Eurojournal - 12 July 2006 (a bit lengthy-4 days worth of fun!)

We are adjusting to the village well taking in everything, thus the first chance I had to journal. Today we went for a hike up the hills to see the cows in the pasture. With picnic supplies in hand, Luna and Byron left before us on their own adventure for the day. James, Liam and I left later in hopes of crossing paths with them. We passed the lakes and headed uphill only to meet a very dark storm cloud. Every afternoon since we have been here there is some rain followed by clearing. We negotiated with Liam to turn around if we felt raindrops because it was a ways back home. He wanted to go further as we were so close to the cows. The dark cloud was getting closer and we were feeling some raindrops. We headed back home. The cloud quickly crept upon us and we were soaked in minutes. Fortunately it was warm. Liam thought it was funny at first until after a few winds and a long walk at which he was very tired of it. We kept a positive attitude and did silly things in the rain to keep his spirits up. He was pretty frustrated at this point. We wondered where Byron and Luna were. I had made it very clear to them to make sure they came home to avoid any rain. But would Byron figure it out? We sure didn’t! We arrived home and the gate was unlocked – a sign that Byron and Luna were in fact home. We ran into the mud room and immediately stripped down. A dry Luna greeted us. There was no electricity. We think the village disconnects it before a storm. We had a relaxing afternoon playing poker and go fish. Luna and Byron are regulars at poker now. The electricity returned and it was time to make dinner.

Later Eva dropped by and we had some vegan cake that the children and Imade yesterday. She said that she went to order us some more bread at the village store but we had already done it and the store owners were impressed with how much the “Americans” could speak Hungarian. That would be James. After she left, Esther Neni dropped by. Somehow we can communicate despite the language barrier. She dropped off some kindling for the water heater. She saw James washing clothes and said something in Hungarian like “A priest should not be doing laundry!” and said something about a wash machine pointing to a place in the bathroom. We have no washer and have been handwashing our clothes and line drying them. Everyone in Europe line dries the clothes but the handwashing is not so common. We also have a wood fired water heater. Yep, we get to start a fire anytime we want hot water to shower. I am getting accustomed to cold showers as of late. The kids get the warm baths and showers. It’s not too bad though. If we had a hurried life like we did at home it would be bad but life is very relaxed here so waiting for our clothes to dry or heating the water is no big deal. Our big errand today was walking a block to the store and picking up our bread we ordered last night which by the way only cost a total of 4 RON (less than 2 dollars) for 2 loaves of fresh bread. I wait for the cows to come home in the evening and love hearing the sheep in the morning. We have geese outside the kitchen window. The children are building a town out of dirt in the garden and building a wall out of bricks they found. If I actually knew Hungarian or we were in this exact village with English (or French or Spanish) speakers I think I’d want to stay.

On Sunday, we attended the Unitarian church service. Csaba had James sit next to him while he did most of his sermon. It was like no other service I have attended and definitely nothing like UU services in the states. Eva schooled me on where I need to sit with the children. The men sit on one side of the church while the women and children sit on the other. The minister’s family sits in the front row if the children can be quiet. Otherwise they sit in the back as the service is very quiet. Oh dear, now here’s a challenge. Luna and Liam have never sat through 1 hour of a service. At home they sit through 10 minutes with a lot of wrestling to be quiet and then go off to the park with the children. So I had a long talk with them and talked up sitting in the front row where they could see Daddy and Csaba and how col it will be to see Csaba in that little pulpit above them. They promised to be quiet and still. Luna did a fabulous job and even sat up straight. Liam was very quiet but a bit squirmy so we held hands most of the time. Csaba introduced us to the congregation and had us come up front. We received 2 bouquets of flowers from the congregation welcoming us. Eva played the pipe organ ( a really big pipe organ) and sang with the voice of an angel. She is pregnant with their second child and I can’t help but think about how much of a positive effect her singing will have on baby’s brain development. Csaba also sang with a very intense beautiful depth. He wears a black cape/robe for the sermon and speaks from the raised pulpit. James will do the sermon next week. I wonder if he will wear the robe.

