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Part 12   at the end of the camp and the bicycle excursion, I moved back to Budapest   during the time of the camp, I had become famous, especially because of my unconventional teaching methods which were not always appreciated by adult students   generally, one could say, I lived the life of a student   not much learning but many parties   I really enjoyed my life   x   the country, Hungary, was not rich at that time, communism had just ended and people had to get used to capitalism   during communism they had had to bow to their political superiors, now they had to bow to their economical superiors   during communism everything belonged to the state   now, one would say that the people of a country are the state, however, reality looks different   there is not much difference between a kingdom, a dictatorship or even a democracy   there are always upper classes and lower classes, it’s the upper classes who make decisions and use the wealth of the state   those, who had been in decisive positions during communism, now tried to get a hand on everything what was privatized   x   communism from an economical point of view doesn’t work well, that’s the reason why it broke down   but it gave everybody work, now during capitalism, many people lost their workplace because they couldn’t adjust to the new conditions   these people then looked for scapegoats and found them in foreigners, gypsies, homosexuals, Asians and Africans   and there are always politicians who try to benefit from the distress and hopelessness of the people   during communism, nationalism was nearly forbidden, so the Hungarians didn’t have the opportunity to digest their guilt of the second world war, of having helped to kill half a million Jews and gypsies   but now in capitalism and democracy, they could openly be racists again, and they did so   x   the change went slowly, a bit like a slow avalanche   at the beginning, it was a small part working a bit like a Mafia organization, they made their first money by fraud   then they began to buy company after company   the different churches willingly joined in because they were promised financial support   they praised the old history distorted, great kings and so on   in the end, they came to power, rigged the elections and trampled down everything and everybody which and who was in their way   x   after two years in Hungary, I wanted to learn another language   around this country, there are nearly only Slavonic languages   therefore, I thought it would be the best to learn the mostly used = Russian   of course, I didn’t want to go to Russia but I chose Ukraine   so, I took my dog and bag again and went east   x   I went by train   and when I had crossed the border and then the mountain range of the Carpathian mountains, I got off the train   nearly immediately, still at the station, a policeman asked me where my tourist group was and where I belonged to because under communist rule, one had to ask for permission to leave one’s living place   do they still live under communist rule? – I thought   x   my plan was to go by foot from the north-west corner of Ukraine to the Red Sea   this means around 700 kilometres   most of the rivers in this region lead to the Red Sea   therefore, I decided to follow the running water   x   the official shops in the villages mostly had long empty shelves   only the special shelf for bread was half filled   real business was done on the private or black market   in one of those official shops, I saw three jars at the end of the long shelves   when I got nearer, there were 2 jars with jam and one with meat   I nearly felt ashamed to buy one of these because then, there were only 2 left in the enormous shop   x   on my trip, I came to a bigger village   it was Friday afternoon and I knew I had to buy food because at the weekend every shop would be closed   there was a small shop, loud laughter and shouting could be heard from outside   when I looked inside, I saw 3 elder women drinking vodka and on the table there were sausages, tomatoes, bread, cheese, and other fine food   they saw me and told me that the shop had already closed   I begged them to sell me some food because I didn’t have any food any more   I think one of the women wanted to make a joke with me, the foreigner. she filled a lemonade glass full of vodka and put it in front of me   then, she looked at me and said: Drink!   I had not eaten the whole day and looked a bit worried   again, she pointed at the glass and said: Drink!   so, I took the glass and emptied it in one sip, put the glass down, didn’t breath but immediately ate a piece of tomato   at first, they were totally silent, then they began to laugh even louder than before and one woman put her hand on my shoulder saying: like my son!   I left the shop with a big bag of food which they had given me for free   I walked till the next forest, the vodka had its effect and I fell under a tree totally drunk   I woke up the next morning in the same position     Part 13   Back to list!

