Impressions of Life in Abásfalva, 1996 

- Cathy Cordes

(During September, [1996,] five of us traveled to our Partner Church's village of Abásfalva. The group included Robert and Christine Kokenyesi along with their 15 month old daughter Rachel, and Ron Cordes and myself, Cathy Cordes…. This was the fourth visit to the village by Americans from Bedford. We were already well acquainted with the minister, his wife and children who had been in Bedford in March, 1995. What follows are notes I wrote up on my observations and experiences from the trip.}

Our trip began with a flight to Budapest, Hungary. We were met there by Rev. Dénes Farkas who drove us into Romania. We spent the first night in Kolozsvár, the historic capitol of Transylvania, then on to our partner village of Abásfalva, in the Homoród Valley.

I was struck by the physical beauty of the area, driving into the village through the Homoród Valley. There were miles and miles of rolling hills and gentle mountains. The trees were just beginning to turn and were very similar to New England fall colors. The bright green of the fields stood in stark contrast to the gray sky and rain that stayed with us throughout our four days in the valley. The view of the villages from a hilltop was storybook beautiful. It was easy to imagine happy farm families nestled in these picturesque towns.

But as we drove away from the cities the reality of the economy of the area also became apparent. The roads are in severe disrepair; neglected by the Romanian government because they serve only ethnic Hungarian and Gypsy villages. Travel became difficult at best by automobile. I am sure many an axle has broken on those roads. One travels at speeds of 5 to 15 miles an hour to pick the way, so it takes a long time to get anywhere.

Workers in the fields were digging potatoes and cutting the wheat by hand. There are few working machines to be seen anywhere. Vast amounts of land are untilled. Ownership of this land is unclear, but even if it were available to be plowed there would not be enough manpower to make it productive. Some plows are pulled by water buffalo. Not busy in this time of year, the water buffalo passed my window every morning on their way to pasture with the cows and goats of the village.

As we arrived in the village we were met by Áron (the minister) and Edit (his wife), Áronka (their 16 year old son) and Boglárka (their 12 year old daughter.) There were tears of happiness, hugs and the ever-present palinka to toast our arrival. We learned later that Áron and Edit had been up all night worrying because they thought we were arriving on the previous day. A phone call to check would have relieved their fears, but the nearest phone is miles away in another village. In a whirlwind of activity the van was unloaded and we were feasted with a meal that continued for several courses. Other villagers dropped by, anxious to meet these new Americans. And in what seemed like minutes we were eating another meal, this time wonderful omelets prepared by Edit and Melinda, Edit's friend and right hand in the kitchen during our stay.

This time as the table was cleared I got up to help. They insisted I shouldn't help; I insisted I would. So I found myself in the summer kitchen at the back of the house. Dishes were washed in water taken from the faucet outside the door and heated on the gas stove. There is no running water in the kitchen. We talked and laughed with the help of English/Hungarian dictionaries and pantomimes till almost 2 a.m. Then a quick trip to the outhouse in the barn (a real adventure in the middle of the night) and I went to bed.

Heat in the house is provided by ceramic wood stoves in the bedrooms where we slept as well as the stove in the winter kitchen. The bathroom contains a sink and a bathtub. There is running water in the bathtub; the faucet is shoulder height. There is one for cold water and another that comes from the wood-burning hot water tank. The water in the tank was kept hot for us almost the whole time we are there. It seems a luxurious use of precious fuel, as I look back on it now. Its clear one doesn't take a real bath but rather washes off. This also doubles as the laundry room; everything is washed by hand. Edit has no washing machine.

Up at sunrise-about 6:30 a.m. this time of year-I arrived in the summer kitchen as the coffee finished in the pressure cooker. I turned down the offered palinka and instead scooped my coffee off the grinds that were just settling. Áron was busy feeding chickens and milking goats. Edit was fixing breakfast - fresh tomatoes and sweet red peppers from the garden, eggs, sausage and goat cheese. The bread is large loaves of white bread bought from somewhere, I'm not sure where. Soon we heard the horn of the shepherd and Áron brought me out - with his goats - to watch the village animals go off to pasture.

