I’ve just gotten back from the doctor where I enjoyed my book rather a bit longer than necessary due to not yet knowing that hungarian queues aren’t called by the staff but by the participants. new phrase to learn “who do I come after?”

while attempting to recover from yet another bout of flu / recent scraping of my eardrum I ran across this really cool brain trickery that I feel the need to pass along. 20 bucks to whomever can explain to me why this works ::

visual mayhem

I’ve been asked for directions, by Hungarians, six times this week alone.

went to balaton for the first time, properly, this weekend. not bad for a lake. not quite the sea, but it scratched the be-near-the-water itch. also had my first over an open fire pörkölt. good things come out of big pots and fire.

many hungarians seem to think a sewer is a good place for canoeing. they also think the supermarket is a good place for produce. there’s simply no accounting for taste.

a woman ran to catch the hev the other morning. jumped on the train, sat down across from me, closed her eyes and put her fingers together in buddhist meditation pose.

I’m translating the lyric poetry of Hobo (of hobo blues band, translator of ginsburg and the doors, among others, into hungarian). I apologize in advance to the hungarian people as a whole.

every now and again I run into my favorite neighbor, one of the little old ladies who shares a common courtyard. this time we conversed in a mixture of french, german, hungarian and sign language (mostly the latter as I barely speak the others). I got most of it, but I’m still dying to know why she kept pointing to her knees.

in the midst of all this I’m having an existential angst sort of week. since one cannot teach children while delving head first into that sort of thing (well, one can, and perhaps in a strange way one should, but this week this one’s thinking not so much) i’ll be busying myself with catching up on photos. school carnaeval, canoe trip and lake balaton, i’ve been surprisingly active even though it might appear I’ve not been doing a damned thing. though technically we’re both correct.

I’ve been procrastinating a lessons learned post. not because I don’t want to write it. I already have. but because I’m not entirely sure I’m ready to accept my conclusions. because I’m not sure I like where they lead. time, everything, slips through fingers so easily here, retrospection takes a back seat to, well, everything, which I’ve passed through only to not be so pleased with my discoveries.

Leaving a friend’s flat this afternoon I saw a truly miniscule dog. in a pink and orange sweater. despite my usual loathing for large rats posing as canines I couldn’t help but smirk at this one, which broadened to a full on smile upon seeing its rather matching owner, a little old lady of the glowing knowing can’t knock down type slowly working her way down the hall. she looked at me, returning my smile, then cocked her head and said without question,

“You’re not Hungarian.”

I haaaaave the iiiiiiiiiiinnnnnterneeeeeeeet !!!

no, it’s not t-com. still wondering if they’re ever gonna call, really. but vodaphone just came out with an unlimited data plan wireless modem and I jumped on it. and miracle of all miracles, it only took a week to sort out. of course, the modem finally arrived on the very day the school fixed the wireless network, which is coincidently the day I lost t-com cell signal in my house (and the day before a storm blew my just-adjusted satellite dish out of alignment), so really everything worked out perfectly ; )

trip report to follow, but for now a photo or two from last week’s sojourn to dienten, austria ( a perfect little town just south of salsberg)

weeks later (in the hungarian universe this is timely, I believe), I was surprised with a birthday party tonight. on a number of levels, really, and I must admit to feeling rather unworthy of the generosity bestowed upon me this evening.

I walked into my little jazz internet cafe without fully knowing. at the big table in the corner, surrounded by handwritten happy birthday banners, a number of co-teachers and gabi’s lovely girls stood and began to sing happy birthday to me. the barista cracked a smile as I blushed to my toes and received my glass of champagne and rather a lot of hugs and double kisses.

I successfully avoided the presents for a while as I had my laptop with me and could finally show Kata, our devoted art teacher, the pictures I took to document her name day (as she so lovingly documents all her classes). I was however caught into the toast, which after a fashion turned rather sweet, if slightly ungainly as non-native speakers struggled perhaps with english, perhaps with unfamiliarity of expressions of such gratuitous kindness to a near stranger. they are my friends, in a way, but like everything in hungary things progress slowly. yet I felt tonight received and welcomed for the first time as a friend.

