Baha'i activities (part I): a reflection gathering

Although I'm having a great time in Hungary, it's about time that I share some photos and thoughts about the true reason that I'm here: to assist the Baha'i community in Debrecen.  What is the Baha'i community of Debrecen trying to do, such that it needs assistance, you may ask?  All over the world, Baha'is are involved in "a process that seeks to raise capacity withing a population to take charge of its own spiritual, social and intellectual development."  If you haven't seen it already, it may be worth going back to a post called "community building" which gives a bit of background on the types of activities Baha'is try to help initiate towards these lofty goals.

Unfortunately, I often forget to take photographs when I'm at Baha'i events.  But I do have a few.  Let's start with a reflection gathering that happened a couple weeks ago here in the Debrecen Baha'i Centre where I'm staying.  This type of meeting happens usually every three months.  As the name implies, we gather together and reflect on the activities in the area and try to determine our immediate steps forward.

me and some of my Baha'i friends at our reflection meeting

At this type of meeting we usually share stories, reflect on experiences, and consult about future activities.  This time, we also studied some guidance from the Universal House of Justice, which is the supreme Institution for the Baha'is.   (Click here for more info about the Universal House of Justice.)
It was exciting for us to have Baha'is visiting from another part of the country, to help us with our study and to help put things into perspective in the whole country.  Most of the meeting was bilingual for the visitors like me.

more friends at the same meeting

We heard an exciting announcement at this meeting: Dan and Jeane, two pioneers from the States, held up their passports and displayed their new three year visas!  I'm only staying for three months, but these two are here for the long haul!

an exciting announcement

Congratulations Dan and Jeane!

Halloween

Okay, this post is obviously way overdue.  I don't think I have much to say, but there are some pictures to share.  In Hungary they don't do Halloween.  I did see some of the younger generation dressed up for parties, but only a few. Instead, they have the much more serious Day of the Dead, which I've documented extensively already.  But the American Corner here wanted to bring some essence of Halloween to Debrecen.  I'll let you decide if they captured it successfully, judging as best as you can from my photos and some I borrowed from the American Corner facebook page.

the beautiful hall

the judges

one team of my friends: Bori, Kitti (best original costume: Anne Hall), Meghan, and Anna

unconventional tools, very gruesome!

the doctors (they won best team costume!)

more friends: Veronika and Ancsa

the final contestants

one of the top prize winners

yay, Ancsa and Veronika won a prize! (No favoritism, let's hope...)

the whole group!

For more images feel free to visit the American Corner facebook Halloween album at:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=320554&id=38289193271

There isn't much for me to say about this event.  It was well done, and a lot of fun.  The responsibility as a judge was actually a bit heavy for me, but I survived.  There were lots of categories and plenty of prizes, so I didn't get any death threats for accusations of favoritism, although some of friends must have been wondering...

wildlife (part II)

A few posts ago you may have read my first entry about wildlife.  Well, I've seen a few things since, and want to include them for you here:

Now this first shot is a bit of a stretch, in terms of wildlife.  But I needed to put this photo somewhere because I think it shows the striking clash of the two worlds in Vecses, and perhaps in much of Hungary.  The beautiful, reliable old-school horse and wagon being overtaken by the modern auto.  It may interest some non-Hungarian readers that one of the few words in English that came from Hungarian is "coach" from the word "kocsi" (co-chee) which is a carriage, produced and exported from Hungary a very long time ago. Apparently they were sent as presents to royalty around Europe.  In Hungarian it's now also another word for car.  The pink house is my grandma's niece's place, where my grandma is currently staying.

classic Vecses scene

Let's get the iffy wildlife over with first.  Here is a pet rabbit at another relative's place.  Darn, I forget its name and gender.  Anyway, they were trying to prove to me that it has eyes.  (By the way, did you know that you can click on images to expand them?  Try it and see the one eye!  No doubt there's another eye on the other side.)

