Trekkin

Day 54 – June 8 Wednesday

Our last morning in Kikinda, so we tidied, repacked & reorganised this morning & some more chatting.  Antal showed us his collection of bank notes from when inflation was rampant in Yugoslavia.  The prize ones are the 500 million dinar & the one billion dinar notes, lucky to buy you a loaf of bread.  Cousin Bela & his wife Gyorgyi arrived from Subotica to pick us up, more chatting as we haven’t seen them for 14 years as well (apart from Skype).  Katalin had prepared a great lunch for us all & we enjoyed it amongst much laughter & merriment.  More too much good food & it was time to farewell the generous hospitality of Antal & Katalin, as well as Evike & family who also came over to say goodbye. We enjoyed our stay with Gizella & Kosta, Klara, Zoltan & family Dejan, Aleksandra & family, they have all been so loving & generous.  Always very sad after such a nice time together.  It is such a shame that we are so far from each other, but we don’t want our next meeting to be 14 years away.

Our journey with Bela to Budapest only had one small hiccup, the border crossing we went to would only accept Hungarians or Serbs transiting the border in this location, so we had to backtrack a little & travel around 30km to a major border crossing on the motorway from Belgrade to Budapest.  Thankfully the line up at the border was very short & we were through in very quick time.  Our arrival in Budapest coincided with the finish of work at 5pm so the traffic was busy.  Bela lives reasonably close to the centre of the city of Pest, but on the other side of where we came in, so we had to travel through the centre & out again, lots of stop start, but it gave us a great opportunity to get a feel for the city.  Bela has a very nice large villa in the city & we are staying in the other large house he has in the compound – again very nice. (When he invited us he said that they had heaps of room for us but we didn’t expect a whole house with a baby grand piano).

We had a look around, settled in, then off to catch the bus into the city centre.  The bus trip was also interesting, passing many landmarks & points of interest.  Pest is such a beautiful city, everywhere we look there is something more interesting & beautiful.  The streets are wide, clean & no graffiti – what a difference that makes to the look & feel of the city.  As we walked around the city the beauty of the buildings kept astounding us.  We walked to the banks of the Duna River (known as the Danube outside Europe) & the view from the Pest bank looking across at Buda is simply beautiful, the old buildings stretched up & crowning the hillside, with riverboats hugging the banks of the wide Duna River below, framed by the famous & beautiful Chain Bridge.  We caught the Number 2 tram the short distance to Parliament House at Kossuth Square, the scene of the 1956 uprising & massacre of civilians.  The Parliament building is stunning, the ornate carving & architecture of the building make this the best we have seen yet.  Again, everywhere we turned another magnificent old building or sight greeted us.  It was getting dark as we started to head back & a lot of the buildings are lit – another aspect to admire of these beautiful buildings.  We didn’t realise but it was 10 pm by the time we got back & Gyorgyi had prepared a nice meal for us & we chatted & ate until after midnight.

Day 53 – June 7 Tuesday

The Kikinda church bells seem to me to have a random pattern of ringing – we are near the centre of town & close to all the churches.  Sometimes the bells compete with each other, sometimes they are accompanied by their friends & sometimes they are by themselves.  I have noticed one pattern, every day, one set of bells rings at 6.50am, 7.10 am, 7.20am, 7.40am, etc.  Another bell (different ones) rings at 7am.  One thing for sure, they certainly are loud & the deep resonating sound carries very well.  This is something we don’t get in Australia.  I am told all these sets of bells are electronically controlled & rung mechanically – I was wondering how they could support full time bell ringers.

Other than the bells, this morning was fairly quiet, Antal took me to the nearby barber shop of his friend Emil & I had a much needed haircut & trim – apparently I look a lot more respectable now.  I spent the rest of the morning checking the flight bookings & some research on Budapest whilst Tereza was working busily with Katalin pitting a lot of the sour cherries that we had picked.  Late afternoon we walked down to the school where Viktor & his kindergarten class put on an end of school play – as always, very cute, children acting, singing, dancing, speaking & actually reciting poetry. We were very impressed that all this is in both Hungarian & Serbian (these kids in kindergarten speak two languages already!!!).  Victor & his brother, Mate attend private English classes in addition (I am sure a lot of the others do the same).  Education, languages & music are a very big part of this family & the kids seem to thrive on it all (the home work they get is unbelievable & they only have a couple of days left before the Summer holidays).  We looked on attentively with the other proud families, however, a drawback was the room being very crowded & very hot.  Afterwards we walked the short distance back to town where Evike shouted the boys & us an ice-cream at one of the many specialist ice-cream shops that dot the centre of Kikinda.  We lounged on some very comfortable cushioned chairs under some large yellow flowering trees fanned by a lovely cooling breeze, chatting & relaxing.  Another great afternoon.  Evike & family spent all their free time with us because we are all feeling that our inevitable departure is here & it will most probably be years before we see them again.