I drew it out a bit, the opening of the presents when time no longer allowed me leeway. hidden under kata’s paisley scarf a pile of packages and loose objects awaited. though the teachers bought me a spectacularly soft plum cardigan (and laughed when, finding it so ‘me’ that it must already be mine. I checked if for holes, as all my other sweaters poses more than the usual four) and an rust coloured paisley scarf I found oddly suitable, and gabi presented me with a beautiful, handmade-paper-covered book by her favorite hungarian author, it was her children’s presents that left me rather speechless. it usually is, isn’t it.

boro (maybe 7?), in addition to the brightly coloured banner, had painted a bottle in red and black to use for a vase, or perhaps as was suggested some homemade palinka. she had also wound a paper clip into a flower and strung it on a blue ribbon for a necklace. she admittedly giggled when at my attempt to put it on immediately I found it didn’t entirely encircle my neck. so we tied it around my wrist instead. eszter (ten, I think), creator of the medieval calligraphy banner laid across the table, had fastened a handmade wool flower, green with an outline of orange, to her handmade black paper box. Sure, neither knew how to spell my name properly, writing instead the half english half hungarian transliteration ‘Any’ (in hungarian the sound of my name would be ‘Eny’) but I found this somehow appropriate and charming. I grinned conspicuously and thanked her copiously, only to once again bring laughter as she pointed out that there was in fact something in the box.  I opened it to reveal a handmade wool necklace, on yet another too short string so she tied it around the other wrist. Real laughter burst forth as I went to put the box down carefully again only to be informed that I really ought to look inside again. A pair of rolled wool earrings (a technique I’ve yet to see anywhere else, I’ve eyed frequently, and must really learn to do) in lovely oceanic blue and green found a home in my ears, even if I couldn’t manage to close the clasp on the first try.

it was the noticing that took me by surprise. though some of us had talked about heavy or lighthearted things, I never thought they really gave me a second glance. I didn’t realize so many of them had been learning me as carefully as I’d been learning them.

merriment ensued, with the help of champagne, and even as some had to leave to tend to their children others arrived knocking at the windows and generally enjoying one silly moment after another. gabi taunted me with the hungarian tongue twister I enjoy not being able to wrap my brain around and the girls and I swatted and played even as we all discussed philosophy and cultural differences and the dramas at Agy Tanoda. in the midst of this beautiful chaos I realized eszter (an incredibly gifted artist) was writing something along the top of her banner. I’d really no idea whether she was doodling and there was no other paper, which seemed a shame but it’s her creation to do with as she wishes, but as she crossed the table, appearing to write one or two words per sheet, my interest and curiosity grew.

perhaps it’s the changes this country has begun to make in me, maybe I’m just getting old. there are times sentences are said, praise lauded, that I don’t believe a word no matter who the source, just as at times I choose to accept it regardless because it’s what I need to hear. when gabi, whom I trust perhaps more than any other individual in this entire country, called me her best friend, the best foreign teacher Agy Tanoda has ever seen, I chose to accept the former as good natured exaggeration (admittedly I did literally raise an eyebrow) and simply completely ignore the latter. yet children are different. they may hint towards inheriting the traits of their parents, they may scheme and berate, but they do so more often than not without true guile or pretext. they may claim a thousand reasons for failure to turn in homework, but they know full well you’re not going to buy it for a penny, and they may praise you to the heavens but it’s in my experience always accompanied with a certain lilt of a smile and so timed that there’s no confusion that it’s meant to gain favor. (I could of course be wrong, about all sorts of things, but at this juncture I choose not to entertain that possibility.) it is, with children and perhaps with adults, the most spontaneous utterances that hold the greatest portion of honesty. and eszter, though wise beyond her years, is still a child.

finished, she looked up, saw me watching, and simply said it was ok for me to read it :

“If you are smiling, we are smiling too. If you are with us we are happy, Any.”

though I’ve ordered t-com (a division of t-mobile) internet service and the first guy has come to set up the line…. they’ve run out of modems.

it will therefore be no surprise that I’m not updating, nor will I be particularly available online in any way shape or form, for a while still. can’t even use my old wireless net cafe, as the old barrista has vanished and the new one doesn’t seem to know the password ; )

some photos from a cemetery walk up in the gallery…

hopefully I’ll be a bit more reachable in a few weeks when I wander stateside for the holidays…. hungary being hungary, I bet the modem will show up the day before I depart : )

I can rebuild a motorcycle, rewire a boat, build a house, but apparently I cannot warm my home without setting myself on fire.

