Sietve távozzál!

Sieve távozzál, de csak ha a sínek közé estél, vagy magadtól mentél oda. De előbb: hol voltam kirándulni.
Egy helyen, ahol a helyiek azt tapasztalták, sok ember szemetel, kivéve az "endes" emberek.

Az ilyen helyekre, ahol mások szemetelnek, de én nem, általában autóval jutok el, mert a vonatközlekedés mifelénk nehézkes. A MÁV többnyire a peronra celluxozott cetlikkel próbálja frissíteni a menetrendet, és közölni egyéb információt, tőle telhető udvariassággal. Ennyire tellik nekik:

Gyakran nehéz eldönteni, mihez képest módosítják a menetrendet, és hogy mikor is figyeljem az állomáson kifüggesztett cetliket.

Ehhez képest az autós közlekedés stresszmentes, még az olyan környéken is, ahol nagy a veszélye, hogy elvetemült turisták szarvasokat csiklandoznak, és a megvadult állatok az autó elé vetik magukat.

Egy zarándokot persze még egy megcsiklandozott szarvas sem állíthat meg, ha Szent Mázához igyekszik. Én nem nézem az RTL klubbot, úgyhogy nem ismerem meg, ha szembejön velem a tiszteletreméltó gyógyító

Visszatérve az utazásra, a MÁVnak nem volt mindig ilyen rossz a modora, amint arról az alábbi tábla tudósít.

4.

Vörösmarty Mihály, picture made by unknown author

Daydreaming perverts life. Is it true? I think it is a stupid sentence, and the poet, who they say the quote is from, has never written such a vulgar idea.

I started collecting quotes in 2009, in the United States. You can collect quotes for many reasons. School teachers usually pick up quotes to use them for teaching, or for using them to demonstrate their literacy. My reason is personal, and I was inspired by Chinese fortune cake.

It happened in Nashua, we went for a walk after diner, which was unusual there, as I understood later. As I experienced, most American people don't like walking at all, and there were no pavements in the town, except in downtown and around malls.

Anyway, Nashua people told us that Nashua was the most boring town of the world. Perhaps, because they experienced it from their cars.

As I was not accustomed to the constant chili wind, I soon began to feel cold, and we went into the closest place to drink something hot. It was a Chinese restaurant, where they didn't really understand why we wanted to drink only a tea and a coffee, and not to eat something. They were kind, and gave us fortune cake. I like this cake, because it makes you feel as if the quote which is in it is personally for you. Otherwise, I don't remember the quote I got at that time. But I remember well the one I found in a candy, Dove Promises. “If you can dream it, you can do it.”

At that very moment I summarized my experience about socialization and training of young people in my country. Schools and adults in our society make children forget their dreams and force them to forget daydreaming at all. That is why a lot of people don't even dare to use imagination and make plans about what he would like to be or to do. Hungarian schools have a poem of Mihály Vörösmarty in curriculum, which is a must to learn for every pupil. Two lines from it are often quoted. “Ábrándozás az élet megrontója, Mely, kancsalúl, festett egekbe néz.” (A merengőhöz, 1843) “Daydreaming, which looks into painted skyes squintly, deteriorates/perverts life.” Adults teach children that these lines means that you will be unhappy if you daydream. But this is a sloppy interpretation of this text, and as such, it can merely teach young children that adults are unable to read a poem profusely. But an adult is an authority for a child here, and not a partner in most of the time. So if a child observes that there is a more precise meaning in these lines, he is usually punished.

Vörösmarty lived in our neighbor village in the 19^th century. Anyway, he retired to the country from social life, because he was disappointed with Hungarian politicians. Most of his co-workers forgot even that he had ever been on Earth. Now they use his great poems to make young children hate literature and to drive this fact home: you have no future, and don't even dream about it.

3.

I was threatened with a gun twice in my life. First, when I visited my parents' house in 1998, I went for a walk with one of my friends. I had just been about to leave for Budapest, and I decided to take a walk before sitting on the bus for two hours. I just went to a near place, where there was a little pine wood. I knew that place well, as there stood the kindergarten what I attended as a child.

A soldier with a gun ran towards us, shouting we should stop. We stopped, and we were captured. He informed us that the site belonged to the Hungarian Army, and we were forbidden from the territory. Otherwise, there was not any sign or barrier which said it was a restricted area, and it was in the town, between two residential areas, from 15 minutes walk from downtown. We didn't have an identity card with us, so were unable to satisfy his require for justifying our address. But it would be in vain as my parents were those who were inhabitants of that town, and not me.