Evike & the boys joined us for dinner & chatted until it was bedtime for the boys.  Its sad that we will be leaving Kikinda tomorrow & these lovely families.

Day 52 – June 6 Monday

Another 5.50am awakening.  Another great meat, cheese, bacon, gherkin & bread breakfast washed down with strong black Turkish coffee – does it get any better?  Out to the farmlet again for more cherry picking & Antal had more grape pruning.  We managed to pick three boxes of sour cherry before it got too hot, Tereza & Katalin at the base of the tree & me up the tall ladder.  At the end of the cherry picking, after washing up I noticed both of my wrists had a red rash all over them – I must be allergic to something there in the cherry tree. I washed my wrists with water, then, after much prompting by Antal & Katalin, I washed them again with palinka (very strong home made brandy).  That seemed to do the trick, I had a lay down so that I wouldn’t be scratching my wrists & promptly fell asleep.  It may have something to do with the palinka I used to wash my throat.  Back to town, lunch, some more photos & another little snooze.

Late afternoon we went for a short walk with Katalin & we met Evike, Radovan & their 2 sons at the local Big Pond, near the middle of town, a large concrete pool with an old swimming pool at one end, complete with old concrete starting blocks.  There is a park surrounding the pond, with a child’s playground, with concrete path around & a gazebo out over the pond.  Encircling the park is a reed fringed creek, with a few fisherman sitting & catching very small fish.  Some of the small rubbish bins have the Kikinda Coat of Arms on them – A mantled arm, holding a sabre, with the head of an Ottoman Turk impaled on it.  Very sobering.  We are always amazed when walking to see flash looking new buildings squeezed amongst ramshackle old houses.

We watched the children play at the playground while Radovan took Evike to her choir practice.  We all had an ice cream (which spoilt the kids’ appetite for dinner but we are not always here so it’s OK).  We had dinner & then showed a few photos from us with kangaroos, cockatoos, parrots etc. The boys were very impressed.

Day 51 – June 5 Sunday

Another 5.40 am start to the day – more sunshine – so we sorted some photos & loaded the blog.  This morning was fairly quiet, we were sitting around chatting & looking at photos, then off to Evike’s house for an afternoon BBQ.  Klara, Zoltan,  Dorike & David have driven from Novi Sad with Gisella for the family get-together.  It was fantastic to see them all again.

The boys were playing outside on the pedal cars & Radovan had fired up the grill outside to cook the pork & the cevapcivi (minced meat with onion rolled & grilled).  He had also been fishing with his father & had some small catfish cooking in a pan in the outside summer kitchen.  The ladies were inside busy preparing everything else, catching up on old & good times.  There where thirteen of us that sat together for lunch – a big family gathering.  It’s a shame James, Monica & family, Arpad (Tereza’s brother) & family weren’t here to complete the family gathering.  As always, the food was delicious & way too much – the hospitality is magnificent.  And just when we thought lunch was over & we couldn’t eat any more – out came desert.  My goodness, a fantastic chocolate slice that young David & Victor managed to polish four away each & a delicious éclair filled with custard – I could only find room for two, but Dorika managed three of them, they were so nice.

We also spent time going through photos, sharing & comparing & we watched Evike’s wedding video – such a shame that we missed the wedding, she & Radovan they looked so beautiful & happy.  Not to mention the talking, the joking, the laughing & general merriment.  All too soon it was over & we walked slowly back to the apartment. Evike decided that cleaning up could wait, she couldn’t stand it that we were still all together without her. More talking & laughing & then some sad farewells, we don’t know when we will see them again, however, will keep in touch on Skype.

Needless to say – no dinner tonight after such a feast – no room left at all.

Day 50 – June 4 Saturday

5.50am & the sunshine streaming in the Kikinda windows.  Caught up on sorting photos & updated a few days of blogging before a great brekkie of fresh eggs & bacon.  Then out to the weekend farm to pick more cherries & strawberries.  Katalin picked a big bowl of strawberries while Antal watered his vegetables & sprayed the grapes.   There was a some rain while we were away that plumped them since the other day & they were nearly all ripe, so up the ladder & I picked all the sweet cherries from the top of the tree, Tereza  picked from the lower branches then we started on the sour cherry tree.  Two boxes of sweet cherries & three boxes of sour cherries. It was time to go home as it was  getting too hot, around 30C today, with humidity, there has been storms most afternoons.

