Feri! Feri! Feri!

Around these parts, everyone knows the name Gyurcsany Ferenc. I’m generally willing to exert only two or three syllables of Hungarian effort at a time, so I just call the man Feri. Like a close childhood friend.

Feri is the prime minister of this fine nation, the leader of the Magyar Szocialista Part. His trim face, set alongside the Hungarian word for yes -- igen -- is plastered all across the country as we inch toward the parliamentary elections. He is blond and bespectacled. He looks a little like a friendlier Vladimir Putin.

And yesterday he came to little Heves.

The only thing I knew about Feri beforehand is that the opposition often criticizes him for wearing a two-million-forint watch. This year, I will earn one million forints. They say his glasses are too ritzy, as well.

A co-worker was kind enough to give me a bitter, er…better, understanding of Feri the man when he heard I was going to an MSzP campaign rally. "Gyurcsany sucks the cocks of the Russians," he testified. Then he wanted to know if his sentence was grammatically correct. As further proof to his blatant unsuitability to head Hungary, the co-worker went on to explain that Feri’s wife is Russian and the politician wants children to learn Russian in elementary school.

Overtly-obnoxious kids and gusty rain showers had conspired to make it a miserable Wednesday before I set out to find out the truth about Feri after school. With each step, carefully avoiding a new round of squished frogs, I got more and more excited. I was off to meet the Hungarian prime minister! I expected the little town to match that enthusiasm, but even as I got close to the "culture house," it was business as usual. The stray dogs were still doing their stray dog thing. The old ladies were still doing their old lady thing. Nothing out of the ordinary.

But that all changed when I rounded the corner and finally saw the culture house, just a half-block away. Heves had prepared in grand form for the arrival ofthe leader of their nation: Six orange cones marked off a square in front of the largest public building in town. Two police cars sat lazily next to them. Top-grade security.

Three of my sophomore girls stood at the door handing out pamphlets. They shrieked when they saw me, racing toward me to be the first to give me a brochure that I wouldn’t understand. Just hours before I had been yelling at them for being jackasses in class. I don’t think they understood.

Two portable metal detectors stood just inside the doors. Those are the same doors that usually send me home without a movie on Sunday nights because there aren’t three other people in the whole damn town who want to see a subtitled movie. I set my keys, cellphone and disposable camera in the tray and walked through. I beeped.

I stepped off to the side, a little disappointed in myself. I had wanted to make it through without beeping, it’s just a little goal I usually set for myself. I looked at the man with the wand and raised my hands out from my sides.

He swiped my left arm. Nothing. A babuska-ed grandmother walked through the gate and beeped. He swiped my right arm. Nothing. The lady kept walking and her friend followed. I don’t think they knew what the concept of a metal detector was.

He swiped my left leg. Nothing. A man carrying a long tube over his back, beeped, but walked right through the gate. Another new grandma, this one with suspiciously large moles. Really big. By the time the security guard swiped my right leg and declared me clear, he was trying to chase down seven people who had beeped but walked on through. I don’t think he succeeded. Feri hasn’t, at the least, made too many mortal enemies in his time as prime minister, or so the security procedures make it seem.

I picked a seat smack dab in the middle of a sea of old folks. Old-age pensioners, they call them in British-English text books. I recognized two young people. A moody looking blond hair girl who smiled at me one night at the disco. She studies in Eger and speaks only German. In my phone, she’s listed as "Smiling Betti". The other girl was a school-leaver who doesn’t come to my class regularly because she has a language certificate. Her name’s Agi. For some reason, she also knows the Hebrew alphabet.

With nothing to do before the show began, I flipped through the brochures. All the pictures were very nice. Inside, I was impressed by Feri’s promise to tovabbi 400 ezer uj munkahelyet teremtunk. Even more startling, though, was his campaign-year pledge to 25%-kal novekednek a berek. That’s big time, folks. I was almost ready to sign on the dotted line.

As the pre-game speeches babbled on, a sudden burst of enthusiasm clued me in to the first happening of note. A man, his dark-skin radiant in sharp juxtaposition to his white suit, and three beauty pageant contestants in red evening gowns slipped out from behind the curtain. All were holding violins.

Hungary is a part of that swath of Eastern Europe that you associate with opera, classical music and the violin. They hold few of their musicians in higher regard than the professional-trained gypsies, a rather significant about-face to normal Hungarian opinion toward their darker-skinned, lately-arrived neighbors.

For half-an-hour they played, swinging their tempo back and forth, fully in control of the crowd. Everyone clapped or swayed along. My favorite was their electro-remix of the Magyar Tancolni. I appreciated the kitschiness of the moment, hundreds of Hungarians bobbing to the Hungarian Waltz as the prime minister was pulling up.

The man onstage is rumored to be the most famous musical gypsy in all the land. He and his three pin-up back-ups stopped after a rousing finale. Then, an old man hopped on stage, and began speaking rather quickly. Regardless of language, that’s a good sign that excitement’s on its way.

On cue, the loud campaign music began just as he stopped. The song is simple, but catchy. "Igen, igen…Igen, igen…" A chorus of yesses, punctuated at frequent intervals with a burst of "Magyarorszag."

A second later, the crowd erupted into a standing ovation as Feri walked through the door with a broad smile and a wide wave of the hand. Long strides took him toward the stage, in between stopping to sign autographs and shake hands. I took a picture giddily, waiting for just the right moment. I’m not beyond that.

Feri got down to business quickly. He began with the important things, to connect with the audience and assure them of his fitness for political office at the head of Hungary. In the first five minutes of his speech, Feri mentioned "palinka," the most famous of Hungarian liquors, four times. I knew from that point on, that this was my man.

He proceeded to lose me for most of the rest of his hour-long rally-the-troops speech, but luckily, the Igen song was back to secure my vote as Feri skipped out of the hall and out of town.

"Yes, yes…Hungary…Yes, Yes…Hungary."

Good stuff. I hummed it all the way back to school for Wednesday afternoon soccer. And then scored three goals. Again. Business as usual.

The Csillag-Dispatch

Happy April Fools in advance from the Heves kids. Their handiwork? The latest in the long line of highly-anticipated Star-Dispatch publications.

I don't know if I you can zoom into their stories, but I hope you can. And if not, i'll send a .pdf file if you're so inclined to know what's humorous to the youth of Hungary!

My plan, to hawk copies in the hall Monday, charging a nominal ten forint to cover the printing costs and spark a little interest in the English.

(And yes, that is me dancing with Emma Watson on page two.)

"Yea! Boo!"

A musical tribute to a girl named H, who infected Chief Ouray and ALPs with a simple song.

Yea! Boo! Yea! Boo! Lots of fun to do.
I say "Yea!" and you say "Boo!"

Yea for spring!
Boo for indoors.

Yea for Minister President Feri visiting Heves today!
Boo for class 9B.

Yea for day light savings time!
Boo for darker mornings.

Yea for walking home from school in the daylight!
Boo for walking home over squished frogs.

Yea for unfurling the city’s statues and monumnets from their winter wrap!
Boo for Hungary being on the bad-guys-side consistently from 1914-1945.

Yea for grandmothers!
Boo for losing grandmothers.

Yea for spring promenades!
Boo for unoccupied arms.

Yea for Under the Tuscan Sun!
Boo for tiredness.

Yea for Thanksgiving Elli!
Boo for plastic wine glasses.

Yea for Tokaj!
Boo for drunk Hungarian men at train stations.

Yea for Jenna and Yerik!
Boo for projectile vomiting on trains.

Yea for friends!
Boo for sleeping on floors.

Yea for Croatia!
Boo for skimpy spring breaks.

Yea for Niko/Joy/RMJ/SG/MAN in 2006!
Boo for jailing myself from travelling.

Yea for spring jackets!
Boo for litter.

Yea for Wisconsin Hockey!
Boo for missing broomball.

Yea for giving/receiving feedback.
Boo for warts.

Yea for Colorado "H" getting married!
Boo for Gaby and RJ setting a September get-away wedding.

Yea for "Feel the Love Generation!"
Boo for recycled Madonna videos.

Yea for haikus with Hungarian kids!
Boo for minimal tax refunds.

Yea for text messages with Petra!
Boo slow computers.

Yea for June 8th!
Boo for the end.

Yea! Boo! Yea! Boo! Lots of fun to do.
I say "Yea!" and you say "Boo!"

...gone...

St. Peter was caught at his desk a lot last week. Like always, there were piles and piles of applications in front of him, in all the languages of the world.

One in particular caught his eye. An old woman in Milwaukee was waiting to be whisked away by angels. Robinson was the last name.

He looked at the resume. Elaine. Good name, he thought to himself. Long-time loving wife. He nodded. He sees that often. Caring mother of four, a little less common, a little more meritorious. Spirited grandmother of eight, more rare still. Plus, they've got a soft spot in their heart for grandmas up in heaven.