It was Sunday, so after breakfast we dressed for church. Melinda and her husband Miklós showed up in very fashionable suits. We crossed the road to the church as the bell was rung. The church was already filled as we arrived, the last to enter. Edit and I entered the front door - somewhat against custom but it seemed they made certain allowances for these Americans. We sat on the left side with the women. Ron sat on the right side with Miklós and the men. The service began with a prayer. Rev. Dénes Farkas was in the pulpit this morning as a visiting minister (and was also our van-driver extraordinaire!) He offered an opening prayer and a short reading from the Bible. We then sang two hymns, sung Hungarian style. Every note is held as a half note, regardless of the musical annotation. Everyone sings very loud. With all the men's voices on one side and all the women's voices on the other it was a unique sound to be sure. We sat, and Rev. Farkas preached with no written script for 20 minutes. We sang another hymn. In a departure from tradition, our group made a presentation of gifts we brought. These included a money gift to complete the purchase of a combine for the village and a framed copy of the unison affirmation from our church in Bedford. We had it translated into Hungarian. The president of the church, Benedik Ferenc, then made a speech. Rev. Farkas concluded the service with a benediction.

After the service, all the women left by the side door and all the men left by the front door and lined up to be introduced to us. I laughed to myself as I thought about all the military inspections of the troops I observed as a child. This situation seemed as formal as those did. But it was also awkward. I didn't know what we were expected to do. We had brought chocolates for the children and we handed them out to the women and children.

Finally we left for lunch at the Barabás house. After lunch, we were invited to Benedik Ferenc's house for a visit. He makes wine from the grapes he grows and of course we had to sample his wine. As we drank it and ate the grapes he told us the story of his life during the Communist years. He became an accountant and ran an inn in the mountains not far from Abásfalva. His wife was the hostess of the inn.

We spent Monday morning in the schools. There are two schools; one for children in grades 5 to 8 and one for younger children.

The school for younger children includes a kindergarten for children age 4-6 and two other classrooms: grades 1 and 3 in one room and grades 2 and 4 in the other. The kindergarten was cheerful and the children were all engaged in activities when we entered. All activities stopped when we came in, of course. We brought with us some stuffed animals and balls for the children and they were delighted. I am not sure they knew what to make of us though. The room had a playhouse corner with a small play kitchen, dolls, etc. There were blocks and other simple toys. Everything was old and well used.

The other two rooms looked like classrooms from the early 1900s in the US. Students sat at desks that fit two students each. There were a few books around but we didn't see many. In the second and fourth grades the students were working on a math lesson. There was a young girl at the blackboard (in desperate disrepair) working a math problem and the younger students were copying geometric shapes from a book onto paper. We could not tell what the first and third grade students were doing - possibly just waiting for us to visit.

We saw about 45 students total in the two buildings. A large proportion of them were gypsy children. In the lower grades there was clear evidence of prejudice in one classroom - student placement in the room and unequal materials. This was not apparent in the other two rooms. We did not see any classes in progress in the upper grades so impressions of the program were not possible. There were a few student-generated reports on the walls from prior years but little else. There were a few large classroom maps on the walls of 1940's vintage. []

It is my sense that by focusing some of our efforts toward supplying materials and support for both the teachers and students we would generate far-reaching benefits for both Hungarian and Gypsy children. The building itself is in disrepair with little hope of getting any money from the government in the near future for repairs. Supplying materials will benefit the children as long those materials are not kept under lock and key by the principal and not used. We brought with us colored paper, glue crayons, pens, pencils, paints, some Hungarian books, notebooks and a globe.

I also brought food coloring and cream of tarter to make playdough for the classrooms to use. I taught Edit Barabás how to make it and left the directions written in Hungarian (thanks to Robert Kokenyesi) with the village school's principal. (Edit is the minister's wife. She also teaches kindergarten in another village.) I am hoping they will make their own materials, beyond just playdough, with some of the art supplies we brought.