Later we had lunch at Csaba’s. Eva made a scrumptious 2 course lunch with veggie soup, salad and rice and mushrooms. The mushrooms looked like crimini. They were yummy. The first day we were here, the villagers and Eva made this multi course feast for us. All vegetarian but all cheese and eggs. We didn’t know what to do other than, *gulp* eat it. I ate the eggs and loved it in the moment. I justified to myself that they were free range and organic and no one died for them and most important, it was worse to be insensitive to an entire village’s kindness. However, I could not encourage the little ones to eat as I would be either deceiving them or creating confusion for them. They only wanted bread anyway so it was a mute point. In the moment I thought I would only do eggs (I didn’t much care for the cheese) in the village. Later I felt very sick and spiritually I felt really awful. Not guilty but completely out of balance. It was painful enough psychically and physically to recommit to not doing this again. Eva had asked what we liked and disliked and since then everything has been vegan and absolutely divine!

Monday we went to the bigger town, Szeklyudvarhely to get groceries and supplies and 2 other villages to get the rest of our luggage. Two people offered to take some of our luggage from Cluj as they would not all fit in Csaba’s car. Liam and Byron stayed behind. Luna came with us. It was nice to have some time with just Luna. Szeklyudvarhely is a very quaint town of about 34,000 people. We got most of our groceries and kitchen supplies, even TVP (texturized soy protein-fake meat product). We still need a source for soymilk. We went to the farmer’s market and got lots of produce for next to nothing. It went fast as Csaba kindly translated for us. We came home and prepared our first meal. It was so nice to cook our own food! We had pasta with fresh sauce from the tomatoes and TVP we bought that day. All 5 of us were so happy.

On the drive back from our excursion we passed a sweatshop. Csaba said they made clothes for a very aggressive German company. I asked if it was a sweatshop and he said it was. According to him, the workers work 10-12 hour days and take home $100 per month. The conditions are poor and the company is ruthless. It was surreal driving past it. I have been thinking a lot lately about how close we are to things here and how isolated we are in the states. While sweatshops definitely exist in the states, even in San Francisco, they aren’t obvious to me. This one here was so obvious. With regards to how close things are here, I was reading last week about women and the war between Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia over a decade ago specifically about the ethnic cleansing by means of widespread rape and impregnation. I had this visceral reaction as Serbia is one country over from us. I could easily hop a train and go there and wonder if the children around Byron’s age I come across are products of the ethnic cleansing. Quite the eye opener.

On a different topic, here it is an agrarian society. Families go out every day and farm and return home. Most everyone grows their own food. It is self sustaining. People work very hard here. The church is the center of it all as we have villages lined up along the road only a few kilometers from each other. When we hiked up the hill yesterday we could see 6 villages all with the church steeples almost in a line. James and I were talking about what has happened elsewhere. The corporations force family farmers out essentially destroying the family farm. That is what has happened in the states and man other places in the world. The soil here is rich and the land is beautiful. All of the food is naturally organic as no one here sprays. If a multinational corporation gets a hold of this place the villages will no longer be able to sustain as farmers could be forced to sell to corporations and people are forced to buy from the corporations. That would be the end of the village, the end to the church. I would like to think that it won’t happen here.

On Tuesday we had a relaxing day. We ordered some bread from the village store and went for a hike in the hills. We passed some of the most beautiful wildflowers I have ever seen. Liam savored every bit of it by pointing out some flowers with amazing colors. There is a lot of Yarrow, Calendula, Milk Thistle and Queen Anne’s Lace. There is also a lot of plants I have never seen. I wish I had my herb guide. We saw where the cows go to pasture. We also saw some sheep in the distance with a shepherd. At the top of the hill we could see 6 villages in a row and our little yellow house in the midst of our village. We have this very bright yellow house, the only one in the village and you can’t miss it! We passed some farmers on their way back from harvesting hay. The children loved saying good day to them “Jo napote!” I am fascinated by how they get these enormous stacks of hay on their carts. One person drives the horses while another stands on top of the hay in the wagon with a pitchfork holding it in place. The stacks are about 10 feet from the ground. We headed back to the house in hopes of meting with the cows on their way home. We made it home first and a few minutes later we heard them outside the gate. We went out to greet them and watched them come in. One lives next door to us (apparently the one that moo’d and woke up Luna too early one morning). They come back and wait outside their house. The person lets them in.