A Starry-eyed Latter-Day Pilgrim

- Sharon McDonald

I confess up front that I am a latter-day pilgrim. Since the first Transylvania trip was undertaken in 1994, fifty-one from First Parish have visited our partner village, Abásfalva. Thus I knew before I left that there would be no indoor toilets, that we'd be offered a lot of pork and palinka (the locally produced brandy), and that I would come home starry-eyed and humming “Spirit of Life” constantly.

And sure enough - I was mighty glad I had packed a flashlight for those midnight visits to the WC. I developed a new appreciation for pork - it's wonderful over there. Palinka wasn't a problem as I took care to learn “No, thank you” in Hungarian before I left and thus no one pressed the firewater on me. But no matter. Within hours, I was drunk on friendship alone, a natural high that lasted all four days we were in Abásfalva. I did come home starry-eyed, I do hum “Spirit of Life” a lot, and like the Ancient Mariner, I am wont to stop one in three, even strangers in the grocery store, to tell them about my adventures in Romania.

“Romania!” People look at you really strangely, even if you're careful not to specify Transylvania. Abásfalva is hard to explain. I don't think I've succeeded with the folks in the grocery store. But let me say to you - because of the work done on previous visits by First Parishioners and Abásfalvans alike, there is a level of trust between us that is generally unencountered in the wide world. From the moment I arrived, I felt safe, enfolded, and at home. I had more in common with my new friends in this third world, subsistence-level farming village than I could have imagined. I shared in tomato and sausage and sheep milk curd breakfasts and lingered over tea to exchange thoughts, laboriously looked up word by word in our Hungarian/English dictionaries. When I left Abásfalva and my host family, I cried all the way to Udvarhely.

The words on the sign we dedicated at the edge of the village read “Abasfalva - Bedford - Partners.” And that Hungarian word for “partner” translates literally “body and blood.”

Partners? Body and blood? Oh yes. I feel that connection! And if I hear of a rowboat leaving tomorrow for Transylvania, you can be assured that dawn will find me already at my oar!

Sharon McDonald

from the Parishioner, September 12, 2001.