As the soldier kept threatening us with the gun, I was forced to believe that he is a real soldier. He accompanied us to a watch tower, and ordered us to knee. Meanwhile it was raining slightly, and I asked him if he could refrain from this. He told me this is the rule.

– I am a sharpshooter, you are lucky you stopped. Anyway, I was not on a holiday for ages, I think I will get some days for you. Okay, stay standing, but show a really intimidated face when the patrol arrives.

Then he marched up to the watch tower to make a phone call. In ten minutes a patrol arrived and we couldn't give them any more information about ourselves that we had already given to our soldier, that we were walking around here because here stood my former kindergarten. They knew this was true, there was a kindergarten here in the 80's. They ordered us to go forward and leave the restricted area with their accompaniment. We got the civil town in 3 minutes and they let us free. I took my bus to Budapest in time.

What was this eager presence of army in such an insignificant town for? Inhabitants guess the gold holdings of the country is kept in this town, in a natural cave inside a rock. As for me, I don't think any country can be so stupid to store it's whole golden property in a single place. And I would be surprised if my country still had any significant gold holdings remain. I guess the state owns some valuable artifacts, but, honestly, I wouldn't be even slightly surprised if they had been already sold including the Hungarian Crown, and merely a fake one would be displayed. Anyway, my country is usually careless about artifacts and artists. Gedeon Gerlóczy, who rescued the works of the painter genius, Csontváry Kosztka Tivadar, from being sold as cart covers, told that after he had lent the Hungarian state some of Csontváry's paintings for an exhibition, the pictures were never returned to him.

The presence of the Soviet Army was also strong in the town when I was a young girl. As we lived quite close to the barrack of “Russian soldiers” (as we called them), my grandmother never let me go alone anywhere, because she had a fear I would be raped. She strongly taught me to run away immediately if I saw a Russian soldier. She herself took much more risk. If some Russian soldiers approached her house, she immediately locked the garden gate, shouted them 'Go home!' in Russian. She completed this vocal action with threatening the soldiers with a hoe or rake she just had in hand, or throwing a stone towards them. Then she rushed into the house and locked the door. She was the wife of a revolutionist, and she could never forget the Soviet Army ruined the Revolution of in 1956. She was not a woman of theories. She simply was angry because she felt sorry for his husband's achievements, and hated to have been under terror and having been chased for almost all of her life.

2.

Marco N., Italian mariner inspired me to write this text.

Nothing romantic. He is the boyfriend of my most precious amiga. And don't imagine a mariner in a navy blue stripped shirt. It is not the time of romance nowadays. He is a second officer in a cruise liner.

We happened to meet in three on a summer weekday when he visited here from Italy. We spoke English in order to make him comfortable, and I realized that my English was eroded. I stayed a while in the US three years ago and I had graduated from an English faculty grammar school, but at that summer day I realized that this country kills my intelligence. It kills not only my English, but destroys my intelligence, my education and my literacy that I had to get with much effort.

This can seem to be exaggeration. But I had to realize that something happens in my home country, something that poisons the air and the mind of people living here. I feel sorry for my homeland, as I was born and lived here all my life.

I live isolated in a village near to the capital which is the only real city in this country. I have lived in the capital for 10 years, together with 2 million other people. This amount is the 5% of the whole population of the country. But then I chose isolation, what I call an inner immigration now. I live isolated from any people, I keep in touch with just some close friends. It can seem to be foolishness or eccentricity, but it is not so. I felt that I didn't want to be involved in something I don't like. And I don't like those processes which take place in today Hungary.

Even if I live isolated, I experience a lot of events. There are shocking, weird ones, but there are joyful, exciting, inspiring ones as well. Living in Hungary, and living anywhere in the Earth can be extremely exciting and joyful, if you are not starving, not ill and you are not tortured. I determined my mind to write this diary and memoir in order to open a window to our Balkan country which is part of the European Union. So all of my experiences are in the EU, and in present, 2012.

"The Balkans begin at the Rennweg," Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor said about 150 years ago. We will see.

Diary of a writer from the West Balkan, EU, 2012, Chapter 1.

"The Balkans begin at the Rennweg"

Klemens von Metternich, Austrian Chancellor (1773 – 1859)

1.

'If you don't want to be shot, I advise you not to come here, especially when it is hunting season', the man in the western leather hat told us. 'They hunt for tourists. I know the gang well. Believe me, they are rarely sober', he continued and seemed to be in good mood towards us.

In fact, we were not tourists. We were a couple with two dogs from the nearby village and came to see the ruins of the abbey on a Sunday evening. The countryside where the abbey stood was a former mining area, the pits hadn't been in use for ages but have caused a lot of accidents falling in.