We had the chance to catch up on Skype with Monica & Charley (Unfortunately not with Jackson & Austin) & later with James.  Next Sunday we will be at home (hopefully), it is unbelievable, it feels as though we only just planned this trip.

This afternoon Evike & her 2  boys came over & took us to the Kikinda Museum, it is only about 100m from the apartment, everything is so central here.  The main attraction is the skeleton of Kika, the mammoth, died in a bog 50,000 years ago & uncovered at the local ceramics factory clay pit.  The skeleton has been copied in fibreglass & stands in the open courtyard of the museum.  We ventured inside & watched a 17 minute 3D big screen video projection on the story of this mammoth & how it came to meet its death & subsequent discovery (in English).  Very interesting & some of the 3D animation was very good.  Next we saw the display of the actual bones discovered – it is one very large animal & the display case is well done.  Further on the museum covers recent history with old farm artefacts & clothing, plus displays from both world wars, all very interesting.  In the corridor are displays from recovered artefacts from the stone age, then the bronze age, then the iron age, including pottery, jewellery & skeletons.

The museum was formerly a prison in the Second World War & in the courtyard is a memorial to 39 partisans executed by firing squad in the same courtyard.  The building also still has the doors to the small solitary confinement cells lining the corridors.

We sat out in the plaza for a while watching the world go by.  Nearby in the plaza is the protected winter roosting site of a family of long eared owls in a few tall, old conifer pines.

Back at the apartment Tereza did some washing & then it was dinner time but we ate so many cherries & strawberries that we could hardly eat.  Amazingly a little bit of cherry picking got Ron so tired that he couldn’t even finish writing – he is out to it.

Day 49 – June 3 Friday

Awake at 6am, the birds are singing – it is so peaceful here – the birds are everywhere – I even saw a golden pheasant in the cornfield near the house.  Another great breakfast then it was off on a bicycle ride around the village.  While I was away Antal was going to spray the grapes & fruit trees.  The village is so flat that cycling is very easy, I went up & down every street in the village, stopping to take photos of interesting houses & things along the way.  In one yard as I went past a gypsy family were killing a calf, as I came back the other way they were washing the blood away with the hose so they could continue butchering it, just laying on the ground (hygienic – I think not).  I rode around the purpose built fishing pond that is on one end of the village, around every 10 metres around the bank personal fishing platforms have been built, to varying degrees of comfort.  Some have chairs, others shade, nearly all have rod holders of some type, another a canoe launching ramp & others a small jetty.  At the other end of town I rode out onto the main road & onto the old steel bridge over the Bega River, with cobblestones leading up to the approach that had been overlaid with bitumen at one stage that has now worn totally away.  The edges of the river are overgrown with trees & the water is flowing well, though a dirty brown.  On the way back to the farm house I rode along a footpath on the outskirts of town down to the street the farmhouse is in.  The footpath was overgrown & I picked up some stings from some nettles my legs brushed against.  Apparently I was now in Serbski Itabej (changed spelling to Serbian) & after a while rode past the Serbian cemetery (not the Hungarian one) with a couple of Orthodox religious chapels.  I also rode past some very dilapidated gypsy houses, they really stand out.

Back for a coffee & then I had a snooze, I didn’t realise how much the cycling had taken out of me.  We had a great lunch of pea soup & pancakes then tidy up the house ready for departure.  Luckily there was no blockade by the farmers, apparently they have agreed to give them a subsidy for up to 100 holdings (there is a bit over a hectare in a holding).

Day 48 – June 2 Thursday

First up this morning, Ron turned the mobile on & gave his mother a call for her birthday – amazingly crystal clear – from one side of the world to the other.

