Sunday, October 13, 2002

The Story of Mary, Part 2

0 comments

The Story of Mary, Part 2 So now you have a sketch of Mary from our experience with her. This is how the story proceeds from here. Things that I forgot to mention in the first part was that Mary told us repeatedly that once she was asleep, she was dead to the world and noise did not bother her. She had the bedroom on the street side and there is a jazz club across the street that can get noisy on weekends. She always said once asleep, she was not bothered by the noise. The other thing is that Thursday when I got home, my computer screen was black with giant icons. There were icons in the bottom tray that were not mine and I had no idea where they came from. Ron said Mary had been on AOL and doing things on the computer. It took me an hour to figure out that somehow it had been converted to the disability screen for the visually impaired. Friday morning, my virus protection software died and I could not figure out why. I told Mary to stay off of the computer since I was not protected from Viruses. When I got back from Veszprém, I would figure it out. In the meanwhile, she would have to use the Internet café to check her e-mail. I password locked the computer, so she could not sneak on. We left Budapest on the train for Veszpém on Friday afternoon and arrived two hours later. We were booked at an adorable little B and B that looked like a Swiss chalet, for $20.00 a night with breakfast. The pillows were the most comfortable I had ever used. Oh, I am getting off of the subject. Back to the story, the first night of the conference was fun being with so many teachers, mostly Hungarians, but others from Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, England, and the States. Saturday morning, we were at the plenary session and my mobile rang. I forgot to switch it to silent and immediately did not without answering it. I was to present that afternoon and Ron was to present Sunday afternoon. After the session, I checked my messages on the phone. One was a call from Fernando, hysterical telling me that Mary called him and the apt. was robbed. The other was from Mary with the same message. I called Mary back and the line was busy. I called Fernando back and only got his voice mail. Then I found Ron and told him that I did not have any details yet. When I reached Mary, she said: “We have been robbed. My bag is gone. (She kept her bag on a chair in the entry hallway) Kristen (her new friend from my writers group) was over and I saw her to the door when she left. To be honest, I am not sure whether or not I locked it with the key (the door will lock automatically when closed, but the deadbolt needs the key). I went to bed and fell asleep. Later, I heard noises and thought I you guys had come home early. At first I did not think about it, but then I got up to investigate. (Why would we return the same night we left when we intended to be gone until Monday?). When I went to investigate, the door was locked (no mention of the deadbolt) and I did not see anything unusual. I stayed up and watched television and did crossword puzzles (my printer ink again) for an hour or so, then I took a sleeping pill and went back to bed. (You think someone is trying to break in and you take a sleeping pill?) The next morning, I discovered that my shoulder bag was not on the chair where I thought I left it and looked all over the apartment. After a checking everywhere, I could not find it and realized the front door was open (open-open or just not locked with the key?) I hope you have your laptop with you. It is not on the desk any longer. (Three days ago, I made a point of saying that I was putting it away since I no longer needed it daily.) I do not see anything else that looks disturbed. Imagine, my diamond ring is worth $8,000 and was sitting right by my head, but thankfully, they did not take that.” Her shoulder bag had: her makeup case, a brush, her transportation pass, keys to this apartment, keys to her new apartment, a survival book I made for her with all the addresses in it, passport, wallet with little cash, but all of her credit cards, ATM card, driver’s license, and probably other things I am forgetting. She tried calling the police, which is a waste of time. They don’t run out for residents let alone for foreigners. She called her friend Kristen who came over to translate when needed. Supposedly, apts on the second, fifth, and first floors have also been robbed in the past, time uncertain. The phone calls started flowing between Mary, Fernando, our friend Shuli, our property owner, and us. First we needed a locksmith to change the lock and to put a safety bar on the door. Fernando and Shuli started making calls, but locksmiths do not do 24 hour service here and they each called ten with no luck. Fernando finally found an ad for one who would come out on short notice. He put a safety bar in. Until then Mary was stuck in the apt. since out keys were loose in the world. When I spoke with her, she told me she had things to do and needed to leave. If I had been here, I would have slapped her. I could not see any reason for us to return early since the damage had been done already and there was nothing we could do, not speaking the language. Fernando took control and organized the locksmith, so it was Mary’s responsibility to wait for him. In the meanwhile, she called the credit card companies and stopped her cards. Her international calling card had run out of time, so I told her where mine was and that I had not used it at all, so it was full. She called her kids to wire her money since she could not access the ATM. The calls flew around all day long and we continued to call and check on her. After the bar was in, she left the apt. and went to her new apt. where the locks needed changing also since her keys were also stolen. She stayed at Kristen’s apt. that night and her own the next. On Sunday, she and Kristen went shopping at Ikea after getting the wired money since she needed basic supplies for her new apt. (All apts. come with basic supplies, but she wanted to supplement them). Sunday, Fernando called to say some old woman came to our apt. and gave Mary a plastic bag of things that were in her bag. This woman supposedly found them in a trash can on a street out of town and on the way to the airport. He said it was strange that someone could identify all of these things and return them such a long way away. We arrived home Monday