Csaba, Szilvia, & one-eyed rabbit

And I know pigeons are a bit of a stretch too, but I was mildly excited to see a pigeon coop in Vecses. (Hungarians: I know the second "e" in Vecses should have an accent, but I don't have a Hungarian keyboard  so it's just too hard to get it in.  I don't think this will devastate the Vecses tourism industry!  Everyone else: it's pronounced vech-eysh.)

Vecsesi pigeon coop

Vecsesi pigeons from that coop

I was excited to hear and then see a woodpecker in the front yard in Vecses!  I had to hang out the kitchen window to capture it.  This is only one out of about 30 awful photos of it:

woodpecker

young pigeons on my balcony, moments before a forced fledge

In case anyone was curious about the baby pigeons on my balcony in Debrecen, the good news is that they fledged from their nest recently!  The bad news is that I opened the door to get a better photo of them and really startled them, causing what I think was an early first flight, forcing them to flap desperately for the roof across the street!  Sorry little guys.  Don't you realize I'm the one who put those crumbs on the balcony for you?





Here's a billboard we stumbled upon in the "DEBRECEN GREAT FOREST" as the title says.  The next phrase has something to do with natural blah blah.  Hungarians, please feel free and encouraged, to comment with translations and corrections!

great forest nature billboard

I went to Veszprem recently (accent on the second "e", so it sounds like ves-pray m.) Near Veszprem is the great lake Balaton, apparently the largest lake in Europe.  Poor Europe, which in its entirety probably fits inside our great lakes in Canada, which are just a few of hundreds of giant lakes. Regardless, the Balaton is plenty beautiful and I had perfect weather there for scampering in the icy water and strolling and reminiscing. (Many years ago I lived for one year in Balatonalmadi where I taught Physics for the first time; yes, in English.)

water fowl in the Balaton

As you can imagine, by November the Balaton is very chilly.  It beckoned me into it, but I didn't bring a bathing suit (which hasn't stopped me in the past!) and I had the feeling that if I went all the way in, I wouldn't be able to get out and they would discover my popsicle body frozen in an awkward embarrassing half diving pose. Instead I just waded in a bit, the icy water burning my feet such that I could only stay a minute or two, then jump out and shake them and say "ooouuu ouuu ooou" really loud or if a Hungarian was passing I'd switch to the more understandable "huuuuu haaa, huuuu ha, huu ha!"

clams in the Balaton

I can't claim the fame of discovering this little gem in cedar shrub; a couple were on their knees taking macro photos of a shrub, so I had to see what was up.  There was a similar snake in the shrub on the left.

I have no idea what kind of snake this is; but it's pretty!

another nature billboard, this one at lake Balaton

On my way back on a bus, I spotted a pretty fox, laid out lengthwise on the side of the road.  Since it was somehow still graceful there, I thought, only for an instant, that it was sleeping; but it was obviously road-kill. It brought me back in my mind to an encounter I had with a fox in Germany: I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the lawn under the stars beside a castle in Heidelberg when I was suddenly awoken by the feeling of being dragged by my feet.  Well, just one foot.  When I gained full consciousness, but couldn't believe that I had, I saw a fox and realized he was clamped onto my foot through the sleeping bag, painlessly.  And he was struggling to drag me into the black forest.  I know it wasn't a dream.  I made a pathetic cry aloud, in shock and he jumped back, still facing me, staring me down for a few moments.  I reached for my bag with my camera in it and he scampered off into the forest. I got a dark blurry picture in which can be seen a distant, tiny, faint rusty blur.

Seeing this dead fox on the side of the road in Hungary and reminiscing about my past encounter in Germany inspired me to write a poem during my bus ride back to Budapest.  I'm too insecure to include it here.  It might be a masterpiece, but more than likely it's crap. It's only the second poem I've written (as far as I can recall) and this is the only one I actually like.