Down the page, though, one statistic popped out at him. Great-grandmother of none. That’s odd, he bemused. He quickly sent eight angels down towards each of those grandchildren, just to make sure they weren’t duds.

At the very bottom of the page stood just one single-sentence footnote. He stopped and smiled.

Avid fan, until the bittersweet end, of cards, beer and the Milwaukee Brewers.

It didn’t take him long to make the call. He snapped his fingers. An announcer, somewhere in the Uecker seats, could be heard making the play-by-play call as the angels scooper her up under their arms and carried her softly toward the heavens.

"Get up, get up, get outta here, Grandma Robinson…Gone!"

And with that, she was.

Dear Fondy, Hi

As sent to the Fond du Lac Reporter, that good-ole hometown paper of particular note. A few words on home, school, Hungary and an upcoming referendum. I figure it won't do much more to make a few people proud of the hometown boy turned good rather than change any minds politically, but it's worth the fight.

It’s hard to know how to feel about home when you’re 25.

Fond du Lac and I are a bit like the magnets I remember in Mr. Hammer’s science classroom. Our poles push away and pull back, both at the same time. I met my best friend in that classroom, on the first day of eighth grade. He’ll be getting married this summer. That’s one of the things pulling me back this time around.

After graduating high school, I waved goodbye to Fond du Lac. The first steps weren’t very far, but it wasn’t until I left home that I flourished. I succeeded at Wisconsin’s fine universities because I was so well-prepared by the Fond du Lac schools. Teachers like Mr. Cooper should be proud of their work.

As I grew, so did the distance from home. Colorado’s a long drive from here. Miss Abel was both my second-grade teacher and my behind-the-wheel instructor. I drove safely all the way out West because of her. North Carolina, too. I lived and worked in both places for a long time. But I always come back. Sometimes for relaxation, sometimes because of a lack of better options.

Once, I was even invited back. For a semester, I was back in school, this time as a teacher. I was so proud to patrol the wide halls of our beautiful new high school next to my old teachers like Mrs. Porter. Inside the comfortable and inviting classroom, a hundred of this city’s finest young minds were mine to mold, to inspire, to guide through the process of learning.

At the end of the year the students evaluated me with a grade. The average? B+. I never much liked Bs as a student, but if those kids, the future of Fond du Lac, are just a bit better off as a person as they claimed, I’ll take any grade.

And now I find myself further away than ever, welcoming spring in Heves, a little Hungarian town of 10,000 people. I’m here mostly because there’s a program coordinator sitting in an office in Oregon who was born in Fond du Lac. We laughed about our connection, then she sent me off to Hungary.

I hardly speak a lick of Hungarian, but every week I teach English and German to more than 250 high school students. I share with them the world beyond their little community. I am an ambassador of languages and cultures.

Twelve-hundred students crowd the big, three-story building. The town takes great pride in the school, but there are problems. It leaks. I have classrooms without enough chairs. And last week, the students couldn’t go outside because roof tiles were being blown off by the wind.

There are even bigger problems outside of the school. The region has very few good jobs, but most of the students will never leave. Only the talented and lucky might get a chance to move to Budapest.

The problems stem from a lack of wealth in this economically-depressed part of Hungary. They don’t come from a lack of commitment. That would be a much sadder story.

The people are friendly here, I like meeting anyone who speaks even a little English or German. They always ask where home is. I smile. I can’t say I’m from "up on the Ledge, out towards St. Peter." Even the word Wisconsin means just about nothing. Here in Eastern Europe, "home" is relegated to the giant swath of land "between Chicago and Canada."

Soon, I’ll be coming back to that home. I’ve decided that I rather like Fond du Lac as a magnet, pushing me off to new adventures, but always welcoming me back. I think that contentment is a sign that I’ve grown up.

My parents raised me well, but they couldn’t have done it alone. A score of amazing teachers pushed me to become a better person. But those educators needed support, too. And it was you who helped them. The community of Fond du Lac and the state of Wisconsin should be proud to have some of the finest schools anywhere.

Sitting in Hungary, I can’t testify to the merits of the upcoming referendum. But I can encourage you to get information. And I can offer a little tribute to the good things that happen in the schools that dot our community.

Give the future, those kids in those desks, even better opportunities than the ones that were given to you. To us. Continue to support education, a commitment to progress that makes the world a better place.

After all, the magnets in that science classroom aren’t free of charge.

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on the Doors of Heves

For seven months, I was confused. I always claimed, whenever anyone asked, that the folks around here were very friendly and welcoming. Isn’t that the way it needs to be in a little Hungarian town of 10,000? But it seemed like the outstretched hands reached out only in public. As soon as they disappeared into their homes, into their own worlds, the Hungarians forgot about me, left me to my books.

For seven months, I didn’t enter a single Hevesi home. I’ve been here since August, but not inside a single house. Not even once. No families, no living rooms, no kitchens, no dining rooms, ho hospitality, no home-made palinka, no chocolate chip cookies. But last week, for some reason, the dam burst.

Robi’s an 11th grader, one of my German students. He’s a nice boy, one of the most popular kids in the school. I’m always quick to accept his invitations to small class parties or birthday get-togethers.

One day, hunting for chicken breast to impress Petra, I ran into Robi and his mom. I asked her, through him, where I could find chicken meat. I was surprised when she answered back in German. She must have felt a little sorry for me, a little American boy looking for chicken abroad, so she had Robi invite me to a March 15th holiday dinner. I quickly accepted.

The Gottschalk family would be a bit unique by American standards. They are all proficient in a common foreign language: German. While my family could (in theory, mind you) invite a German, Latin, Norwegien, Italian, Hindi or Hungarian guest to dinner, there would be a lot of translating. Not more than one of us can speak any of those languages. But Robi’s mom, an elementary school teacher; his dad, a police officer; his older sister, a college student; and even his grandmother all speak conversant German.

In a notable example of self-progress, I am proud to report that I dug right into the meal, a big plate of turkey sauteed in fruit sauce served over rice with cranberries, apricots and various other fruit stuffs. It was de-li-cious, and hopefully proof of a burgeoning palate. And, I managed to hold my own in a two-hour German-only conversation. Not bad for a Kohlhoff-pupil.

That was the first Heves door I walked through.

The second was the Nagy family's door. Literally, the Big family. One day I opened the door to find only two kids in the classroom. It's not unusual, more usually pop out of the closet, as if they had fooled me for the one-hundredth-time. But this time, there were only two kids in class, everyone else was sick. I looked to the window and found my lesson plan, we would do a little spazieren gehen.

We bought sodas in glass bottles at a little bar next to the school. The kids rumor that the headmaster frequents the establishment, but that fact doesn't keep them away when the week turns to the weekend. We kept walking under the warm spring sun, until we came to Kinga's house. As an eighth-grader, she's taller than me and speaks better German. She was home sick, but we rang and stopped by for a visit. She didn't look very sick to me. Her mother gave us some nice sweets, then I took the healthy kids back to school.

The third door?

Petra's.

Demographics

Just stumbled upon amazing demographic information (in English!) on Hungary. Check out the link, which lets you select a county and then offers tons of well-categorized information dating back more than a century.  http://www.nepszamlalas2001.hu/eng/volumes/06/area.html

Happy Spring

Petra has been won over.

Happy spring!

Miss Georgia

This morning, Heves High was aglow with patriotic cheer, home to a giant celebration in the gymnasium. One-hundred and fifty-eight years ago, if I dare be that precise, a bunch of bearded Hungarians decided that they’d had enough of Imperial Austrian rule.

In a sense, it was suicide. They were crushed; so goes the history of Hungary. But since then, schoolboys proudly recite the names of those men on the fourteenth day of March and, even more proudly, have the next day off of school.

In little Heves this morning, students of all stripes wore their national-holiday-finest, black topped off with white, coupled with a red-white-and-green tri-color ribbon on the left breast. Above the heart.

They lined up in rows. They know exactly where to stand, exactly how to stand. They’ve done it before. But there’s a teenage reluctance, a sort of embarrassment, to claiming an actual spot. My first instinct, as an observer, was to wonder what makes a country a country in the new sameness of modern Europe. But that’s not what this story is about.

It’s a little about Georgia. It’s a little about spring.

The ceremony, complete with singing, dancing and plenty of poetry reading, took the whole first lesson. Forty-five minutes of standing. It was probably my last ceremony in Hungary, so I took notes, trying to capture the mood and spectacle of that moment.

Unfortunately, the revolutionary remembrance preempted a prep period in my schedule, rather than a regularly-scheduled lesson. So I was still concocting a plan for the upcoming second period -- not a moment too soon as usual -- when Etelka waved my attention just as the bell rang. I was a bit discombobulated, I was still in a planning frame of mind. It took a while to focus on what she was saying.

