Most British people have some idea where Hungary is but would be hard
put to place it exactly or to tell you much about it. They might know it
has one of Europe's most difficult and "lonely" languages with no
connection to its Germanic or Slavic neighbours and they would
be right. It so happens that I am interested in all countries. Every
year I attend the European Deaf Blind Holiday which in 2008 was held in
Sopron, western Hungary. It was very well organised by the Hungarian
Deafblind Association and I enjoyed it enormously. I gained some good
friends employed or volunteering for the association and I made some
vague noise about perhaps being able to do some voluntary work in
Hungary in the future. I was told that this would be very difficult
because Hungary is a bureaucratic country. In fact it is not
particularly bureaucratic, in my view and by pulling one or two strings
I was able to get a "job" in the city of Debrecen in eastern Hungary
during the winter of 2009 to 2010. Debrecen is the second city of
Hungary and a long way from Budapest which I was pleased about. I was
pleased about this because Budapest does dominate the country.
It was agreed that I would start work at the Feher Bot Alipetveny which
as we all know means the White Cane Foundation in late September 2009.
In fact, events interpose and I was not able to start until 6 November 2009.
Dr Szabo Miklos (in Hungarian they always put the surname first) is
totally blind and the founder and current President of the Foundation.
He made this offer to me; they would provide board and lodging in the
Foundation's main building in Debrecen but could not pay me any salary.
That was ok by me. I would help by encouraging "clients" to learn or
improve their English as part of rehabilitation work. I would also help
the staff if they desired that. So, early on 6 November I took the
National Express bus to Gatwick from Brighton where as always I had a
very speedy passage through all the formalities right up until the
departure lounge. In fact the driver of the coach had arrived at Gatwick a
little early and left his machine and took me right into Gatwick airport
right up to the check-in desk. I do get spoilt rotten but I suppose it
does have something to do with the £50 tips I give! Seriously, I often
send thank you letters to travel providers and I think these are
appreciated. It was a beautiful sunny Autumn day and I was looking
forward to arriving in Budapest at the scheduled time of 1pm as my
friend Marta was waiting for me there at the airport. We all boarded and
we taxied towards the take off and then the aeroplane had to go back to
the terminal block because there had been some bomb scare on the plane.
There was no real problem but an hour was wasted and of course I was an
hour late at Budapest. I arrived at Budapest Terminal 2B which is the
most inconvenient terminal for the Budapest airport railway station. You
have to catch a bus and then mount interminable steps over a main
highway, my suitcase was heavy and Marta is only slightly built. She is
good at egging me on but not so good at carrying things. Hungarian
trains are not the easiest to board especially if you have heavy luggage
because there are several steps up. However, we found a burly man and
his son and they hauled me up into the train and put me into my reserved
seat. It is generally necessary to get a reservation on a long distance
train in Hungary. The only problem for me with that is that if I am
alone I cannot see the numbers of the carriages or the seat numbers. So,
I never know where to wait on the platform. Anyway, as always things
went ok. Hungarian long distance trains are very satisfactory they are
clean comfortable and well lit and I soon found myself sitting next to
an amiable Hungarian woman who turned out to speak good English. She had
been working in London for 2 years but had hardly met any English people
there so she was glad to practise her English on me. The journey to
Debrecen took a bit over 2 hours and it soon became dark. I HATE
DARKNESS and every RP or Usher person will agree. I was going to be met
at Debrecen railway station but even so it is an ordeal for us arriving
at a strange place after dark. I was helped off the train and my
suitcase was taken away from me by whom I did not know. It was actually
by Alex from the Foundation who had come to meet me. It was cold, rainy,
windy and dark and I could not understand any of the people who were
meeting me. Eventually I was bundled into a minibus (I couldn't see
anything) and driven to the Foundation which I was told was only 5
minutes away. It took 20 minutes because of the fiendish 1 way system
and then I found myself walking up a ramp into a kitchen where I was sat
down and given cheese on toast and a bottle of red wine. Nobody else
wanted any of the wine so I downed the whole bottle. I thought this was
all right if I was going to get a bottle of wine every night but that
didn't happen again. I think they wanted me to get a good nights sleep,
which I did.
In the morning I saw that my bedroom was quite nice. It was blue, I was
told, and was of a good size with two large windows overlooking the
court yard in which there was a peach tree. No peaches in November
though. I had a good sized bed, a new wardrobe, a work table, two chairs
and a very efficient gas heater. That was my home for the next 4 months.
I had access to a bathroom with 24 hour piping hot water and also to a
kitchen with all the things you need. I never did any of my own cooking
as people who know me will not be surprised to learn.