After breakfast we walked to the village church, there was a special service to celebrate Jesus Christs’ return to his disciples 40 days after his death. As it was a working day only about 25 older folk turned up so it was held in the rectory instead of the church.  The Minister held a lovely service, his wife played the organ very well, she had a lovely singing voice & the village folk toned in beautifully.  We were introduced to & welcomed by the Minister, his wife & some local community members, we enjoyed some coffee & chat with them.  The Minister showed us through the church which is the plainest we have seen yet.  The Reform churches are painted white inside & out with no adornment except for the organ & a beautiful wooden pulpit which was mostly covered up because it was not in use.  The Minister told us that the town is 225 years old & the church was built in 1866.  They just put new roof tiles on & they were painting the outside. Ten years ago they replaced the bell tower.  We love hearing the bells ringing. We gave a donation but wish we could have given 40,000 Euros as that is the amount they need to stop the rising damp which destroys the rendering & paint work & the structure of the building.

My grandparents, my mother, her sister, cousins & I have all been baptised in this church, the day my mother passed away my aunt had the church bell ring for her & on Sunday there was a service for my mother – this church is very special.  On our return Antal was ready to take us to the farm with some concern that there might be a blockade by the farmers, they are blocking most of the routs from cities & towns because the government can’t afford the subsidy that they have been getting.  There wasn’t a blockade to the farm.  We had some difficulty finding where the farm house used to be.   It was so sad that my beloved little birth home wasn’t there any more, the creek is overgrown by scrub.  The canal that flows in front of the farm where my cousins & I enjoyed swimming in on those lovely lazy summer days is now grown over by reeds & algae instead of the beautiful water lilies that used to grow this time of the year.  The fields are well tended & the crops look good.  It started to rain so we hurried out so as not to get bogged.  After lunch we went to visit some more people, Ron stayed at home to copy some photos my cousin has & I haven’t.

We returned around 6pm, my cousin & I took Ron for a nice stroll around the town, it is so nice & peaceful, hardly any cars around, everyone says good day to everyone, some people sitting outside in front of their house chatting with friends – a few people remember my mother even me when I was young (this could only happen in a small village where they remember you after 51 years). We returned at 8 pm just as the church bells were ringing (again).  We had dinner & a lot of laughs (we laugh a lot as I am trying to talk in the village dialect & remember some of our escapades from the past.  Antal is a hoot he can tell jokes nonstop).  Tomorrow we will try to get back to Kikinda, hopefully the blockade will be over or that somehow we will get through.  Next week we are supposed to go to Buda Pest & leave for home on June 10^th.

Day 47 – June 1 Wednesday

8.15am – the shutters on the window kept the room very dark – what a sleep-in.  After breakfast we went for a walk along the street to the end & visited the cemetery.  Since we were here last a few improvements have been made, there is now a building with an outside shelter to hold services.  They used to park the coffin under the shade of some big trees outside a house & hold the service outside the front of this poor bloke’s house.  He cut the trees down & planted a new small forest & apparently that prompted the locals to build the chapel, etc.  The track off the road up to the cemetery itself has rows of trees planted either side & looks very pretty with the trunks painted white.  The new part of the cemetery is kept clean & neat – the old part is overgrown with bushes & trees – no relatives left to care – you can spot a few graves & headstones in the thick scrub.  We found Tereza’s grandparents headstone after about 10 minutes, then shortly after her uncle & aunt.  We also spotted headstones belong to other cousins & people she knew.   We looked around for a little longer then headed back out into the street & took the long way home, back past a few more distant relative’s houses & houses of people she knew, as well as the grandparent’s former house.  We said hello’s to a few curious townfolk & walked past a fair number of abandoned houses (the old people had died & no-one cares for the house) in varying stages of decay & destruction.  Most of the house construction is mud brick & once the rain gets through some broken or lost roof tiles the decay starts.  Not to mention the effect that rising damp has on mud brick.

Late afternoon we went back to the cemetery with Katalin & took some silk flowers with us to put on the headstones of the close relatives, with more recognition of headstones of relatives & people they knew.  We also took a slow walk back & called in at the house of one of Katalin’s cousins & were shown through.  The house is very well kept & the farmyard is immaculate, with the garden looking very colourful with all the flowers in bloom.

We watched a storm starting in the distance & wandered back home, but the storm only put on a fantastic light show in the distance with rumbles of thunder rolling through now & again.  There are lots of frogs croaking & calling of a night, there is a pond near the front of the house absolutely filled with frogs of all sizes, plus a snake that must be feeding on them.  (No harmful snakes here).

Day 46 – May 31 Tuesday

Slept in until 5.50am this morning – the rising sun shines straight in.  Got ourselves organised & piled into the Zastava (car) by 9am for the 54km drive from Kikinda to the small village of Magyar Ittabe (Novi Itabej in Serbian) (try & find that on a map) to stay in Katalin’s family home for a few days.  This is the village where Tereza’s family on her mother’s side come from & Tereza was born on the family farm (her mother’s parents) around 7km out of the village.  We drove through a lot of flat farmland with lots of corn & wheat growing & passed through a few small villages.  We also passed a lot of farm tractors on the road, most of them returning from a farmers protest rally in Belgrade – a long way on a tractor.

