First of all, it's a family affair. I'm here with Emese's husband's ex-wife's mother (haha!), her other daughter and boyfriend and two little girls, a friend of Gyuri's and two ex-volunteer and one of their girlfriends. One guy lived in Canada for a few years, and his Canadian and my American are similar, so we're able to communicate :) (i joke, i joke!)
Anyway, this could be taken as a very racial thing, but I assure you that I mean nothing racial: i cannot get these guys to work. First, we took a break yesterday because the guys needed beer. Then after lunch, Gyuri called to tell us it was too hot to work (it's about 85* here). Then in the evening, it was still too hot to work and they're a little upset about a money situation.
Everyone else here is Roma. So, one of the things I'm faced with is the fact that Gadje (non-Roma) expect them to not want to work. So, if I am trying to get them to work, it MAY appear to them that I think less of them for not working (it may also appear to them that I'm just crazy and they'd be more correct... but not being able to completely communicate means my actions DO speak louder than my words). Last night a few of them stayed up a little late and it's now noon and I haven't seen three of them yet. Hmmm...
However, they also have the knowledge of the time frame we have - we have a week. With this many people, it's completely possible to have gotten everything done in 3 days (if anyone were in 'slave driver' mode). However, in this heat (which is really NOT that bad), they feel it necessary to take it easy for a few days. Oh well, the work WILL get done, because when we did work yesterday, we worked hard.
This has already been a great cultural experience. There are young people my age here, which is great - haven't met many Roma that are at the same "place" in their lives. They keep commenting on how great my Hungarian is after only 10 months (just wait until they meet Simon on Friday or Saturday - they'll be blown away!). They also asked the questions that I love being asked: "What do you think of gypsies?" and "Why are you working with Roma?"
Answering in Hungarian is a bit hard, but once I find some words I can use, it's easy to convey my thoughts and feelings to them. Sun up to late night, I am using only Hungarian and it's easy to see how those in a completely Hungarian environment have come so far this year. I don't regret living in Budapest as it's been a great time, but I am sad that I haven't learned to really speak in Hungarian (although I truly do understand about 90-95% of what people say).
Anyway, it's almost lunch time and I would like to go back out into the sunshine. Have a great day!
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Horses took over Budapest at the Nemzeti Vagta (National Gallop!) It's kinda like the Kentucky Derby... only better costumes for the riders, less costumes for the audience. Oh! and if you want to watch, it's free to stand.
sorry about the terrible photo quality... I haven't written about this, but one of my technological injuries has been to my camera. Riding the trollibusz home from the homeless shelter earlier this year, I was greeted by a big, drunk, angry man who proceeded to push a few lucky people while trying to get on the bus. I had my camera (in it's protective case, even!) in my pocket and I was pushed so that my thigh hit a bar HARD. My leg hurt a lot, so I was worried to take my camera out and look. Well, it still works (obviously), but I can't really see the screen. The best part is that it doesn't have a manual viewfinder so my camera has literally become a "point and click" and hope. When I put my card in the computer, things either look amazing or like crap. This even, unfortunately, it was the latter. Oh well.
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