"Kriszti isn’t here today," she said, pushing down gently on my hand, more like a grandmother would than a mother might. "Can you take the German half of 12B this morning, too?"

I agreed, because I always do. My mind switched gears seamlessly. Expanding the class to encompass twice as many languages and ten more kids meant simplifying the lesson. Ideas started to bubble and congeal. Lest they get away from me, I started to write new ideas on a little scrap of paper as Etelka walked away. Three steps later, she stopped and turned, as if a just-remembered after-thought kept her from going any further. Nailed her to that spot until she blurted out the tidbit that had popped into her mind. As if she might forget it again.

"Oh, one more thing, Jeremy." My pen stopped mid-word, caught at a hyphen. I looked up, bothered to be ripped from my planning again.

"Gyongyi would like to talk to the whole class before you start," she said hastily. I smile when I think of Gyongyi. I can’t actually make the consonant sounds in the poor girl’s name. Instead, I just call her Georgia. She has a dark complexion and shiny black hair. Her eyes are deep, she likes to smile. Georgia's good at English. She works hard and learns quickly. She didn’t know which side of the Civil War the state of Georgia was on until I told her, but she’s still one of my favorite students.

"Her father killed himself last night."

* * * * *

On our first day of training in Budapest, we were warned about the Hungarian mindset. It’s a fragile thing, captured within a rather sorrowful national history. They get a little negative, they’re not always so optimistic. Life’s a little bit more difficult here, some Hungarians tend to feel like they aren’t capable of initiating positive change. So as a race of people they make the biggest change possible, at astounding rates. The non-option is an option in Hungary.

Hungarians have been known to hang themselves, poison themselves, shoot themselves, jump out of windows from the highest building in town. Often. Through the fall of communism in 1989, Hungary almost always led the world in per capita suicide rates. Ethnic Hungarians in neighboring countries are more likely to take their own life than their non-Hungarian countrymen. It’s just the way it is.

Hajni offered a scenario during training. What would you do, she asked us, if you were the leader of a 16th century Hungarian village and Turk invaders were at your gate, threatening to massacre the whole town unless the town gave the invaders all the young women. We agreed that the situation was grim, but we concocted plans like "hold out for reinforcements" or "ask the Lithuanians for help." The correct answer to this sort of untenable situation, in the Hungarian way of thinking Hajni assured us, is falling upon your own sword.

Rather than compromise with the Austrians sometime in the 19th century, a leading politician of the day jumped off a bridge into the icy Danube. And when a 20th century prime minister found his alliance with Hitler leading to destruction, he could muster no response but to kill himself.

An unknown poet was tormented by demons in his head, as I suppose all the best poets are. So Attila Jozsef threw himself in front of a train. He was 32. He became a national hero and one of their most famous, dearest-loved poets.

Unless they know something we don’t...

* * * * *

The plan on that little scrap of paper lay crumpled up in a garbage can as I started to climb the two flights of stairs to 12B’s classroom. I went slower than normal. Now my mind was racing in a higher gear, twisting itself to find the right tenor of sympathy, coping not with my pain, but with a pain that belonged to others.

Class 12B and I have a history. Back in November, in the spirit of environmentalism, I walked out the door hoping they would follow me to spend a class period picking up litter. Not a single one came. Thirty-two students strong, they have learned together in the same classroom for the past four years. Except for language classes, when 22 kids learn English together and the other ten learn German. A couple times a week they flip-flop languages, they each have to learn a little bit of both by the time they graduate.

And they will be doing just that soon. We toasted them with Russian champagne at their December ribbon ceremony celebrating their impending graduation. Some will head off to university, others will go to community colleges, some will do neither. The champagne that night was called Perestroika. Perestroika in Russian means "restructuring." Soon they all will be doing just that, released from school into the real world.

As I got closer to their classroom, I was still uncertain of the next step. I didn’t feel well-prepared for that moment. And part of it, of course, is that I’m not a teacher. My certification process was an online course and time on the job. My professional training is in facilitating and being a leader. My educational background is in India and writing stories. My work experience is telling stories and making people smile. My pedigree falls from an "educator" and a librarian.

I’m a mutt. But here in Hungary, that’s enough. In fact, it’s perfect. An English-speaking mutt meets all the requisite criteria.

Normal education classes, and I suppose the graduate degree that my little sister will earn next year, offer you protocol and procedures for most situations in the classroom, even if they might not tell you exactly how to handle the aftermath of a tragedy like this with children. But I never learned any of that. And I probably wouldn't be interested. I’m a bit unconventional, I suppose.

Last year, I caught a 9th grader trying to cheat on a vocabulary test. It was my fifth day on the job. I sat her down and talked. I told her that I had once cheated on German quizzes. It’s not okay. As the bell was about to ring, desperate for a meaningful punishment, I scrawled "Who is Patty Nelson?" on the bottom corner of her quiz paper. I assigned her to write a one-page essay. In English. A council of a dozen of my most-respected friends wrote a response to the essay she gave to me the next day in an envelope. To this day, I have a Patty Nelson folder in my email box, dedicated to the emails of confusion I get from her and the replies of encouragement I offer back.

One class in particular, last year, was unruly. Eighth hour. A difficult blend of ages, abilities, interests and maturity levels in a first-year German class. One Friday afternoon I reached my boiling point, which is rather high. For the final five minutes of class, out of desperation, I chanted "Carpe diem, lads! Seize the day, make your life extraordinary" in giant oratory circles. I believe at one point I was standing on a desk. I didn’t stop until the left student left the room, probably in some stage of wonder.

Fourth hour got an hour-long discussion on the point of life. Seventh hour learned the German past tenses by playing four-square. Both heard some of the stories of my life, because I think they are good learning tools. At the end of the year last June, we pushed the tables to the edges of the room and sat in a circle. Just as if we had been tight-roping across wires on a ropes course fifty feet in the year, we debriefed the year. It was an experience, full of little experiences. We talked, we tried to appreciate what we could take-away, what we could learn from that process.

My approach to learning in the classroom, to almost all situations of note, comes from that goulash of a background. Life is full of experiences, forming some sort of a grandiose whole. Live, enjoy the ride. Then, learn from the little experiences to make the later ones, and the bigger picture, more meaningful.

Sometimes, learning about life is more important than learning about an academic subject. Because life, at least in some people’s eyes, is a precious thing.

* * * * *

I opened the door only very hesitantly. I peeked in, unsure of what I’d see inside. The class’s form-teacher waved me in silently, somberly. Georgia was standing, body quivering at the front of the classroom. Today, she was the teacher. Every one of the students was silent, most were looking distraught. Some in tears. The teacher set a chair behind Georgia and she collapsed into it.

I couldn’t understand a word of what she said. I didn’t need to.

When she finally sighed one last word and choked back a sob, every student lined up, single-file, facing her. A wake, cued by that conclusion of her eulogy. It was the second time these young people had stood in line that morning.

Each of her classmates stepped forward to kiss her delicately on two cheeks. First Georgia’s left. Then Georgia’s right. The last boy had blond hair. He kissed her cheeks, then hugged her. I didn’t know him, he’s a German student. I wondered if he was a boyfriend, he seemed to linger in a sympathetic understanding. Georgia stood, wiping her eyes, and looked toward her form-teacher. They walked together towards the door, towards me.

I wanted to hug her as tightly as I’ve ever hugged anyone after a campfire. I wanted to hug her and say that hugs are special in my country. I wanted to say so many words that might help her. I wanted to cry to show her that others cared about her and life and happiness. I wanted to squeeze her. I wanted to wash her with my tears, that hers might not be alone. I wanted to look into her eyes and connect with her at that human level that assures you that the world exists, the others surround you, that you are not alone.

Instead, I kissed her twice on the cheeks and she walked out the door. The form-teacher closed it behind them. I exhaled. I swallowed. I turned from the door to look at the kids. Each of them was looking at me, many from behind red eyes.

Setting my bag down, I didn’t say a word. I went straight to the blackboard, slowly and deliberately. I was still thinking. I picked up the chalk. I looked at it, as if it would have any meaning more than usual. Slowly, I lifted the chalk to the blackboard. It’s green in 12B’s classroom.

I wrote SPRING in big block letters, slowly, quietly and carefully. These days, I write just about everything in capital letters. I feel like it makes my writing more accessible, slows my writing process just enough to reassure me of words and phrases, and grants a bit of status and importance to whatever I write. Below it, I carved the chalk along the board in the shape of the German word FRÜHLING.

I paused. Beneath the two big words, I etched two sentences. "Why must we have spring in our lives?" I paused to think about the best possible German translation. "Warum muss man in unsere Leben Frühling haben?" I was sure of the grammar in first one, but not in the second one.