The village of Magyar Ittabe consist of around 95% Hungarians – in Serbia this is a high concentration of Hungarians, one of the results of political splitting of countries after wars.  About 300 metres away is the start of the town boundary of Serbski Ittabej, composed around 95% Serbs, some Romanians & some Gypsys.  It is very close to the Romanian border, you can see the Romanian villages in the distance.  The house is a good size, brick with a terracotta tile roof & walls around half a metre thick.  It’s fully furnished with all the things her parents left, has a short drop toilet, a corn drying shed on top of three pig sties, a chook shed & yard, a goat shed, a huge vegie garden & the rest of the small farm planted with fruit trees & corn.

We spent the morning looking around & checking things, it’s a few weeks since they were last here, then picked a few strawberries, it was too hot to get serious.  After lunch we had a nice long chat, looked through old photos of Katalin’s parents & grandparents (Tereza’s grandparents as well).  Things had cooled down so we picked the rest of the strawberries & I washed Antal’s car while he was watering the garden.

Late afternoon a long slow walk around the village, Tereza talked to a few cousins & some locals that were out on the street.  They were curious who these new people were, I think within about an hour of us arriving, everyone in the village knew we were here.  We walked past where Tereza’s grandparents house used to be, the person that owned it bulldozed it down & laid concrete for a grain drying factory he was setting up.  He mustn’t have got approval for it, in between the houses, so all there is of it is the concrete driveway & pad – a waste of a nice house.  Some of the old Hungarian houses are completely tiles outside (must be the rich ones).  All the exterior of the house is covered in glazed tiles – I guess you never have to paint, it always looks shiny & new.  There are a few beautiful big houses that many Australians would be envious of – they have mainly been built by people who work/worked in Germany or other wealthier countries. We passed a few other houses that at one time were owned by Tereza’s relatives, substantial buildings, as pre communism the families were well off, owning factories & manufacturing businesses as well as good farms.  The houses are now in a sad state of repair, the one in the prime position in the village, a huge corner block, is falling down, roof collapsing, ceilings collapsing, windows broken, brick walls falling apart.  This one Katalin has a small share in, the other part owners, cousins in Canada, won’t do anything about it, don’t even want to sell it, so it is falling apart & one day I think the local mayor will send them a bill for cleaning it up.

We sat outside late talking, it doesn’t get dark until around 10pm here, before a late dinner & bed.

Day 45 – May 30 Monday

Awake at 5.30am with the sun, breakfast then a walk through town to Evike’s house, around a 20 minute slow walk.  Evike & Radovan bought a really old, very run down house after they married & have been renovating, repairing & extending ever since.  They have done a great job so far, it’s a work in progress, lucky that Radovan is very good with his hands, he has also done a great job on the garden, with more still in progress.  The two boys were home & Mate proudly played some classical guitar tunes he has been learning – very good for a 7 year old.  We sat & talked for a long time, playing some games with the boys before heading back to the apartment around 1pm for lunch.

Late afternoon it was back out to the weekender & we picked a lot of sweet cherries, around 8 kilos of them off the one tree, they weren’t ripe a couple of days ago but were very sweet today.  We spent a couple of hours having fun picking & eating cherries, – I picked & put them in the box, Tereza ate them out of the box.  A team effort.  We dropped a box of cherries off at Evike’s house on the way back & had another good relaxing chat.  Radovan showed me his quail breeding set-up, he has lots of tiny quail in a large heated brood box, plus lots of quail eggs in an incubator.  They are so tiny & cute.  Radovan has won many bird competition prizes around eastern Europe for the quality of the birds he breeds & shows.  He has bred Australian budgerigars & parrots in the past, as well as the different species of pheasant.  He also showed us a couple of TV interviews where he explained his different birds & breeding techniques to an expert for a special bird show.  He has sold hundreds of show birds around Europe.

Back to the apartment & another great Hungarian dinner (Once again too much).

Tomorrow morning we are off to Novi Itabej for 3 days, Tereza was born 7 km from this tiny village on a farm so we will go & visit the farm, it is still in the family although the house has been pulled down, but they have a house in the village with some land (more strawberries & cherries).