Back in Debrecen one evening I had what was to me a mystical experience with an animal.  I was strolling downtown in the pedestrian square and heard the beeping of a bank machine as I passed someone doing a transaction.  Then I detected another layer of sound on top of that, something strikingly beautiful.  I circled around, perhaps a bit too close to the guy making his withdrawal, and saw him nervously look over his shoulder a couple times.  Finally I located the source of the sound: a smallish black bird in a small tree above me.  I could be wrong, but it seemed to be communicating with the bank machine beeps.  The guy scurried off with his cash and the machine fell silent, and so did the bird.  I whistled something short and random, and the bird seemed to immediately reply with a tune slightly more complex.  I tried to match it.  The bird added some impossibly complex gurgles and lengthened our duet.  This repeated three times, us taking turns, until the bird perhaps became bored and blew me away with a one minute symphony that I could never believe a single bird could achieve, if I didn't see it with my own eyes and hear it with my own ears!  Then it fell silent, its victory utterly obvious, and I strolled off, defeated by orders of magnitude, but delighted by the exchange.

In the last post about wildlife, I guessed that this black and grey bird was a magpie.  I've seen magpies in Australia but forgot that they are pitch black and snow white, not grey like these birds I see around here.  Thanks to Kitti for suggesting that it's a hooded crow, common in eastern Europe.  I double-checked and she's right.  Since then I saw a lot of magpies in the cemetery in Budapest after the Day of the Dead, no doubt rummaging around and finding lots of shiny objects to steal such as the lids to the contained candles.  They're clever and shy and so I never got close enough for a clear photo.

But these hooded crows are clever too!  At the same cemetery I kept hearing a loud, hollow clunk every couple minutes.  I followed the sound and found a hooded crow pecking at something on a marble patio in front of a tall structure in the centre of the cemetery. I saw that it looked like a walnut.  From a distance I watched the crow pick it up, fly to the top of the building, and drop it onto the marble slab below with a loud clunk.  Then he would fly down and see if it split sufficiently to get the contents out.  I approached to get a photo but it got spooked and flew off.  I felt bad because the cracked walnut was left behind.  Although I was hungry, no, I didn't eat it.

Here's the guy again who caught the pike.  In the close-up you can see that he's even more shocked than I was to see what looks exactly like a northern pike in Hungary.  It could be a musky but without the stripes or spots it's hard to tell.

It begs so many questions: how did he catch it? Why is he fishing naked? Why is he in a cemetery?

Ya, I know, this is really morbid.  But it really fascinated me to see that a crow died and didn't even make it to the ground.  Sorry if it bothers some.  It's just part of the cycle of life.  There's a lot of mosquitoes here and back home this could be a sign of the West Nile virus (we're told to report sightings of dead birds, and I think especially crows for some reason.)  Now I wonder if the West Nile virus is in Hungary, and if so, if I'm the only one who has considered that!

But to be honest, considering the multitude of crows that I later saw, the chances of seeing a dead one must be fairly high.  Apparently hoards of crows collect in Hungary this time of year from all over eastern Europe.  I was waiting for a bus for a while, to take me back to town from the big cemetery in Debrecen, and noticed how scores of crows where passing overhead.  After a while I realized that I unconsciously viewed dozens of large groups go by and became conscious that it would add up to a lot of crows!  Just as the bus was finally arriving, I beheld a giant whirl-wind funnel of crows over the cemetery across the street.  My jaw dropped and I staggered across the road toward the cemetery, oblivious to the fact that my bus had at long last arrived.

Unfortunately, once again, by the time I got closer, regained my presence of mind, drew out my camera and turned it on, they began to disband and settle into the trees.  Notice all the trees behind the cemetery building in the photo below, weighed down with dozens of crows.

Breath-taking or creepy?  It seems superstitious to find it creepy.  I do admit that if I was directly under such a volume of birds, I might find the high probability of getting splattered with some messy fallout rather creepy, indeed.

