Quality Colleague Time

I stayed in town this weekend so I could attend some barbecues with colleagues…some planned, some not.

On Friday afternoon, I trucked it out to Miskolc with Marjorie, the native French teacher, and Jun, an American student in one of my classes whose father is Hungarian. She is studying here for a year, learning Hungarian, and then returning to California in June. We went to Miskolc to shop and also to catch a movie. Unfortunately, the movie selection was not the best and we passed on that. I actually left the town without purchasing anything – not even shoes!

On the way home, staring out of the train windows at the Zemplén hills and the broad stripes of yellow flaxseed, our faces in the breeze, Jun told me about her father’s past. He lived behind the Iron Curtain for most of his life. He wanted to be a doctor. But, because he made an inappropriate joke at a pub one night and was overheard by the wrong people, he was blacklisted from doctoral school. He could never become a doctor. On trying to escape from Hungary, he had taken a bottle of vodka with him, hoping that this would ease the Russians a little if he had been caught. We arrived home before she could finish her story, but Jun said that she swore she’d make a movie of her father’s past one day.

That night, I went to one of my colleague’s house for a barbecue. The sky was heavy with dark blue storm clouds, but smears of bright pink sunset stretched out just enough to create an amazing palette. We sat on their patio, safe under a roof and admired the sky. I was a little apprehensive about this BBQ, because my colleague, Erzsèbet, doesn’t speak the best English. I didn’t know how I would manage with my still very limited Hungarian. But this night turned out to be extremely enjoyable. I was introduced to her daughter, Noémi, and her boyfriend Csaba, who both go to the high school in which I teach, but they are not in my classes.

Then came Erzsèbet’s older son and his girlfriend, and then her mother. Her husband was downstairs working in their family pub. Next came her niece and her fiancé who’s from South Africa. So I had a native speaker to banter with and both of us amused the surrounding Hungarians with our sprinkled attempts of their language. We had gulyásleves (literally translated: goulash soup) and palacsinta with meat and vegetables (pancake…but pancakes in Hungary are more comparable to French crêpes than American pancakes). The South African tried pálinka for the first time. In my opinion, this is the strongest drink I’ve had in Hungary. It’s a brandy made with different fruits. Then we had some white wine from the family’s vineyard. The fact that most families in Szerencs seem to have a vineyard at their house from which they produce their own wine continues to amaze and please me.

Erzsèbet showed me the family pub, in which I saw one of my students who never comes to my lessons. I also got a tour of the house. Noémi’s room has got evidence of Western culture everywhere. There are posters of Billie Joe from Green Day (a lot of my students were overly-obsessed with Green Day when I first came here in September) board games, etc.

On Saturday, I went to the home of a colleague from the secondary school, also named Erzsèbet. I was absolutely stunned when we arrived at her home. It looked like a huge apricot. I walked in to her spotless abode and she showed me around each perfectly decorated, extremely organized room. It looked like it was out of a magazine. I was surprised that no one else was there and then I learned that Erzsèbet doesn’t have a family of her own. She told me that she inherited a lot of money from her aunt and she didn’t know how else to invest it, so she bought the house.

After being forced to eat salad, sausages, ice cream, cake, crackers, cherries, melons, and drink Unicum and wine, she confided that most young people spend their lives wanting a big house, a good job, etc, but when they finally get everything they want, they are too old to enjoy it or don’t have a family to share it with. For a moment, I felt extremely sad and empty in that huge house. As proper and cheery as Erzsèbet is, she couldn’t help but expose a sliver of disappointment.

Things got better when her niece and nephew came by for a visit, both university students in Budapest home for the weekend. I asked them where they would like to work and they told me that they don’t have much choice but to work in Budapest. The other larger cities in Hungary don’t have enough jobs and they complained that Budapest is too big of a city for the size of Hungary. The nephew was extremely interested in geography and he was fascinated by the fact that Toronto is on the same latitude as parts of Italy, yet it’s much colder in Canada.

On Sunday, I woke up in my flat only to be seized by an urge to clean everything. I only got so far as my bedroom and then was kidnapped by the sunny morning to go for a walk. Because I walk by the same houses in the next town over, I pass the same legless man in a wheelchair and the same two girls on bikes who can’t help but stare at me for minutes because they know I’m different. They say hello to me now. On my way home, I ran into Etelka, my contact teacher, walking down the street with some food in aluminum foil. She invited me to her house for some bread, specifically “kalács” and coffee. It reminded me of really elaborate cinnamon bread. I told Etelka that I wanted to make chocolate chip cookies and she was very excited for me to make them for the students. She tried banana bread for the first time a couple years ago and told me that she didn’t like it at all. I had planned on stopping in for fifteen minutes and then being on my way.

Nope, not the case. She wanted to make me soup, make me cappuccino, crackers, etc. And as usual, when I’m with Etelka, we start talking about Eastern European history. Her husband, George, joined us and although he can’t speak English, he spoke to me in Hungarian using just as much hand gesturing as I do when I’m teaching 3rd graders. I felt comfortable trying and screwing up in front of them. Eastern European history is so fascinating to me, because it’s so old but has also just recently changed. After traveling to a lot of the Balkan countries these past few months: Croatia, Serbia, and Macedonia, I was interested to learn how Communism’s grip wasn’t as strong on Yugoslavia as it was on Hungary. I think I remember hearing that Yugoslavians could travel out of their country during this time, whereas Hungarians couldn’t do so as easily. Yugoslavia was made up of different republics that spoke similar but diffferent languages. Etelka’s husband is Croatian, so he is very informed on this particular history. Yesterday, there was an election that will decide if Montenegro will break away from Serbia. Borders and territories are ever-changing here. And evidence of old Hungarian territory in Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, and Croatia is noticeable…like many Venn Diagrams splaying themselves in every direction. One side Hungarian, one side Slovakian, and in the middle, a mixture of the two.

I’m surprised at how interested in history I’ve become since arriving here. It’s fascinating to hear about all of this from people who lived through these experiences…experiences that are indescribably different from my own.

George offered me some wine and Etelka told me that it was from the neighbors. “Not as good as OUR wine,” she said. So George hurried to the cellar to get some of their own wine and I gushed over its unique and authentic scent and taste. It was genuinely good.

I arrived back at my flat at 5:30 and realized that I’d spent about 4 hours at their house.
This weekend, I didn’t go anywhere too far, but I feel saturated with new information…historical and linguistic alike.