I would get up every day at about 7, potter around in the bathroom and
kitchen until I went to the main part of the Foundation next door where
I would begin my daily work at 8. This would consist of lessons to
clients or staff for a few hours in the morning and afternoon. Quite
often I would go to outlying branches of the Foundation in towns some way
from Debrecen where I would give classes. This usually involved staying
overnight in the buildings which I enjoyed. I was also able to go
sometimes on their outreach work visiting and collecting clients. Of
course it was winter and there was often snow on the ground and
Hungarian winters are cold. However, all the buildings are warm, not to
say overheated and my little flat was very cosy for those 4 months.
What I particularly enjoyed doing was visiting some schools in the City.
One was for visually impaired children and was partly a boarding school.
The classes were small and the children very polite and eager to learn.
Hungarian children are quite well-educated and they all had some
knowledge of English but had never spoken to an English person. I had a
lot of fun in those classes especially as my unorthodox methods (we will
say no more!) spread through the school and I had more and more classes
to attend. Some of my pupils were autistic and were extremely
knowledgeable about certain subjects which they were eager to talk
about. They could be a bit taxing. Another school I visited was a
vocational school for children who were going to join the health service
and they had a few visually impaired children in their classes. I
enjoyed that too.
Public transport in Debrecen is good. They have a tram system and I like
trams. They were two types of trams: Old and clanky, new and silent. I
didn't like the latter because I could not hear them coming and nor
could other people. I never went out alone at night when the trams could
be seen coming because they were lit. Incidentally they were very well
lit inside. In the day time, when I often did go out alone and when the
trams were not lit I tended not to hear or see them coming so I always
stayed with the crowd. By the way, all the tram stops are announced and
that is a great help. In Budapest, the tram stops are announced in
Hungarian and English. The bus system is good too and all the stops are
announced automatically. At most street junctions audible announcements
tell you what street you are crossing. There are virtually no
obstructions on the pavements. Something surprised me. They don't seem
to use "articles for the blind" stickers or envelopes. You take your
letter to the post office and tell them they are for blind people. This
seems to be a complicated way of doing things. Also, they no longer seem
to use cassette tapes but CDs and memory sticks. They have the same
problems as we do in older people not wanting to come to terms with
their disabilities and not going out or declining to carry white canes.
Unemployment is a very big social problem in Hungary especially among
blind people who are generally not expected to work. The State does
subsidise organisations that employ disabled people but usually disabled
people do not work. Travel is quite good for blind people because there
is a 90 percent discount on all public transport including the Budapest
Metro. Public transport is free for all people over 65 - not that I can
imagine being over 65.
Debrecen is in the Great Hungarian Plain and the land is really, really
flat. In the Summer because the land is so flat there are mirages as
there are in the desert where you can see pools of water that do not
exist. The land is extremely fertile and is considered to be the best in
Europe and until the great changes of 1989 the area was one vast fruit
field but their main markets, the Comecom countries have shrunk. The
health system is still good although it has been partly privatised.
Education is good by our standards although the older Hungarians
complain about it. The population has shrunk from 11 million to 10
million in the last decade or so because of emigration and the lower
birth rate among indigenous Hungarians. There is a lot of conflict in
the country between what we have to call Roma and the Hungarians and
this is not swept under the carpet. Hungarians are quite elegantly
dressed and compared to us are homogeneous. Nearly everyone has very
dark brown hair, brown eyes and very fair skin. The language is supposed
to be connected to Finnish but I did not find that to be the case and I
have lived in Finland for a year. The people are reserved and polite and
there appears to be no underclass of very poor people such as you find
in the UK. By our standards the people, especially the children, are
overdressed. Because Hungarian is such a unique language English is
widely understood by younger people although they are shy to speak it.
I was due to stay in Debrecen for a probationary period of 4 or 5
months. Everything was quite satisfactory and they were pleased with me
but my classes of adults slowly shrank. I discussed this with Dr Szabo.
The problem was that it is very difficult for ordinary Hungarians to
learn English without formal English lessons ie by mere conversations
with an English person. The structure of Hungarian is quite different
from all other European languages. We decided that the best way to help
Hungarians learn English is tuition by an English speaking Hungarian
backed up by a conversation with an English person. It was decided that
I would return to England in March and perhaps come back another time.
So I did that.
I am returning to Hungary in June partly to attend the wedding of a very
good friend I made in Debrecen and also to see eastern Hungary in the
summer. I am also going to visit the city of Pecs in southern Hungary
where there is a blind school that is eager for me to do some voluntary
work there. I am very keen to encourage cooperation by organisations of
and for people with sensory problems and I am an active member of the
World Federation of Deafblind People. I do hope to visit and perhaps
work in other countries in future years and I will write about my
experiences. I took many photos while I was in Debrecen and you can see
them on my Flickr Photo Gallery by going to this site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hova/
These photos need to be weeded out and I will try and get around to
weeding them. I was not able to make contributions to my blog while I
was in Hungary because it was difficult to find someone whose English
was good enough for me to dictate to. You could say that I should type
myself and you are quite right. In England I am spoilt rotten by having
readers but I realise I must become more self sufficient.