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Part 11 the place for the camp was at the edge of a village I went there 2 weeks before the beginning of the camp to organize different things, repair the tents and so on the people in the village did not speak any foreign language and there I began to really learn the local language there was not much in the village, only a little church and many pubs alcohol was and probably, since then has always been the only fun for the inhabitants x I was born in the countryside myself and now saw more or less the same picture, however, in a poorer country binge drinking in another language very proud people, proud of their traditions (drinking before church and after / pardon for my humour) it was already summer and so the adults having grown up there, however, having left for the city for a better life were sending their children to their grandparents so, generally said, there were two kind of people in the village: children and drunken but proud grandparents and then, the children of the richer city people arrived to the camp x one group stayed for 2 weeks, there were 4 groups one after the other, so I stayed in the camp for 2 month schedule of the camp - waking up at 7 a.m. - breakfast at 8 - lessons from 9 till 11 - dinner at 12 - play, sports and other kind of activities till 5 p.m. - lunch at 6 - sitting around the campfire, storytelling, singing there were around 50 children, 5 or 6 teachers, me and my dog probably, the children thought that I was the biggest child x the schedule for the children in the camp looks nice however, it did never really happen like that the children in the camp were on holiday and of course, they didn’t really want to learn it was much more about playing and having fun I don’t think the children really considered me a teacher many years later when I met the children in Budapest, I saw, already on their outfit, that very often in such a 2 weeks camp, I had given them much more than their own parents could being together with them all along the year x the camp was always in summer, everybody walked around in bathing clothes and sprinkling water at each other was the biggest fun in the middle around the fireplace, of course there was no grass anymore one day at around 2 a.m., I took the water hose and went around sprinkling water at everybody the children understood my invitation to have a kind of water battle then they managed to take the water hose away from me therefore, I took some mud from the floor and threw mud the children were delighted and began to throw mud as well I think it was the biggest mud battle in their life I was the biggest child in the camp x I had spent 2 month in the country and not learnt much of the local languages however, in the next 3 month in the camp my knowledge got so much better that in the end, I could read my first book in that language so, while the children learnt German and English, I learnt Hungarian it’s very interesting, people in general look very differently at you if you speak their language even if you are not perfect, however, you try, then, they will always accept you as somebody amongst them x in a distance of 25 kilometres of the village, there is a big lake however, as everything in country is small and they don’t have any exit to the sea, they call their big lake “the Hungarian ocean” twice a week, we took the children to that lake for some sunbathing it wasn’t dangerous as one had to go at least 3 hundred meters into the water to get to one and a half meters of deepness in the lake for me, who had lived near the sea for some time, that lake resembled more to a puddle x at the end of the camp, me and some people decided to have bicycle excursion around the lake we had tents, sleeping bags and of course, my dog therefore, we couldn’t go too fast and too much every day sometimes, we even left our bicycles in a village and went into the hills by foot the whole circle is about 150 kilometres and we needed about 2 weeks for it x on the northern side of the lake, there are many hills, however on the southern side, it’s rather flat first we cycled round the northern part and when we came down to the southern side, one of the girls called out to me: Look! she pointed to something on the northern side however, at that moment, I passed behind a smaller weekend house so I asked her: Where is the hill? and she answered: the hill’s behind the house and so the joke was born in my mind: Hungary is a small country where the hills are behind the house now, some Hungarians are very nationalistic, I would even say chauvinistic, have a feeling of inferiority and therefore didn’t like my joke very much Part 12 Back to list!

Part 10 at that time, there was no internet the Africans trying to get to Europe only knew the northern continent because of the tourists they saw traveling in their country now, I could understand why they all tried to go to Europe I wonder whether they would still have tried to come to Europe had they know what Europe was really like these old cultures, like Europe and Chine or India had something decadent about them for a very long time, nearly 500 years, the Europeans had destroyed every kind of culture in Africa maybe, the future of humanity lies in Africa because they do not have this sort of burden of the past x but why did I go back to Europe and not southwards to black Africa? actually, I didn’t have any more money and must admit that I was not brave enough to go to black Africa without money what one can do in Europe, one can’t do in Africa the lowest living level in Europe is enough to live on with minor trouble but Africa is different, the lowest living level there is only enough to starve of hunger x through all my life, I’ve been criticizing European society and snobbery with all her racism and arrogance nevertheless, European culture is still one of the most tolerant and advanced and there is no other place in the world like Europe, North America or Australia where people can live their inclinations so freely however, can we just lean back saying that it’s much better than elsewhere if we know exactly that it’s still not good enough? X communism in Eastern Europe had just broken down maybe, I could leave Western Europe without leaving Europe? many eastern European people moved to Western Europe to begin a better life but only few people moved from Western Europe to the eastern part of the continent me, I was one of them and when I arrived, they looked at me like at somebody from Mars x my dog, yes, I had a dog at that time it was only a small dog of about 15 kg when I think back, he was my best friend, I’ve never had a better one he, because it was a male dog, didn’t like Northern Africa very much the Arab culture likes the cat but not the dog cats have very important tasks, for example catching mice and rats still today, dogs fulfils the role of pigs in these countries most of them are street dogs and feed on the rubbish they find in the streets x my money was nearly gone and there, I was sitting in front of one of the railway stations in Budapest a young man, younger than me, came around and asked me whether I needed a place for the night I was surprised but agreed to follow him he didn’t live in town but somewhere in the suburbs I told him my story and the next day, he brought me to a commune there had already been 6 people and a cat but only 4 rooms; and me, I was the 7th with a dog x the young people, 5 men, one woman and a male cat, were all students and therefore not very rich, so they needed someone to add a bit to the rental fee to my question what I could do to earn a living, they advised me to go to a language school although I already spoke German, English, French and Spanish, I had never much studied grammar in the past in these Eastern European countries at school, only Russian had been taught but the soviet union had broken down and now, they need to learn Western European languages because of everybody working illegally, the private schools did not ask too much about diplomas, I think they were rather glad to get foreign native speakers at all x of course, I tried to learn the local language, Hungarian, as soon as possible so far, I had always gone to a country and sat down with local people and that way learned the language for the first time, I studied with a book and began to analyse the grammar today, I can say that I learned German and English grammar via analysing the Hungarian language x the life of the students of that flat could be called rather leger they had many parties and took me with them as a kind of attraction having a western European friend was considered something very special at that time and as I was the only one who was really working, I had the most money so mostly I invited them for drinks I must admit we got drunk most of the time but all of them spoke some kind of foreign language, so I didn’t learn much of their local speech this kind of paradise ended after around two month when summer came and one of the language schools sent me to a summer-language-children-camp Part 11 Back to list!