Life is hard in this village to be sure. The people are hard-working subsistence farmers struggling to maintain their own ethnic identity in a changing political climate that they have difficulty understanding. News seems to come from word of mouth and television broadcasts. There is a television in almost every home. Children, faced with little hope for economic progress, leave home to work in the factories and jobs of the cities or move to Hungary. So the villages are aging rapidly and in real risk of dying out. In order to educate their children past the 8th grade parents must send them to board with family or friends in larger towns where there is a high school. This is expensive; they must pay for school supplies, books and boarding charges. It often cost as much as $50 a month. And while this seems a small amount to us, it is more than half a month's salary for most of these people.

They have lived most of their lives under the rule of a communist regime that tried to systematically oppress and uproot them. Before 1989, all religious leaders were subject to the control of the ministry of cults. Gypsies were relocated to the villages in an effort to dilute the ethnic Hungarian population. Some villages have done better than others in trying to live in community with the gypsies. What is clear is that the gypsies face prejudice in all villages to some degree.

Since 1989 The Romanian government has shown no signs of changing their policy of nonviolent ethnic cleansing. State moneys are being spent in large numbers constructing many, many new Orthodox churches in the cities to lure young people away from Reformed, Hungarian and Catholic churches. The Romanian government has made a concerted effort to build a sense of connection to Roman roots, erecting statues to Romulus and Remus that are appearing in city squares everywhere. Roads and schools in small villages are neglected even as they place Romanian teachers in these schools to teach Romanian history. (Few villagers speak Romanian and these teachers do not speak Hungarian. I did meet the teacher. I would have loved observing this class in the Abásfalva school. I cannot imagine how she could be effective, considering the language barrier.)

The villages of Abásfalva and Transylvania represent our link to a religious heritage of Unitarianism. While the differences between our churches and theirs are real, so too is the common foundation from which we both grew. Their survival as a viable group is in our interest as well as theirs. They are our link to our heritage.

But the relationship with the village is also a series of personal connections. My friendship with Edit is one that I value as much as any other friendship I have. The connection we feel is real and deep. In exploring our common feelings as mothers, our experiences as teachers of young children, and our common ground as women, we reaffirm our own identities and broaden our sense of our place in the world. Others have had similar experiences as they make personal contact with Transylvanians.

The people of Abásfalva had little or no personal contact with Westerners until people from Bedford showed up in their village in 1994. Their knowledge of Americans was based on television shows from the fifties. While our presence in their lives is sometimes challenging for them (We have some strange customs!) it is also very reassuring. There is someone somewhere in the Western world who knows they are alive and who cares. It offers them hope for a future that might somehow be different than the one they have known.

It is important for us to continue our relationship to Abásfalva for all these reasons. And yet it isn't always easy. Communication is made difficult by language barriers, unreliable mail service and lack of modern conveniences of fax machines and telephones. I am assured that these barriers will fall over the next few years as cellular phone service hits even the Homoród Valley.

But cultural problems fall into place here as well. Their mail was regularly opened and read under the communist regime, especially ministers' mail. Many people in the villages collaborated with the Communists and turned in fellow villagers. The idea of sharing news or information freely is not an easy concept for them. It is hard for them to realize that we Westerners need acknowledgment for gifts of money, or letters or other items sent. If it was known that you had money you were in danger of robbery or government confiscation. Under those conditions one can see why we might not have gifts acknowledged.

There is also a sense of “wait and see.” Communism did not encourage personal initiative and these people are a passive lot. They wait to see what we will bring them. They wait to see what we will do for them. It is important I believe for us to build a culture that supports them learning how to do for themselves. We may be the encouragement and sometimes the provider of the means but we should be “teaching them to fish” not just “feeding them.”

It is clear to me that as we build this relationship there will be many challenges to us as well as to the people of Abásfalva. We all need to be conscious of our differences as well as our similarities. We need to examine our reaction to the other with a cautious eye, always trying to see if there is another point of view. We cannot know how they will react to what we do and say and we should be careful not to measure that reaction based on our own feelings and interpretations without also considering theirs.

The relationship offers a world of possibilities for all of us to grow, and I hope we continue to nourish and encourage it for a long time to come. I believe we can by our presence in their lives make a difference; just as I believe their presence in our lives makes a difference.

Cathy Cordes, 1996