I picked up six pieces of chalk. All the pieces of chalk. I was still looking at the floor, thinking, as I walked to one of the front desks. I sat on top of it, casually. I finally looked up at the kids. They were all looking at me.

"Today is a little sad," I admitted, delicately. Like almost all of the ten-million other people in this country, I’ve been fighting off a cold of late. My voice wasn’t strong. "Heute ist ein bisschen schade," I echoed in German. You get good at a foreign language when you must translate your own thoughts, one line at a time, for the benefit of others.

Then I pointed behind me, back toward the board. "Spring." I left long pauses between my words. "Frühling." Just the two words on the board, everything else was blank. My ideas always make sense in my own mind. Sometimes they are understandable to others.

"What is spring?" I asked. When I know what I am doing, my voice can sound like a preacher. I repeated the question in German, "Was ist Frühling?" for the half of the congregation that could only understand me what I use that language. There was silence. Comfort with silence is an acquired ability. I am patient.

Finally, the blond-haired boy raised a tentative hand, just barely off the table. I smiled and nodded. "Love?" he hypothesized. I smiled. Spring is love.

In an arch that almost touched the ceiling, I tossed him one of the pieces of chalk. The German commands are much easier when you use the exceedingly formal construction. "Bitte, schreiben sie es," I said, with a nod to the board. In big letters, he wrote the letters l-o-v-e on the board and sat back down. He seemed to know what spring was.

"What is spring? Was ist Frühling?" I repeated. Spring is more than just love. But there was nothing. The silence stagnated. Left unchecked, it would become suffocating.

Nothing but birds chirping.

I pointed to the window. "Spring is birds. Birds chirping. Can you hear them?" I wrote it on the board, birds chirping. And waiting. Nothing. Nothing but the birds.

"Spring is flowers," I said suddenly and brightly. I drew a flower on the board. Underneath it, the Hungarian word virag. I had realized the moment before that this experience-in-progress was too important to insist upon imposing a foreign language.

"What’s the Hungarian word for spring?" I asked. Someone volunteered "tavasz." Kids always laugh trying to watch me work through the Hungarian phonetics as I try to spell in a language with 40-odd letters.

In one of the front seats, Ligeti Erika smiled. Each time she smiles, I fall a little bit in love. Blond hair -- I think it’s real -- frames her smile. Like many Hungarian smiles, it isn't quite perfect, but you learn to love the uniqueness of each one.

"Spring is…born…again," she thought out loud. I walked quickly to the board. Momentum is precious. I wrote born again. Then, on the other side of an equal sign, I wrote rebirth. I didn’t know the German equivalent.

From the back, Török Ildiko’s eyes glimmered as she raised her hand. Each time I look into her eyes, I fall a little bit in love. One is blue. One is brown. In February, I orchestrated an in-class valentine-writing activity mostly so that I could tell her that here eyes were one of the most beautiful things in this town of 10,000. And probably in this whole land of ten million.

"Spring is 'wake up?'" she proposed. I agreed. I scrawled wake up = awakening. Again, I could only guess at the German. We were flowing. I was getting excited.

"I think of ladybugs, how do you say ladybug in Hungarian," I asked. Someone said katicabogar. I threw the voice a piece of chalk and asked them to write it on the board.

"What about ‘melt.’ Snow melts when it is warm. Ice melts into water. What’s the Hungarian verb for ‘to melt?’" I queried. Another piece of chalk was tossed to the voice that answered olvad.

I get pretty animated when I’m excited. I was flying around the room, launching English words and chalk. There was always a Hungarian echo, and a new student sprung up to write the Hungarian word.

Bunny? Nyuski!

Kite? Héja!

To bloom? Viragzás!

Blue skies? Kek ég!

I’m sure the neighboring rooms were wondering what was going on when I finished the brainstorm with a flurry, a crescendo building to the climax of this experience.

I sat down. I threw my hand backward at our board now covered with English, German, Hungarian and pictures. What spring is.

"Why must we have spring in our lives?" I asked quietly, peacefully. I had thought more about the German equivalent. I decided a better sentence would be "Warum müssen wir Frühling in unsere Leben haben?" I asked that question, too.

Erika smiled. "Happiness," she said, as if it was the answer to every question. Her boyfriend is a 22-year-old truck driver.

Some of the English-speakers bobbed their head in approval. I nodded, too. Then I found an English-Hungarian dictionary. I flipped to the h-section, but looking for a different word with the same beginning.

I strode to the board, confident in the impending impact of this learning experience. I erased the words spring and Frühling in the middle of the board. It left a giant hole in the middle of words and drawings. I copied directly from the dictionary to the middle of that hole. I didn’t even finish writing remény before all the kids, English and German students alike, knew exactly what I was imprinting onto the board and into their mind.

"Spring is hope," I proselytized, attempting to convert those curious eyes in the pews of school desks into our positive American way of thinking. In our way of thinking, life is a dream. It’s meant to be enjoyed, not ended. For us, happiness is possible. It’s a goal. Destiny is a matter of choice and effort. I don’t mind being a colonist in this regard, I think it’s a good way to live life.

I clasped my hands in front of me. "Please, please, please, always have remény." I used the Hungarian word. "Bitte, bitte, bitte, habt ihr immer remény."

I picked up my bag. I turned on the one classroom light that spotlights the chalkboard. I turned off all the other lights in the room. I opened the door. One of the kids asked quietly where I was going, I didn’t answer. I closed the door behind me.

* * * * *

I had completely invested myself in that classroom, I had left myself in that moment. I had a hard time walking down the hall. I stopped halfway to the stairs. Hanging on the wall was a plaque commemorating the Heves High graduating class of 1998. The outfits looked ridiculous, but if I had been born in Heves, my picture would have been on that board. The class of 1998.

I must have been looking at it for long time when I realized a boy, almost a man, was standing next to me. It was the blond-haired boy who had comforted Georgia the longest, the one who seemed to know what spring was.

"I graduated high school in 1998," I said, pointing at the picture, as if to try to explain myself, in defense of my space-iness. He must have had the same urge, to explain why he was in the same hallway as me.

"They talk about Gyongyi’s father," he said wistfully and then added "I left." If there weren’t such a thing as different languages and thought processes and forms of communication, I think I would have understood him to say "I couldn’t bear to sit in that room." I didn’t know why, until he told me.

"I lost my father three years ago."

I nodded as if I understood. As if I could understand. We talked for fifteen minutes, standing in that hall, half in German and half in English, until the bell rang. Then I shook his hand.

* * * * *

This week in Heves, the snow is melting. Flowers that were brave enough to poke through the snow are already blossoming. Others are just now starting to burst from the brown below. The winds are carrying a gentle coolness these days, not a biting cold.

Awakening. Rebirth. Happiness. Spring is here. Hope is here.

And the birds are here to break any silence.

I’m not sure why Georgia’s dad couldn’t hear them.

I hope that Georgia can.

Neigbors and Ballots

Slobodan Milosevic died last weekend at the ripe age of 64. In a couple years running roughshod over the Balkans, he killed more people than I have met in my whole life. I’m not an expert, but I think the moniker "all-around bad guy" isn’t an unfair title.

I can practically hear the chanting from here. Half of Serbia, our neighbor to the south, is smirking as they shout "Slobo! Slobo!" in honor of their fallen martyr, in some sort of defiance against a world that doesn’t like them. The other half is more than ready to rejoin Europe in the stampede toward some sort of unified Modern Europe. In Belgrade, the first stop on the Christmas Break journey, they still haven’t gotten around to repairing the buildings NATO bombs hollowed in 1999.

With Milosevic's death last weekend, it's a fitting time to highlight the untidy nature of politics in this nook of the world. We are, after all, the corner of the globe that brought you Viktor Yushchenko. You know the name, not because he’s a great figure skater, but because he’s the pockmarked Ukrainian president who was a relatively good-looking guy before he was poisoned mid-election in 2004.


Hungary is set for a parliamentary election next month. The bigger cities, not so much Heves, are pasted with small advertisements, grinning faces pleading for a vote. They are distinguishable to folks like you and me mostly by color, although I did successfully identify the complicated Finno-Urgic words for "family" and "home" on a sign last weekend.

In one corner, the red-bannered MSzP (Magyar Szocialista Part - Hungarian Socialist Party) continues the socialist tradition. Prime Minister Mister Ferenc, I can’t get around to learn his family name, is a MSzPer, along with the other cohorts of the current-government-in-power. The tri-colored SzDSz (Szabaddemokratikak Szovetsege - Alliance of Free Democrats) gang is the junior member of that coalition.

The bright-orange FIDESz (Fiatal Demokratak Szovetsege - Young Democrats) folks stand in the other corner. They’re the leading opposition party, and apparently they need to advertise more than the other parties. We’re talking really bright orange.

