Among a few other important things English speakers want to know when learning a foreign language is the verb “to have” and how to use it. “I have an umbrella.” “You have a cold.” “They had red car.” “He had a great time at the lake.”

What I finally realized today is that this is a passive idea in Hungarian. “The umbrella is had by me.” Or, “there is my umbrella.” I think “tetszik” is the same! “Something is liked by me.” “The shoes which are had by me are liked by me.” “Are they liked by you?”

Van egy pár cipőm. (vagy) Nekünk van egy pár cipőm. Nekem cipőm teszik. Neked cipőm testszik.

Speaking of possession, Kristof has an incredible 32 year old Zsiguli (spelling?). Oh my goodness. This is an amazing sight to behold. The speedometer reminds me of my dad’s old 1970’s model Dodge Dart speedometer! Even now, I can visualize driving my future Zsiguli down Szentendrei ut with the windows roled down and the whole family piled in the back!

Now, I should say that a person shouldn’t purchase a Zsiguli with the hope of becoming cool. A Zsiguli should be a reflection of the “coolness” within. I can also imagine racing stripes and fire painted on the side!

With a little work, I’ve corrected mz indecipherable Hungarian in my previous article. Here’s the updated version!

Tegnap az idő nagyon jó volt. A fiainkkal és négy ismerűnkkal mentünk kirándulni a hegyekbe. Mi felmentünk a Budakeszi Nemzeti Parkba, és sétáltünk egy órát. Nagyon kellemes volt. Az ösvénymellet látattünk sok állatot, például bölényt és sok madarot. A fiuknak tetszek. Utána, piknizetünk és Bocci-t játsztottunk.

Amikor azt mondom “Bocci”, mi jut eszetekbe? Nekem, süt a nap Olaszországban, és néhány jó ismerőm jut eszembe. Persze, soha játszom ezt Olaszországban, hanem én emlékszem jó időkre amikor játszottom Bocci-t ismerőseimmel észak Carolina-ban. Ha te még soha nem jatszottál, ki kell próbálnod.

The weather was so so nice yesterday. We took the boys hiking, and four friends joined us. We went to Budakeszi National Park and we walked for an hour. It was awesome. Along the trail we saw many animals like buffalo, wild boars, and wolves. The boys loved it. After hiking, we had a picnic and played Bocci ball (thanks Kristof!).

When I say “Bocci ball” what comes to mind? For me, an Italian sunny day and good friends come to my mind. I have never played Bocci ball in Italy, of course, but I do remember the good times playing Bocci ball with friends in Raleigh. If you yet haven’t played, you need to.

A feeble attempt at Hungarian

Tegnap az idő nagyon jó volt. Fiainkkal és négy ismerűnkkal mentünk kirándulni a hegyekben. Mi felvezetettünk a Budakeszi Nemzeti Parkba, és sétaltünk egy orát. A legjóbb volt. Ösvénymellet látattünk sok állat, peldául bison és sok madár. A fiuk azt szeretettek. Utana, pikniztünk és Bocci-t játsztottunk.

Amikor azt mondom “Bocci”, mi jut eszetekbe? Nekem, süt a nap olaszországban, és néha jó ismerőm jut eszembe. Persze, soha játszom ezt olaszországban, hanem én emlékszem jó idők amikor játszani Bocci-t ismerőkemmel észak carolina-ban. Ha te soha már nem jatsztottál, te kell csinalni.

What in the World. Friday I turned 33. It is the third time in my life that my age has been divisible by 11 (11, 22, 33). I had a great day with the family. As soon as I woke up, the boys insisted that I open my birthday presents. When we moved to Hungary, I had to leave behind most of my camping gear. And here’s what a got for my birthday:

Recently, we had some problems with our electricity in our apartment. We called a repairman, and he came to fix it. He didn’t speak English, and of course my Hungarian is still progressing. Unfortunately, he took advantage of us and charged us a very very high price. Most Hugnarian businesses and repairmen can definitely be trusted, BUT, this isn’t an uncommon experience for foreigners.

As I was conveying the story to some Hungarian friends, they commented that, “well it isn’t as bad as Mohács.” And Mohács (mow-hatch) is what I’d like to tell you about.

The following quote is from István Bart in his book, “Hungary and the Hungarians.” I highly recommend reading this book.