Day of the Dead (part III): visiting my grandpa's grave

It is understandable if people begin to worry about me, dwelling at such length on this theme.  I can assure everyone that I'm in a very healthy mental state, and enjoying life to the fullest.  The dead, no doubt, can help us with that. There is just so much beauty and wonder to be found in these cemeteries; I'm excited to soon share some awe inspiring experiences with crows in a future post: wildlife part II! 

But for now I'm streaming a somafm station called "Doomed: dark music for tortured souls", just to get me into the mood!  I thought of saving such music for writing about my halloween post, but it wasn't spooky either, and my soul just remains inspired, rather than tortured. (Okay, they were just playing a John Carpenter track with a lot of horror film screaming, so I switched to "Lush", a mellow and sensuous station.)

So on the actual evening of Day of the Dead, I traveled to Vecses, where my grandmother is visiting from Canada and where my grandfather decided he should be buried, at great expense, although he passed away in Canada.  It doesn't make it easy for my grandmother to visit him, that's for sure.

Vecses' cemetery, just outside of Budapest

We arrived at twilight, my favourite time of day (and perhaps least favourite movie series.)  You can get a sense of the beautiful vista I beheld at that time, shown above.  Without a tripod or professional camera, these ultra-low light photos were quite challenging.

Entering the cemetery was quite the experience too.  One thing that I didn't capture in my photos is the enormous crowd that was there: hundreds of families dressed up but mostly in black, carrying candles and flowers and wreaths.  We approached in a car, me in the back, my grandmother in the front, and Marika, my cousin and my grandmother's niece, driving.  There was no parking anywhere.  We went, with much difficulty through the monstrous crowds, to the front gate where a police officer was shaking his head and waving his arms in a clear "no way!" signal.  Marika put down her window and pleaded with him, stating honestly that my grandmother can't walk much at all.  My astonishment just grew as we entered the cemetery in the little car, the crowd gradually parting around us.  It became clear to me that this was the only car inside the cemetery gates.  Crawling at a slow walking pace, our headlights lit up myriad faces, all wide eyes and frowns, as they scurried between gravestones to let us through.  Although I wouldn't know anyone there, I nevertheless felt the need to crouch down in the back seat and hide. 

Peeking out the window, the spectacle of ornamentation drew me into the mystery of this time of year once again.

We pulled over behind a big trash bin filled with flower stems, near my grandpa's resting place.  If you look carefully at the photo below, you can see Marika placing a candle on the grave, on its left side, and my grandmother is a dark figure on the far left.

my Grandfather's grave, Ujfalussy Laszlo

I had no idea what would happen here. Marika tidied up the grave, re-lit some candles, and replaced some that had wept all their wax away already.  I helped, and tried my best to capture the moment on film.  Then we stood.  And stared.  Stood and occasionally shook off a mild chill. No words.  When you don't know what to do, or what's happening, it can be quite awkward, which it was for me. After a while, stretched long by awkwardness, I timidly asked in Hungarian if I could say a prayer.  Unfortunately, I don't know any prayers in Hungarian by heart.  So I said the only Holy writing in Hungarian I have memorized, the first of Baha'u'llah's Hidden Words: 


"Ó szellem fia! Első tanácsom ez: legyen szíved tiszta, jóságos és sugárzó, hogy ősi uralmad soha el ne múljon és mindörökké tartson."


("O son of Spirit! My first counsel is this: possess a pure, kindly, and radiant heart, that thine may be a sovereignty ancient, imperishable, and everlasting.")


Immediately after I finished, they both said "az szép" (that's beautiful), so I felt pretty good about the strange choice, my only choice really.


Then we stood and stared some more.

Not until well afterward did I begin to consider what my grandmother may have been doing; and perhaps I should have given her more time alone there than the few moments when I stole away to sneak some photos.  When we came to this grave a couple weeks ago, during the day, it was the same type of standing and staring.  A quiet way of mourning, I later considered?  But I couldn't help but think it was more of a paralysis caused by an inability to express oneself, or due to a lack of healthy traditions around mourning.  I've seen Italian women wail and beat the ground.  It may seem incredibly awkward or inappropriate in our culture, but it must feel good to really let out your emotions that way.