From that point on, it’s just an alphabet soup and jumble of words that sound rather nice together. The green-cloaked MDF (Magyar Demokrata Forum - Hungarian Democratic Forum) sport a nice color, and I like the words Hungarian and Democratic and Forum. Those are all nice things.

The KDNP (Keresztenydemokrata Neppart – Christian Something or Other) website leads me to believe I probably wouldn't cast my vote for their candidate. The white crosses and pale-blue soaring eagles give it away.

The name looks good, but FKGP (Fuggetlen Kisgazdapart - Independent Smallholders Party) is belied by their website. It is simply a 1990-era website, if you know what I mean. And there’s just a little too much emphasis on images of wheat.

And strolling in somewhere just short of irrelevancy, MIEP (Magyar Igazsag es Elet Partja - Hungarian Truth and Life Party) is another third-rung last-gasp political party. I like truth. And I like life. I think it’s the combination of the two that doesn’t do it for me and the Hungarian electorate.

Hungary has been "Hungary" since 896 AD, but this is only the fifth time that they’ve ever gotten around to a national election. I can totally see why, as I tried to read the explanation of the electoral process:

Act XXXIV of 1989 on parliamentary election applies a mixed system of electorates: 176 seats are to be won in individual constituencies 152 seats on twenty regional (county, capital) lists, and 58 seats from a national list. The Hungarian election system calls for two votes: voters cast one vote on a candidate of the individual constituency and may choose from the regional party lists by the other vote. In individual constituencies the recommendation of at least 750 voters in required for candidacy. A political party may set up a regional list if it has candidates in one-quarter of the individual constituencies but in at least two constituency. At least seven regional lists are required for a national list. 5 percent of the total valid votes cast nationwide on the party lists is required for a party to get into the National Assembly.

Apparently you must not be just a law-school-acceptee, but a law-school-graduate to understand the electoral concepts. Either that or I’ve been away from words-of-any-importance for quite some time.

The last election was May 4, 2002. You can see they’re operating off of four-year election cycles here. The party breakdown was pretty anti-climatic, for all their clamoring of plural-party democracy.

- Fidesz-MDF (188)
- MSZP (178)
- SZDSZ (19)
- MSZP-SZDSZ (1)

All I know so far is that some people don’t like different colored politicians. Imagine that. And that many people say that they aren’t quite happy with the direction of the government.

Judging by the sidewalks, it’ll be orange in a land-slide, but I’m going to make it a point of demanding that the kids, in English or German, explain the intricacies of the political spectrum in Hungary to me.

Because it’s funny to think that the election might actually matter. My friend Eva works from the Ministry of Defense. Based on who the minister of that ministry is, she’s in or out of a job. Hmm, I hear Heves will be looking for an English teacher June 8th!

The Madness!

The shrill chirps of birds were louder than the scraping of shovels this morning. Perhaps a good sign?!

Off to Szolnok this weekend for a bit of March Madness: the Szolnok professional basketball team hoops it up! Might not match Big Ten or Big East tournament action, but carries none of the risk of the sting of watching the Badgers or Marquette lose in early rounds!

TGIF from the seventh-graders!

Womens Day 2006

Boldog Nöinapot!

That's how you might go about wishing any of these fine Hungarian women running around the place a "Happy International Women's Day."

I'm willing to debate the international-ness of the day, as I've certainly never celebrated it, or even heard of the occasion, back home. But here, it's quite the spectacle. All day long, students run into the teachers' lounge giving flowers to the lady teachers. It smells like a greenhouse.

I should be careful when I say "all-day-long," though, because classes ended at 11 today. This afternoon, the teachers have a program and a lunch. Everyone wins, except for the lunch ladies who have to work overtime on Women's Day.

I asked a boy today, a twelfth grader, if there is ever a mens' day. He said "Every day is mens' day!" Except he said it in Hungarian, so I was the last person in the room to either laugh or boo, based on gender.

As a post-script:

The women were in the front of the canteen, the male teachers sat in the back. It was just like a classroom. The kids sang, the kids played the saxophone, then the liquor came out. We all got flush in the face. I think it's awesome that the school owns a set of hundreds of shot glasses.

Then the men waited hand and foot on the lady teachers. They liked it. We even brought the dirty dishes to the window...so that the lunch ladies could wash them. Guess the day only carries so far.

(The Long Process of) Winning Petra Over

(I did not set out to write a ten-page story. It just kinda happened. Like life.)

When I went off to college, I tried to win over college girls.

When I went off to camp, I tried to win over camp girls.

When I went off to Colorado, I tried to win over mountain girls.

When I went off to North Carolina, I tried to win over southern belles.

And six months after landing in Hungary, I decided that I should probably try to win over Hungarian girls, as long as I've got this bachelorhood to enjoy.

It's only when I'm feeling a bit forlorned that I consider all the criteria, the long list of age, beauty, compatibility, and Deutsch or English Foreign-language-proficiency standards that I should aspire to in selecting a woman to win over. But in reality, I'm rather optimistically flexible with any one, or perhaps even a couple, of those demands. When you look out from behind a half-full wine glass, there are lots of possibilities, lots of candidates.

I met Petra one night at the disco. The fun, sleazy one, not the ritzy one. She overheard my foosball partner and I speaking in English and she introduced herself. The first thing I noticed was her blond hair. The second was her English.

We took to talking, as happens sometimes between a boy and a girl. She had graduated from Heves High the year before, and was now studying English at the university in Debrecen, she said. I liked listening to her English. And fancied that she looked a little like Madonna when she smiled.

In a moment of bravado, I asked for her phone number. We exchanged some text messages, and then some e-mails, mostly extolling the grand virtues of being able to communicate in English. We both thought it would be a good idea to meet again.

And so two Fridays ago we met at a new bar and talked for hours. I thought it was very nice to have a friend. She smiled a lot, so I walked her home. She doesn't live that far, so the investment was purely emotional. I kissed her right cheek, I kissed her left cheek, I kissed her right cheek. And I liked it enough to want to linger a little longer.

But I was rebuffed.

I'm just romantically optimistic enough to be resilient. The next day I pecked away a text message inviting her to my apartment for dinner, I offered to cook. Here we must translate "cook" as "make spaghetti," which any fool, or even a bright monkey, can do. She agreed, and I set a bottle of sweet white wine between the window panes to chill.

She came at 7, after reading Robinson Crusoe all day. (I just thought of this now, what a realization!! Perhaps she was using me as research for English class, an attempt to better understanding DeFoe's book, trying to get into the psyche of a man, stranded alone, on some sort of a deserted island. Maybe I'm nothing more than a case study!) She looked pretty, and she had a mother-made dessert in one hand.

I gave her a tour of my apartment while the noodles boiled. It didn't take long. In the hopes of impressing this gal, I went to the great lengths of heating the store-bought spaghetti sauce on the stove, rather than in the microwave. I was feeling that confident. But not confident enough to turn the lights out as I set the piping hot spaghetti on the table and lit the candles.

Over the spaghetti, we decided that the wine was very good. We talked all through that first bottle. We got half way through the second before we had finished washing the dishes.

She collapsed on my couch, the left half of my bed sans blanket, grabbing a book on her way down. It's a black leather book. Not of all things important, just the only important thing. She flipped through it, smiling at my handwriting. It's a parade of stories, all mine, all written by my hand. All happen to be on love. I thought it was a good sign.

She fingered the edge of the last page with writing on it, maybe a third of the way through the journal. She recognized the word Zsani, pointed to it, and looked at me with a mischievous smile of playful accusation. "Zsani?" she asked, raising her eyebrows.

I smiled a sheepish grin back, an attempt at adorability. I like to think that girls find it cute, but upon closer examination of years of evidence, I might need to reconsider that.

"What is this?" she dug deeper, just as I was hoping she would.

"Stories." I paused. "That one is about Hungarian girls." I thought this was the same story I had offered to you online, but apparently this one never made to the Internet.

She handed me the book, then rolled on her back, hands under her head. "Tell the story to me," she said, smiling up at the ceiling without looking at me. I smiled, too.

"We took to talking," I began in a story-telling whisper, "simply because she spoke English." It was just like a telling of Sam McGee, except a little different.

"She was in Heves visiting a friend," I said, reading slower that I would normally. The story starts at the same disco where I first met Petra, just a month or so before. She had already flipped over so she could see the words as I read them. After each sentence, I'd offer a short pause, long enough for her to point a long, nail-painted finger to any word that she didn't understand. Sometimes she'd whisper them.

Foundation. "Umm, basis? The concrete a house is built upon?" Sometimes I waved off a word and said that it wasn't really important except for artistry.

Lingerie. That was easier. I pointed to her clear bra strap peeking up and over an exposed shoulder. The Hungarian girls like the clear bra straps a lot. My American teacher lady friends make fun of them for it, but I don't. "It's a fancy word for bras and underwear."