The landlady came over with her son today to turn on my heaters. Clunky beige gas affairs that admittedly had me a little squeamish since occupancy. The son turned on the kitchen one with little ado, and we discussed at length which of the two heaters, positioned within two feet of each other, one in each room, would be better. As the kitchen one heats more quickly with less noxious scents it’s first choice. Unfortunately, while the living room version starts with a little push button, the kitchen model requires a match.

Perhaps we laughed a bit too much, the crazy landlady and I, over our amusing mimed conversations, perhaps I should have watched more carefully, or trusted a bit less. The son explained the procedure, in English, and I knelt down in my grey fleece bathrobe and fuzzy slippers determined to learn. We had a bit of a giggle the first time when I didn’t know to hold down the gas knob after lighting and it went immediately out. So, turn on the gas, light the match, hand back on the knob, stick my other hand into the bottom and

whoosh, all the gas flowing while I’d lit the match ignited in a puff of orange, vanishing instantly as my left hand came off the knob with the realization that I’d just set my right hand on fire.

“Well, that wasn’t right. I just set myself on fire,” I observed while running said hand under cold water at the sink, laughing over the complete absurdity that is occasionally me. The second time I do something, no problem, but bloody hell the first time I’m a hawaiian building an igloo.

Upon reflection, I should probably not have continuously depressed the gas flow button while dicking around with the match. Upon further reflection, the landlady’s son probably could have pointed that part out to me before I burned all the little blonde hairs off my hand, though it was later revealed to me that hungarian men on the whole prefer their women hairless. I suppose that’s one way to go about it.

The landlady kept smelling my hand, and resolutely refused to let me near the heater again. I did try to convince her; I’m not fond of giving up and, lesson learned, I’m pretty sure I could get the pesky thing started this time. Unfortunately it will have to wait, for as much as I want to try I’m thinkin at this point I should probably not be allowed matches without adult supervision.

I set myself on fire today. Really, how often does one get to say that.

It has been told to me by a source whose reliability I’ve not entirely sussed out that the teachers are getting pulled into offices one by one and pressured into revealing gossip. Who said what about whom. Working on delineation, but it does seem to fit with recent observations…

No one’s even pretending facts are involved in any way, shape or form. ‘They’ have simply become aware that there is a growing problem, which is of course under discussion around the teachers room, as all school related problems naturally are, and want to know who thinks what without the burden of, you know, honesty.

So, perhaps communism isn’t so much dead in this particular corner of the country.

In less ridiculous news, took a fantastic wander around the roman ruins on monday. though the barracks lay behind a closed fence, the 15,000 spectator ampitheatre’s open for anyone to meander on through, and of course the aqueducts, well, they’re just hangin out on the side of the road.

Pics soon. Really  ; )

I’m hanging out in Budapest with a Viennese, a couple of Hungarians, a Belgian lad, a Brit, and assorted few from other countries, speaking a variety of different languages, and….

there is simply nothing odd about this.

I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t part of the couchsurfing phenomenon. because in new york city, I was hanging out on a regular basis with a phillipino bloke, a variety of frenchmen, a brit here and there, some indians, and a rather lot of germans.

amusingly, couchsurfing has now made the new york times. oh la la. the article’s not bad; they even opened with neil. neil! brilliant. see for yourself

In other news, my art skills seem to have taken a rather terrible plunge for the worse. It took a full fifteen minutes to attempt a drawing of a dog for picture bingo for my 1st graders tonight, and in the end it looked a lot more like cujo than clifford.

On the up side, after three weeks of gentle prodding, I’ve managed to procure the english textbooks (used by the the hungarian english teachers) of almost every grade, so I’ve almost, almost got an idea of what these lovely children have already learned. miracle upon miracle, I truly feel I’ve just won an olympic gold that’s how heroic this task seemed.

when writing a curriculum for 8 grades with varying levels one must remember to disregard logic completely and fly entirely by the seat of one’s linguistic pants. I’m fairly sure the biggest hit in last week’s ‘find someone who’ game (in which students must wander around asking such stimulating questions as ‘do you like the colour blue’ and ‘can you swim’) was the query ‘do you eat monkeys’ which I threw in for absolutely no logical reason whatsoever.