I've since been speaking with friends here about visiting cemeteries.  Ancsa (sounds like on-chah) is a Hungarian elementary school teacher who shared with me that it brings her peace in her heart to visit her grandmother's grave.  Ancsa talks to her, and feels like her grandmother is with her there.  I found that very touching and realized that my grandmother may have been doing that, but obviously not out loud with us standing right there.

my Grandmother's sister: Maria, who we called Keresztmama

And then there is my Czech friend Veronika who told me that for her a cemetery is a place of peace and stillness, where it is completely normal to hang around and cry.  You certainly won't be judged or draw attention to yourself if you cry in a cemetery.  So she would go there in times of difficulty and do just that: cry freely.  

the compulsory self-portrait

I love feelings of melancholy, wonder, and awe; so I often seek out these feelings.  Cemeteries seem to help me that way.  I never considered talking to those there that are eternally physically still and quiet, yet spiritually dancing and singing.

some more relatives

The next time I'm in Vecses, I'll try to initiate a conversation with my grandfather and see what happens.  Of course, I don't believe we need physical proximity to their remains to do this, but it might inspire us, and besides, it seems like it might be tradition.

cremation towers?

The Day of the Dead was a while ago, and I apologize for the lapse in posts.  I caught a cold.  But I'm feeling better.  Yesterday I got out into the unseasonally beautiful 19 degrees for mid November.  Where did I go?  Well I planned to go to the great forest, which boarders the cemetery.  Once again, the cemetery drew me in.  I realized I'd never been to Debrecen's cemetery during daylight!

this guys seems to have caught a pike with his bare hands; not sure why he's at the cemetery...

more cremation towers? (in Debrecen)

Last weekend the Debrecen Baha'i community had the great honour of a visit from the National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha'is of Hungary.  They met with the Local Spiritual Assembly and with some of the friends here, and to my great pleasure, they met with me as well.  Also, I had the great bounty of going with them to the Debrecen cemetery to visit Mrs. Afnan's grave.  It's her previous residence where I'm staying.

Hungary's NSA and friends getting ready to pray at Mrs. Afnan's grave

Standing by her grave and praying with members of the National Spiritual Assembly was very, very powerful for me.

the vendors out front

road to the Debrecen cemetery

Hungarian inventions video

This should lighten the mood a little before I post: Day of the Dead (part III).

It's a video highlighting some innovations from Hungary.
(Thanks to Gúthyné Maca for drawing my attention to it!)

Day of the Dead (part II): a Budapest cemetery

Here are a few photographs from a big graveyard in Budapest.  In case you know Budapest at all, this one is near the Keleti train station.

statues on top of the Keleti train station

I was still in a soul-searching mood since the candle-lit eve of day of the dead, the night before, and this is probably reflected in the photographs.  Again I pondered the concept of mourning versus expressing joy that souls have advanced toward their Creator. Many of these grave stones and statues seem to do their best at conveying eternal sadness and mourning.  I'm sure the families are sad about losing contact with those who passed, but a thought crept into my mind that I felt a bit guilty about thinking: whoever chose some of these grave stones and statues had the feeling that this soul was going to a bad place! God forbid that anyone judged their lives and thought we better put up a statue to convey how bitterly depressed we are that this soul is headed for torment!

Some of the statues are gothic and somewhat creepy. They were some of my favourites:

I don't approve of depictions of Christ, but this one drew my attention

what message is this statue trying to convey?

Here are some other statues and grave stones which caught my attention:

she looks upset about the imax cinema in the background!

this is one of my favourites, pensive but hopeful

I like the contemplative mood of this one

rarr

translation: our dear Susan, 16 years old

an architect

Here are some random scenic views around the cemetery:

I didn't make this; would've looked great at night!

had to try to get myself in there somewhere...