Ubiquitous. "Everywhere. All the time. This is a good word. Use it in class and you'll impress your professor," I promised. She smiled.

Flirtatious. "Very flirty." I probably tried to casually brush a finger against any portion of her bare skin at that point.

Swooned. Some words are easier to demonstrate than to explain. I put a star-struck look on my face and tilted it while looking up at her face. She nodded, but meaning was probably not conveyed.

Spun. The story turns to the dance floor, so I grabbed Petra's hand. Reluctantly, she stood and joined me. We turned my 1970s army green and squash orange rug into a dance floor. I spun her. She was a good spinner.

Twirled. I was beginning to enjoy the game. I urged her to her feet again so we could dance. There was no music. I invented a difference between spin and twirl. When I spun her, I pushed her out, two-arms-lengths away, and pulled her back in, all in the space of two revolutions. Twirls, on the other hand, featured a stationary Petra revolving with my encouragement. Back to the couch.

Lobe. Words are useless without context, I insisted, when she fell for the bait of pointing at lobe. The whole phrase written in that book is "I brushed my lips against the lobe of her ear." I smiled, she certainly must have known what was coming. With a gentle brush of two fingers, I pushed the long blonde hair on one side of her head to the back side of her shoulder. I probably closed my eyes as my lips brought the words to life. She wears dangly earrings. And I think she knows what lobe means now.

I pointed back to the story. I know how it ends.

Tenderly. Zsani and I were still kissing tenderly when the lights came on a little before 4 am. I read it aloud, the climax of that story of a previous evening.

Then I turned to face her, smiled, and said, "This is the English word 'tenderly,' Petra..." My boy-radar located the target, those red lips so close to mine. I closed my eyes, I leaned into her warmth.

And my lips met hand.

I was rebuffed.

Again.

"I know what 'tenderly' means!" she pleaded in horror. She backed away, pushing off with her emergency hand against my still puckered lips. I sighed. I withdrew. To escape, I finished reading the story. It's rather anticlimactic after the tenderly moment. I held the last word of the story out, rather poetically, but mostly because I didn't know what she would say when I stopped talking.

"I know what 'tenderly' means, you don't have to teach it to me," she repeated. I rolled my eyes. "Fine, no more lessons for you," I said wistfully.

Disappointment didn't curb my chivalry, I walked her home for the second night in a row. This time we didn't linger with our good-night cheek-kisses, they were rushed. It was snowing.

On my own walk back home alone, the irony of boys walking girls home, I sent an exasperated text message, typed with gloved fingers, to Eva. "Ugh, what's up with Hungarian girls?" I bemoaned. "No luck after two rather nice evenings with a girl!"

When I woke the next morning, later than usual, there was a new message waiting for me. "Be patient with girls. We let boys kiss on the third date. Give it another try."

Petra went back to school, I went back to school, and a week passed. We texted, we e-mailed. I'm romantically resilient. Perhaps hopelessly.

We met on Friday after a long week. In a usual week, I teach 20 classes. Last week, I taught 30, subbing time and again for sick teachers. By Friday, I was ready to relax, and third hour I got the ticket. A personal invite to the party everyone in Heves was talking about, a private bash at the disco. The only bad news is that it was a student's birthday part, an 11th grader who has passed out of English class, but I have been in Hungary too long to worry about specifics like that. Petra and I danced quite a few dances before saying goodnight.

The next morning, a busy Saturday morning at the supermarket, I had a craving for meat. Something more substantial than the powdered meat flavor of Ramen Noodles. I went to the long glass counter of the meat department. All processed meats and sausages. I went to a different story, one step up the quality-rung. At this store they only had what appeared to be pork. I'm not really good at identifying meat.

So I got on the phone, in the middle of the store, desperate to get advice from a woman. I tried three numbers before an American teacher abroad picked up the phone. Even though she was in the middle of a museum tour with her mom and sister, Harpswell guided me through the purchase of four frozen chicken thighs. I sent Petra a text message. I didn't give her the option of joining me for another supper. The only choice I gave her was what time she would arrive. She picked 6:30.

After an afternoon of "floorball" in the school gymnasium and karnival cheering, I came home to my defrosting thighs. I like to grill. I love putting a hunk of beef over the coals, sprinkling some seasoning salt as the juices broil out, and coming back twenty minutes later to claim the prize. But this was different. I had to call more girls to get more instructions, and they concocted an intimidating plan. This was ripping chicken skin off a hunk of meat still attached to a bone. This was slicing tendons and fat and all the non-goodness from the goodness. This was sophomore year of high school fetal-pig-dissecting, without the smell. This, I was sure, was the best possible way to impress a woman.

She was a little late, but I still hadn't gotten around to putting a shirt on after taking a shower by the time she arrived. Again she was at my doorstep with dessert in hand. Instead of banana-pudding-cake-something like last time, this week her mother had whipped up apple strudel cake.

After she hung up her coat, I flourished my hand toward the stove, as big a flourish as my little kitchen will allow, and grinned, "Tonight, I will be making you chicken!"

Into the biggest of my little pots, I threw a liter of water. Jenna and Laura, experts on womanly living, had recommended that I put sunflower oil and some spices into the water. To show off, I added honey, too. I thought that would be a good touch. It began to boil as we recapped our thoughts on the previous night's party.

For five minutes, we boiled two whole thighs and the meat of two other thighs, neatly diced into bite-sized hunks. The seasoning was smelling good, and the fries were goldening well in the oven below.

The meat turned white, I thought that was a good sign that we were well on our way to avoiding the bird flu, and we threw them into a frying pan. Petra insisted that I keep adding more and more oil. I felt like we were frying donuts or watching meat swimming lessons, one of the two, but I went with her womanly wisdom. She didn't protest when I keep splashing the seasoning into the concoction.

Perfectly browned, closely inspected for any lingering pinkness on the inside, we turned the burners off with a smile. I only own two plates, we heaped the chicken onto one, the fries on the other and set them down at the candle lit table. We were content to share, to eat off the same plate.

This time I turned the lights off. I was confident. We clinked our wine glasses in an 'egeszsegedre.' She said she liked the lighting.

We ate and ate and ate. We ate it all. It was phenomenal. The Hungarian phrase for "It was delicious" is "Finom volt." It was very finom volt. She said she was impressed. I thanked her for helping. We collapsed onto the benches after the superhuman effort of eating so much goodness, lazily popping grapes into our mouths in contentment.

We didn't do the dishes right away this time. We were too full to put that much effort into anything so unrewarding as cleaning. Instead, we slid to the couch. On the way, she grabbed the black book again. "Do I get to hear another story?" she purred. I smiled. Believe it or not, I like telling stories.

She opened the book to the second-to-last story. For some reason, Petra and I are progressing through the book backwards. She handed it to me and settled with her face against the side of my arm so she could read as I read aloud.


The story was the craziness of love in mind. It was promised to you long ago, back with War and Peace and stories of CETP craziness, but it is probably too crazy. And that's exactly how I prefaced the story for her, I was probably to crazy for others to understand. She just shrugged.

I read to Petra the story of a fall spent abroad, all the sources I drew happiness from, all the loves I knew (even if briefly), and what I thought about love in Hungary. I would pause periodically to help her understand the verbose words I like to use for spice and clarity.

I read until the last word, again. I closed the book, again. I didn't know what she would say, again.

"Did I hurt you when I didn't let you kiss me last week?" she asked softly, in grammar that may or may not have been that precise.

I laughed it off, as I tend to do. "Naw, I didn't want to catch your cold anyways." She had been sick the week in between our visits, but was feeling better now. "But I was a little sad," I admitted. I told her about my confounded text message to Eva. "But Eva reassured me, she said that Hungarian girls let boys kiss them on the third date."

She looked puzzled. She began to number her fingers, starting with her pinkie. "Is this the third date?" She might have bit her lip in thought.

I grinned. "Well, there's one way to find out," I said, beginning the slow tilt of my head in preparation.

"Say it again please?" she asked.

"There is one way to find out," I said, enunciating each syllable. This was far too important a sentence in the course of my life to mumble it away.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

Damn. I sank my head into my hands in defeat. I groaned. "Ugh! Why don't you understand, do I need to draw a picture? It’s simple. If you are a Hungarian girl, then you let the boy kiss you on the third date. If this is our third date, then you will let me kiss you. So, if I try to kiss you, and you let me, then it is obviously our third date!!" I was probably gesticulating with my hands.

"Oh. I understand now," she said simply, as if any of that would make any sense to anyone other than a boy trying to logic his way into convincing a girl into kissing him.

"Yes, it is our third date."

