same. A source of much happiness had been lost, even if hopefully only for an evening. As we walked home in silence, I turned to thinking.

But now, as happens on occasions more frequent than rare, I think.

I scrawled into the journal, a few lines below the introduction. When I get on the tangent of how unhappy too much thinking can be for me, we know were in for a long episode of contemplative thought made permanent in scrawled penmanship.

Suddenly sullen, I began a one-month evaluation of my Hungarian happiness. I compared it to North Carolina, where I invented a friend, who to this day might be fact or fiction. As if to prove a point, this character was the product of fiction, discussed fiction with me and encouraged me to understand fiction. It was almost as if I was Piscine, the hero of Life of Pi, creating a soul-sustaining fiction aboard a lifeboat lost at sea.

I considered the fountains of happiness that I draw from here in Hungary, and also the drains of unhappiness. There are many in both category. I am good at creating the former, even if there are naturally more in the later. This process must not be an unusual trend abroad, Gaines' last online journal entry was titled "On the Happy List," and explained 12 things that make her smile.

In that moment of discontent, I didn't want to settle on imaginary happiness. I didn't want to need to depend upon fictitious enjoyment. I didn't want anything less than real happiness, rooted in the nation and culture that I am living in for the next nine months. I wanted my reality to be soul-sustaining by itself. Contemplating happiness, walking home in the dark, I realized I had yet to find all that. And for just a moment, vaguely disenchanted, I became bored with Hungary.

(Among my failings) perhaps attention span is the greatest.

I scribbled in a nearly illegible fervor, after a list of what I consider to be personal failings. I'm not sure if I intended for the handwriting to be decipherable or not. Next came a horribly written jeremiad against the evils of modern attention spans and the media, it was almost like an opinion papers for one of my journalism classes except largely unintelligible.

Uber-modernity blah blah blah fleeting emotion blah blah blah amusing ourselves to death blah blah blah.

Imagine my surprise, riding on the train the next day, when Frankenstein -- proving to be a marvelous existential read -- bemoaned the same curse I had been trying to describe the night before:

a traveler's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties (206).

I had called it the need for an even bigger distraction from the drag of life, Mary Shelley uses words so much more deeply rooted in feelings. I chose the word adventure, she decided upon travel. Whichever your preference, I was worried Saturday night that this Hungarian flash of adventure, this Hungarian passage of travel, would end in enjoyment before ending in nature. I feared the boredom that haunts me as much as thinking or the addition to happiness.

I opined that getting through life is a terrible way to live, whether as life-long principle or strategy to tackling the remainder of my stay in Hungary. How much further can you get from the Life is short, live it up; see all you can, hear all you can, go all you can motive that I've preached to children in two continents and four states? How much further can you get from the lessons of sheepshead to go big or go home?

I'm happy I wrote optimistically, even in a moment of doubt. I would have it no other way. And in that search for the sustenance of soul and self in Hungary, I will no doubt fulfill my long-ago written definition of travel: to find happiness in places where you never knew happiness to exist. And perhaps, the flowers of Budapest will shine in even brighter color than ever before, and questions will linger as challenges, not haunts.

What is happiness? Love? Life?
Who am I? What am I? Why am I?


Shelley treats us so well again, just eleven pages later, when she dazzles, how strange is that clinging love we have of life even in the excess of misery (217). In all honesty, things are not that bad in Hungary. I am not being chased by an eight-foot tall behemoth of unquestioned fury, even if all the demons here are indeed of my own construction. I am healthy and safe and marginally well-fed, even if my shower leaks and the children are occasionally inconsiderate. Life is hard, but with time and space for both happiness and reflection. Life is interesting, with both good and bad to revel in and learn from. Life is alive. And I am rather excited to turn flip cup into an English-learning game.

Post script:

Tolstoy's War and Peace : "Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will this all end?" Cadet Nikolai Rostov, injured in war against Napoleonic France.

Jeremy Jewett's inner-most-thoughts on being alone in Hungary: "Who am I? Why am I? What am I" 

First, I am far less pessimistic than Tolstoy. Second, apparently all I have to do is create characters in my mind, have them talk, and I will be regarded as a literary genius.