“Mohács is a small town by the Danube near the southern boundary of Hungary, and the scene of possibly the most tragic battle in Hungarian historyé this is where, after having conquered the Balkans, the Great Sultan Suleiman and his troops annihilated the Hungarian army in 1526, and with it the medieval kingdom of Hungary, the middle section of the coutry came under Turkish occupation, Transylvania was separated from the mother country, while after the death of the Hungarian king, who fell at Mohács, the smaller northern and western parts of the country became part of the Habsburg Empire; from then on, the Habsburgs and the Turkish Empire engaged in what seemed an eternal battle for power, and which lasted for 150 years, on Hungarian soil, as a result of which large portions of the Great Plains became depopulated and were cut off from the process of European development; Hungarians regard the battle of Mohács and the annihilating victory of “the Easter Empire” such a tragic occurance, that in many respects it’s consequences can still be easily seen today.”

Last weekend we went on our first overnight family trip since moving to Hungary! We went to Debrecen (3 hours away) to visit the huge indoor water park called Aquatica Debrecen. It was amazing! The boys swam for 6 hours! There was a big swimming area for children, an area for babies, an area with caves and waterfalls, a “lazy-river” that wasn’t so lazy, a bunch of jacuzzis, and ten water slides. Wow. I think we’ll be returning to this place.

Debrecen is such a nice city. We drove around searching for all of the interesting things, and we found the giant church in the center of town. It is beautiful, and it is surrounded by a very nice brick road. Somehow we found ourselves driving on this brick road by the church, and everyone in that area just stopped walking, turned, and watched us. I got the slight feeling that we shouldn’t have been driving there.

On the way home, we grabbed some pizza in Gyöngyösi (another awesome little town).

Check out the previous article for a wikipedia definition of conscientization.

I’d like to say that conscientization is like growing new eyes. It is growing into new ways of seeing, new ways of perceiving myself, others, the world around me. Freire’s thought is that with new eyes we can begin to see contradictions (of thought, action, morals, ideology), and the truth about those who oppress. But for many of us the oppressors are not people, but rather unhealthy (or even contradicting) ideologies or patterns of relating (to myself, others, society).

“Conscientization” gives experience a unique role in education and personal/societal transformation. As wonderful as the classroom is, it rarely gives a person new eyes or impacts them to the depths of their soul. But we all can describe an experience in our lifetime that deeply affected us, that gave us a new way of seeing and perceiving.

Sometimes these experiences sharpen our vision, and other times they might blur our vision. So there are other factors to be considered. Nevertheless, experience affects our ways of perceiving. It enables us to see with the eyes of our heart; and we live and act according to how our hearts see the ourselves, others, community, society, the world.

Wikepedia states the following about “conscientization.”

The term Conscientization comes from the Portuguese term Conscientizacão. Paulo Freire used the term Conscientizacão in his book Pedagogy of the Oppressed, written in 1970.

Conscientization refers to a type of learning which is focused on perceiving and exposing social and political contradictions. Conscientization also includes taking action against oppressive elements in your life as part of that learning. Conscientisation proceeds through the identification of “generative themes”, iconic representations that have powerful emotional impact in the daily lives of learners. In this way it helps end the “culture of silence” in which the socially dispossessed internalise the negative images of themselves held by the oppressor in situations of extreme poverty. Liberating learners from this mimicry of the powerful, and is resulting fratricidal violence, was a major goal of Conscientisation. This is a major part of Paulo Freire’s problem posing education or Popular Education (In Brazil it is called pt:Educação popular)

Retrieved from “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientization”

A friend once told me, “don’t put your marriage on auto-pilot.” It’s easy to do. When you’re driving for hours in a car, it is so much easier to put it on cruise-control. And in marriage, it’s easy to stop being intentional, to stop investing in the relationship, and to let time just pass by.

We have a lot to learn, and I think Laura and I are still discovering new ways to invest in our marriage. I feel like we’re getting relationally richer all the time. Tomorrow is a Hungarian holiday, and we’re going on a date! I think we’ll go into the city, find a cool coffee shop, play some cards, and talk. I can’t wait!

I’m so glad to be back in Budapest. After landing, it was wonderful to hear Hungarian again! There was a feeling of home. I had a great time with a few friends working throughout Central and Western Europe. We wrestled with some good topics related to community development (sharing stories, connecting lives, discovering meaning).

The highlight of the trip, though, was walking in our door to get some big hugs from my family!

I’ve been in Aachen Germany for two days…missing my family. For one reason or another, we didn’t succeed in talking on the phone yesterday. So I tried again this morning, and it was a breath of fresh air to hear the sound of their voices. Aachen is an amazing city with tons and tons of history. From what I understand, around 800 AD this was Charlemaignes primary seat of power for all of Europe.

There are only 1 or 2 million books on my reading list these days. To quote Laci, “so many books, so little time.” One that I have just cracked open and am quite excited about is “Slaughterhouse 5” by Kurt Vonnegut. I think it is a book which you must be prepared to read. I also think it is a book that makes you think about language and the use of words.