I was flabbergasted. Green light. But one of those green lights like the kind that come after a ridiculously long wait at a railroad crossing. You've turned off the engine, you got out a good book, you maybe even took a short nap, only to awake when the cars behind you are honking their horn because you haven't realized there's a green light. You floor the gas pedal in embarrassment.

We kissed. She swirled her tongue in my mouth for a minute or two, she was big into that, and then stopped. I smiled as I traced a finger down her jawline and ended at the point of her chin.

"I like third dates with Hungarian girls," I cooed. Yes, cooed. I was beginning to like this.

"I like tenderly," I added. It has been an unpleasantly long time since I'd last really kissed a girl, I was ready to make up for lost time. I'm sure it fits somewhere under the rouge of sampling the culture. "Want to learn some more words?" I asked flirtatiously.

"I don't think we should do this," she dropped casually.

Double-take, I caught myself. Darn it, you need to move slower, Jeremy. Get those nasty thoughts out of your brain and focus on just tenderly kissing this gal! Make her feel beautiful, make her feel liked! Convince her you are a slow, delicate, sensitive kisser! Build upon the chicken-dinner-momentum, step-by-step!

"I don't think we should kiss."

Oh?

"I think we should just be friends."

Oh.

"Sorry."

Oh...

I was rebuffed. Again.

We use different words in English for different phenomenon, matching verbs with nouns in a delicate poetry of preciseness. Balloons can be popped. Dogs can be put to sleep. The elderly, in sensitive countries, can be euthanized. Dreams can be crushed. Buildings can be imploded. Cattle can be slaughtered. Governments can be overthrown. Armies can be annihilated. Flames can be extinguished.

Boys can be told that they are just-friends.

She said she liked it the way it was, without kissing. Just-friends. I grimaced. I rubbed my eyebrows slowly. Usually I run off on a new adventure before I have to deal with just-friends, but here in Hungary, where I can count all my friends on my fingers, they linger. And I've learned that I'm quite bad, maybe even mortally-flawed, as a just-friend.

Friendship is a flowchart, I guess. Upon introduction, on first impression and the immediate aftermath, I seem to diagnose those of the female-persuasion as either girl or friend, never both, even though its linguistically possible. The friends, the majority, I win over with warmth and humor and caring. The girls, on the other hand, I try to win over with warmth and humor and caring. Just like you can't read the difference, they can't see it. It's only in my mind, my level of investment in being loved in return.

Just-friends doesn’t work for me, I can’t switch feelings, or even the hope of feelings, on and off. Just-friends are expected to capture the romance, the glory, the excitement of a new love-interest and make it permanent. Just-friends must freeze the moment of flirtation forever. I can’t do that, not with nothing in return, unless I still harbor those nuggets of desire, which isn’t good at all. Plus, just-friends can’t be sad or wallow in self-pity, and I like self-degrading attempts to highlight the humor of life.

I walked Petra home again. I wondered, in bittersweet resignation, whether that’s something just-friends do. She broke my concentration by stopping me mid-stride on the sidewalk at a random intersection. She kissed me. I was confused. I looked at her like I was confused. She giggled, "I’ve never kissed anyone in front of the police station," and skipped on.

Boy, do I know how to pick ‘em.

I went to the bar after kissing her good night, one cheek at a time. It was not even midnight. I played foosball with my German student Robi until my right hand, already tender from floorball, was blistered. But I was exhausted, I couldn’t even put forth a half-hearted effort into winning over a new girl to come home with me and wash the pile of dirty dishes still on the table.

Winning girls over is proving to be hard work…

Six More Inches

Hungary is utterly and completely refusing to buy into the whole notion of spring. The locals insist that March is a delightfully warming time of year, but I have seen no evidence of that in my first, and last, analysis of a Hungarian March. A weekend ago it snowed three days in a row. Last week was cheerfully sunny, but strikingly cold. And after drizzly rain last night, it's back to snowing today. With each swirling snowflake, as pretty as they were back in November, I lose faith in the inevitability of spring, even if each morning the sun rises earlier and earlier. Maybe the weather is just waiting for me to take down my Christmas decorations. Regardless, I will commemorate the snow today with my usual Sunday plan -- not leaving the house a single time. Most of the time I feel guilty when I come to that conclusion, but it quickly passes when I realize that I am wearing only underwear.

Last Saturday, though, Heves decided to huddle indoors and prepare to shed winter with an annual Karnival celebration. The kids work all winter in the across-the-street-from-me Gyermekhaza planning dances and grand karaoke numbers. I was invited because I stopped to ask someone on the street where you could buy chicken breast on a Saturday in Heves.

I haven't seen little kids in a long time, it was fun to see them bounce around the room as their parents watched and smiled and clapped. The absolute best, though, was a little boy of perhaps eleven, tucked into the back row of one of the musical song-and-dances routines. His hair was a big ball of blond puff, a hap-hazard fro of closely wound curls. His glasses were big and metal and squarish in all the wrong ways. His plaid shirt was tucked into the jeans that were button at his belly button, far to high on his lanky body. His face showed morbid lethargy and vague disinterest. His head was always turned to the side, watching the dance steps and gestures of the boys to his right. His best attempts mimicking their motions were always a half-beat or so behind.

I laughed for hours.

Here in little Heves I had found an 11-year-old Hungarian Napoleon Dynamite.

Mr. Bush Goes to India

I bet that you've been sitting there since last week, pouring over the blossom of news accounts and multitude of multimedia perspectives about India in anticipation of Bush's visit to the subcontinent and the resulting wake. And I bet the whole time you've been wondering what a professional scholar of the region, like your good friend Jeremy, thinks about it. (I have, of course, no real right to write any of this. I read about one news article a week here and consider myself relatively uninformed.)

1. Eight-and-a-half years ago, a team of quasi-experts began calling India an emerging power. Turns out those kids from Goodrich High School in 1997 were right, even if the world has just been slow to catch on. Since then, India said it would explode a nuclear device, India did in fact explode a nuclear device, the United States was surprised India exploded a nuclear device, Pakistan exploded a nuclear device, the US imposed sanctions, region almost went to war over Islamic extremist separatist demands in Kashmir, Clinton went to the subcontinent, Bush was elected without foreign policy credentials or inclinations, the US found out Islamic extremism is problematic, US deposes Taliban regime in Afghanistan, BJP government replaced in India by Center-Left coalition. Somewhere along the line, outsourcing happened, too.

2. I would prefer if no one in the world had nuclear weapons. (I don't even like guns, let alone super-death-bombs.) While you could call it a relative success in limiting nuclear proliferation, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is a pretty unfair treaty. Five countries get to keep their power, their status, while others can't challenge them? Israel, India and Pakistan have the option of opting out of it and make nuclear weapons. Why can't Iran, why can't North Korea, why can't others have that some sovereignty?

You can't demand that Tehran or Pyongyang cease and desist all nuclear ambitions when you yourself have nuclear weapons and give nuclear technology to other nations who don't "follow the rules." That's some sort of weird, warmongering discrimination. The newly-signed nuclear deal between India and the US is a further blow to the legitimacy of the NPT, non-proliferation, and the forgotten goal of disarmament, even as it helps to delineate the civilian and military halves of India's nuclear program, offers much-needed technological assistance to India, and marks a new level of cooperation between the world's two largest democracies.

3. For too long, Indo-American relations were haunted by a realpolitik. India has a strong pride in their independence and Delhi understandably rejected Cold War politics and refused to align themselves closely with either camp. Nixon eschewed India for warmer relations with China, when the world's two great communist regimes proved to be far from monolithic and Beijing could serve as a balance to Moscow. Reagan was more interested in courting Pakistan after the USSR dove, disastrously, into neighboring Afghanistan.

In the post-Cold War era, India's liberalization during the 1990s and President Clinton's diplomacy began a new friendship marked by economic partnership. It's relatively refreshing to see Bush continue that progress. In a narrow geopolitical view, India is an Asian counterweight to burgeoning China and an ally in a contentious region of the world. In a broader sense, India is a rapidly-industrializing, relatively peaceful multi-ethnic democracy. And a darn fascinating place to look at from afar.

4. If I went that far, I'd stay for more than two days and see some of the darn country.

Anya, Apa in Hungary

Living alone, in a world of your own, is a funny thing. Often times it's hard, often times it feels like a purely unnatural fiction. Without friends and family, or even conversation partners much of the time, it's hard to ground yourself. It's hard to know what's going on, inside and outside of your mind. That's why I was a bit scared of my parents coming to Hungary -- would I be able to handle a sudden invasion into my secluded, reclused world?

My parents had never been to Hungary before, of course. They'd never been behind the Iron Curtain, a huge swath of this wide world they learned to loathe and disdain, back when that was the way of the world. In Europe, they'd only ever been to Italy, even with as many Rick Steves videos as they've watched.