Language is such an amazing phenomenon. There’s nothing more fixed, sure, and concrete than grammar (though all grammars do seem to leak a little over time), yet there is something infintely changeable about language. Through poetry, story, and oral tradition, there are innumerable ways to piece together words, ideas, meanings, and messages. Language is alive.

The following is a recent newspaper article about homelessness in Budapest that my friend Kristof translated. I highly recommend reading it, as it will shine some light on societal challenges in general. Thanks Kristof!

Article:
“For the simple and natural question that “Out of two problems which one is bigger?” two simple and natural answer exist. 1. The bigger is bigger. 2. Mine is bigger. The former one is the answer of evident (or implicit) solidarity, the latter one is the answer of evident selfishness. Both of them are life-like and realistic, but one of them leads to a different quality of life.

Let’s take a simple example. It is obvious that tolerating the presence of homeless people if easier than tolerating homelessness itself. There is nobody who likes to walk in – neither clean nor fragrant – underpasses, but it is also impossible to find someone who would rather sleep among homeless than pass by homeless. Nobody will be gladsome by seeing lowlife or depraved, dissipated-looking wrecks but there is definitely nobody who would accept such advice as be depraved, be dissipated-looking; once you get depraved you won’t see the difference and the scenery won’t be embarrassing.

So every non-homeless knows that his problem is not the bigger one, but still vast majority of them believes that his demand with a higher priority goes without saying. His demand against the organs of the government, state institutions, officials and authority is to give way of his misery and make the homeless and their appurtenances disappear or go somewhere. Go to shelter, frost or hell – minor importance.

Everybody has a good reason to call for fellow-feeling when he vindicates public sanitation, because the clean, tidy and civilian circumstance that he produced, got used to and would like to use becomes estranged. Becomes estranged because it is inundated with filth and squalor.

But something is wrong with those who call for this fellow-feeling. Those who call for a solidarity of this kind refuse help and solidarity itself with total insensitivity from those who would really need it. From those who are chained to misery from all those self-sacrificing activists, social workers or publicist accepting unpopularity. These people who call for this evil fellow-feeling sometimes turn against the benevolent, to whom the tragic state of the mass is more important than the discomfort of some consolidated bourgeois.

The government whose orders to make public benches insuitable for lying on them shares this opinion and identifies public welfare with the followings: Those have the right to the bench of common who have a bench at home. Who has no bed to bow his head on it, should not lower there as well.

We published this last week: from the HEV station at Margaret Bridge the police upon request of the citizens turned all the homeless people adrift. They took away their blankets and their sleeping bags that those miserable people previously received from the Baptist Charity Organization. As a result a woman, who otherwise would have a couple more days left on the ice-cold ground, had frozen to death. There were several other attempts from the police to deport homeless under the sky, but these attempts in winter-time it were almost as hopeless as inhuman.

It is not the question whether the comfort-feeling of the aforementioned bourgeois should be a view-point and a subject of consideration or not. The question is whether it should be primary or secondary to the view-point of those who live in much more dramatic circumstances. As per the people who say it is secondary they notice that the awkward personal underground-experience will undergo some change only if the surrounding situation changes, to that extent as the surrounding situation changes which means there will be a change only if the main issue, the homelessness changes; These people form the better group out of two bad. These people at least ask and care about what could be done, what could they do, what could the elected officeholders and support-seeking civil organizations do to prevent, cure or aid homeless life. For instance to make homeless shelters a bit more attractive / comfortable / bearable at least for those who are not yet ingrained immovably into the forest- or streetlife.

On the contrary the other bad group of the consolidated plebians – who would choose evident selfishness rather than evident solidarity – can only tone in their self-interest with their self-esteem if they look at the homeless society as something inferior. Because what else could justify that not the bigger problem shall be the bigger? Undeniably the mosquito’s problem is bigger if I slam it than mine if it bites me, however I can certainly kill a mosquito, because I consider myself an out and away valuable creature. For a person like a piece of homeless something is equal to a mosquito. A person like this refuses to accept knowledge of reality that people living on the streets enjoyed life with equal security and welfare and was as sure as rates that he can at no time get in such a miserably situation.

And the story goes on. People who expect to restore universal peace and order in the topic of homelessness by denying and concealing it, the same expectations and manners will apply in all other topics concerning a country or the globe. In the eye of these people not only homeless will be mosquitoes but every poor, starving and diseased, too.

Here’s my first (short) Hungarian post about the biggest snowman.

Ma reggel mi gyerekeink nagyon vidám látni a hó a földön volt. Persze én is. De, szeretnék a nap sütni. Mi kimegytunk játszani a hóban, és kell épitni egy hóhaz és a legnagyobb hóembert a világon. Tavasz fog jönni, és mi kell bejárni a hegyekben minden hétvégen és kirándulni. Nem várhatok!