So after they finished their week of revelry in the Italian Alps, basking in the warm glow of the best of the human spirit, they decided to come to Hungary. They decided to visit their son in Hungary, the second time they would visit one of their children teaching abroad. They switched their flight, booked a cheap flight midway through their stay, and declared that Friday, February 17th would be the day the touched down on Hungarian soul.

Ferihegy 1 handles Budapest's discount airlines, and the ultra-modern newly-renovated airport is certainly a welcoming arrival point. Two years ago my sister and I had arrived in the gigantic Keleti train station a little after midday. The crowds were a swarm, the station a beehive. We had to navigate the city subway for our first taste of Budapest. Even the escalators were scary. Mom and Dad got off much more lightly, whisked from modern airport to hostel in Eva’s new car.

After unpacking at the hostel and pondering the nationality of our missing roommates, I led my parents out to the streets of Budapest. A Friday night, just before midnight, the ritzy streets around Vaci Ut were quiet, excepting rare pockets of liveliness. One corner, and all the streets leading from it, though, was lit by a violinist playing Bolero. (Think Torvil and Dean.) They smiled the biggest smile I’d seen on their faces yet, I smile when you travel. My parents had found a happiness, a contentment in that man sitting at that corner at that time. It really was wonderful. (My dad did manage to convince the violinist that he knew both how to speak French and how to play the violin in our short encounter with him.)

Saturday:

Morning visit to the hectic Grand Central Market
Picnic atop the Citadel
Olympic luge down Gellert Hill
Napping, as I am travelling with 50-year-olds
Olympics on TV while drinking MGD

One of the highlights of a Saturday in Budapest was the city’s most recently-opened museum, the House of Terror, a new stop for me. The same unassuming mansion on the stately Andrassy Ut served as the headquarters of both the Nazi-sidekick Arrow Cross gestapo and Soviet communist enforcers, many decades ago. Opened in the past five years in a politically-charged climate, the museum aims to tell the horror stories of Hungarian history when either the right or the left assume totalitarian control.

The museum is different than most, in content, presentation and character. In tenor, it is much like Washington’s Holocaust museum, a tribute to the victims of mass atrocity. Rather than beginning a story, weaving different pieces of a story together and finishing the story with a satisfying conclusion --  like a well-rounded novel -- the Terrorhaza was more artistic. It slams the visitor with room after room of shocking stories and artistry, often without a satisfying link between the progression of the rooms.

The centerpiece is a wall, four stories high, of black and white photos of victims. Nameless pictures, black and white, rising from a pool of flowing water. A battle tank seemed to float above the water, the tears, the cleansing rebirth. Another room, giving a bit of information on church-life in Hungary under socialism, offers a glimpse at a few religious knick-knacks, but the main focus is a brightly-lit pearly white cross, revealed by torn up floor boards. A third room lets visitors trample over a gigantic carpet version of the former Soviet Union. The room gives some facts, figures and feels about life in a Soviet-prisoner gulag, but better gives a feel of the scope and size of a massive life-form, expanding and swallowing its neighbors.

Sunday:

Internet blogging time, as requested by Dad
Jewish Synagogue, although they wanted an entrance fee
Castle Hill, simply delightful
St. Istvan’s Basilica, yup, saw the petrified hand
Szechenyi Bath, awesome first visit to the grandfather of all Hungarian baths

We ventured to the majestic Opera Sunday night for a ritzy evening at the opera. The building is one of the most famous in Budapest, a turn-of-of-the-century masterpiece. Not far from the Terrorhaza, the Hungarian National Opera House is one of the original inhabitants of Andrassy Boulevard, one of the many 1896 tributes to a millennium of Hungarian Magyars in the Carpathian Basin. On the way, we picked up a new CETP teacher I hadn’t met yet. We had an extra ticket, after Eva proclaimed that she had no desire to see an opera, and I figured the best way to commemorate the Valentine’s time of year was to invite a random American girl on a blind date to the opera with my parents and I.

Jessamay, a Minnesota native and recent Duluth graduate, proved to be a good sport about the opera adventure, I’m excited to get to know her better over the spring. If there would have been MTV cameras around, it would have been an odd combination of "Date My Mom," starring my Mom, and "Dismissed," with my Dad and I competing for the honor of avoiding the dreaded "You are dismissed" cue to exist stage-left. And in truth, my Dad might have won. He was really on top of the "I’m in love with a new city and new country!" game, whereas I was busy reverting to some sort of childish embarrassment. "Oh my god. Did my parents just drop their chap-stick in the middle of the opera? Oh no, are they looking under those peoples’ feet for it?" You know, that kinda stuff.

The opera itself was in many ways like a hockey game. There were three periods. We got up, stretched, and pounded a beer during each intermission. They were surprisingly very inexpensive. Some of the upper-class folk there chose wine, instead. After the curtain fell on each act, we applauded and demanded a curtain call. It was a bit like post-goal antics, except I’m not sure exactly what we were celebrating. And just like I probably won’t ever really understanding the icing penalty, I gave up on understanding the undercurrents of the opera not long after the puck-drop. And just like my little-pond-perfected skating skills wouldn’t serve me well in making the jump to the National Hockey League, my mutt-of-a-breed German skills didn’t translate into much ability to understand Wagner’s German sung at high-pitch by Hungarians.

The final curtain call, though, came four-and-a-half-hours after the overture began.

Earl on Heves

(Reprinted with permission)

As we approached Heves (hev-ish) on the 2+ hour bus ride, the roads became worse and the countryside became bleaker. Lights in the country were nearly non-existent and while we passed small patches of wooded areas, the late winter landscape became a windswept barren. But our experience in Heves was a wonderfully warm one.

First stop -- Jeremy’s apartment. It was not the Communist era drab apartment building we expected, but a relatively cute flat on a residential street. True the apartment resident can access all appliances in the kitchen without moving, but, hey, that can only cut down on cleaning time. In fact Jeremy is the proud holder of The Best Decorated Apartment awarded by fellow American CETP teachers. (Cut-up colorful bedsheets helped create this special ambiance.)

Second stop was just across the street—the city owned apartment where Carol and I stayed on our Heves visit compete with a very inviting circular sitting room and for the exorbitant rate of 2000 forints per night ($10). We came to call it “The Royal Apartment.”Third stop was the only restaurant in a town of 10,000.

While it looked like a place where one could have a wonderful meal, we were its only guests late Monday evening and no food was being served. Oh well, a good place to have a drink.The next morning, we found our way to Eotvos Joszef Kozepikola, the Heves middle/high school where Jeremy teaches 212 English students and 55 German language students. A daunting task with limited Hungarian and no student textbooks.

But our visit was refreshing. As we entered Jeremy’s classroom, all students rose and warmly said, “Good morning.” We immediately felt like special guests. We enjoyed conversation with students and they helped us learn some fundamentals of their language (a very difficult one). We played “Who Wants to be a Millionaire" with wonderfully spirited sophomore students. But first they enthusiastically sang their favorite Beatles song “Hello, Goodbye” followed by an old Kellogg’s “Good Morning, Good Morning.” We were impressed with students who were polite, friendly, and eager to make us welcome. Later as we sat in Herr Director's office visiting with Agi, the Headmaster, and Etelka, the Hungarian English teacher, we felt like dignitaries.

It is clear that Heves is a poor community with limited employment opportunity. Their “mall” was a Wednesday morning open-air market complete with produce, hardware, footwear, and clothes. It was amazing how hard people had to work to set up displays of nice clothing in a parking area that was oozing with snowmelt and mud. We saw many people but we didn't observe many transactions. Milk was sold in recycled liter soda bottles. I wondered if this was a traveling market that moved each day to a different city. We take so much for granted in America. Later we also saw beautiful hand-woven linens that took weeks to complete. Each stitch was a work of love.

While the resource gap is large between Fondy High School and Eotvos Joszef Kozepikola, there are still many commonalities. Kids are kids just like here. Teachers are hardworking just like here. And at both schools there exists a friendly, inviting atmosphere (not visible at all schools).

Jeremy’s adventure has its challenges. We are impressed with his creative ability to make things work. His acceptance of challenge, his commitment to young people, and his personal style are all admirable.

That evening we had a wonderful wine-tasting tour of a winery with Etelka as our interpreter and guide. (She is Rick Steves’ guide for all of Hungary!) Each wine we sampled tasted better than the previous. Istvan and his wife warmly shared their passion for winemaking as we talked for hours. (Of course, it didn't hurt that we drove away with a trunkful of their award-winning wine while leaving behind a handful of forints. All seven bottles stuffed in our baggage made it home safely! What were we thinking?) The personal tour with Etelka was truly special. It was a golden moment for us. Once again, we truly felt like royalty. Despite comparative poverty, the people of Heves were very generous to us. It was a highlight of our odyssey.We felt like royal parents.