afternoon and she had to meet us at the apt. since she had the new key to the bar. Mary recounted the story of Saturday morning, but significant pieces were different… “Kristen was over and I saw her to the door when she left. I locked the door with the key immediately after she was gone. I would never leave it unlocked, especially when I am home alone. I went to bed and fell asleep. Later, I heard noises and thought I you guys had come home early. At first I did not think about it, but then I got up to investigate. When I went to investigate, the door was locked. I looked out the kitchen windows and then went into your bedroom and looked out those windows and I did not see anything unusual. (Note: our bedroom windows are double windows with a mini blind between the two windows. One would need to open the first window to open the blinds to see out. Neither the blinds nor the curtain looked disturbed in either the kitchen or the bedroom.) I stayed up and watched television and did crossword puzzles for an hour or so, then I went back to bed. (No mention of the sleeping pill and I did not confront her on it) The next morning, I did things around here, vacuumed, and by the way, I vacuumed your bedroom, then I cleaned up a bit (vacuum cleaner is in the pantry, which is directly across from the front door) and about an hour or so later, I went looking for my bag. It was gone. Then I realized the front door was wide open. Thankfully, they did not take my diamond ring, which was right by my head in the bedroom. It is worth $9,000.” (It went up $1,000. overnight. Forget stocks, buy diamonds for a good investment). When I confronted her about what she had said about not being sure whether or not she locked the door with the key, she denied ever saying it and claimed that is not a thing she would ever forget to do. Then comes the story about the returned goods. The story changes again. “An old drunk buzzed the intercom and when he spoke Hungarian, I gave it to Kristen to answer (how to you tell it is an old drunk over the intercom?). He wanted to come in, but she would not let him in. He later appeared at the door and was let in by the building manager after telling her he had something for me. (Notice the gender changed from what she told Fernando). He handed me a plastic bag and it had some of my things in it that he said he found in a trash can (location was much closer to the apt that before). She then showed us a ripped up wallet and shredded make-up case, her transportation pass, and a hairbrush. She went on to say how many robberies have occurred in this building according to the building manager, etc. I asked her how someone knew that these items belonged to her? Mary said that she always kept a little slip of paper in her wallet that had this address on it. I did and still not know why she would have that since she also had our business cards with the address as well as it was in her notebook that I made for her. But with the benefit of the doubt, if she did have this slip of paper, how could it have survived the shredded wallet when there was absolutely nothing else in this scrap of leather? She could not answer that question. My next question was that if these items were tossed into a trashcan, how did some ‘bum’ know that all of these isolated items should be returned to this address? What was the connecting factor to return these things together and what if there were other things in the trash that belonged to her, but the ‘bum’ did not realize they were also connected. This too went unanswered. What incentive would some ‘bum’ have in returning these items? The hope of getting an reward? Slim chance under any circumstances, but even slimmer when the important items like the wallet and makeup case were obviously emptied and destroyed beyond repair. Why would anyone think they were important enough to return to someone? The real mystery came when she produced two keys that were supposedly returned. One was my mailbox key, which she had on her key ring and the other was a key to the apartment front door. BUT, the apt. key was not the key we had given her. This key, though it worked, was a different shape at the top, handle part and was painted black. If someone had a copy of our key, why would they throw it away and not save it for a future burglary? Why did they keep the key to the building and not these also? Mary showed us this little hole on the outside of the door and some scraped paint marks where they tried to break in the window on the door. She was sure they popped the lock through this little hole. If the bolt were on, there is no way the bolt could have been popped through this little hole. The scraped paint was no where near the edge of the window, but away from it. The windows have iron decorative grates on them and even if they were opened, they would need a key to open the bolt if it were on. Then Mary had the audacity to tell us that we needed to tell our property owner that she needed to reimburse her for her losses. Keeping my temper, a first, I said “Mary, you are a guest. Your name is not on the lease and she has no responsibility toward you at all. She owes you nothing. Mentally, I was thinking what Mary owed us for food, supplies, aggravation, and stress. Every Hungarian that I have told this story to, thinks it is too weird for words and none of them believe it. The U.S. Embassy people that were at the conference with us were given minute-by-minute updates in hopes that they could be of assistance. They thought this was a fishy story and there was more to it than we were being told. Our property owner found it very suspicious. She spoke with the building manager who also thought it was strange. The other robberies were ancient history and not current at all. When we showed the property owner the door and the hole with paint scraped off, she said that was done by a locksmith a long time ago. She was living here at the time and she lost her key. She had to have a locksmith come and let her in. When he replaced the lock with the current lock, he drilled too far and created the little gap that is there now. We could not remember if it had been there or not. The scraped paint was old too, which we thought was the case, but she confirmed it. The other thing that she thought was strange was that if the lock were jimmied in any way, the way Mary claims it was, why was the lock intact? There was no damage to it at all. The questions that are still in my mind are:

  1. If you thought someone were coming into the apartment and went to investigate, wouldn’t you realize the front door was wide open?
  2. If someone did try to break in and then realized someone were home, would they return to the same apartment after they thought they went to sleep?
  3. There were other things on the table in the hallway next to the chair where Mary’s bag was. Why weren’t they taken too?
  4. Why return destroyed items?
  5. How does some stranger make the association of what belongs together in order to gather the items and return them?
  6. If the slip of paper with our address on it happened to be in the trash also, how does someone associate that paper with these items?
  7. From the looks of the wallet, the slip of paper could not have stayed in the wallet. There was nothing intact to hold the paper in it. So, how did this happen?
  8. Why bother returning a transportation pass to someone?
  9. Where did this mystery key come from? Why was it painted black?
  10. Did Mary really have a “moment” and forget her back somewhere and forgot that she did it?
  11. Did she forget her back and was too embarrassed to admit it and made up the whole story hoping for compensation from the property owner?
  12. Will Kristen stick to this story to maintain their new friendship or will she have a different version?
With all of this, Mary moved forward to shop for her apt. and to stay on schedule for her trip to Germany at the end of this month. She moved out the Monday we returned. Afterward, she called to say “Thanks” for all that we did for her, but never once mentioned the money she was going to give us for her share of expenses or the aggravation over this incident. She continues to complain over the expenses that this has caused her. When she pays her rent and utilities, she will finally realize just how good she had it. We like her better now…from a distance. Lessons we have learned from this experience:
  1. All guests not known to us, need to have three letters of reference, a security check and a lie detector test before an invitation is extended.
  2. We will collect a security deposit upon arrival.
  3. We need to see a return plane ticket with “NOT CHANGEABLE” stamped on it.
  4. They need to assure us that they understand the meaning of “You are welcome to stay with us for a week or two.”
  5. They need to understand that their possessions with be put in a plastic bag and placed in a trashcan on the way to the airport, if they overstay their welcome.
  6. The locks will be changed on the 15th day of their stay.
  7. Their names will be given to the Russian mafia who will be told that they are impinging on their territory.
  8. We will report them to the U.S. Embassy saying they are making threats toward the Ambassador in their sleep.

Pin It Now!

Saturday, October 12, 2002

The Story of Mary in Two Parts

0 comments

The Story of Mary in Two Parts Okay, Mary is not her real name and since we are in Hungary, her chances of a lawsuit are slim to none, but I am trying to be a nice guy and not embarrass anyone, even if she was a pain in the a**. I have tried to make this a creative story, a mystery story, or a children’s story with a moral, but it just will not come to fruition. Here is the long and short of it, but knowing me it will be the long of it. Mary was a stranger to us. She was the friend of a friend of ours who is on this list, but shall remain nameless. This mutual friend had shared my travel writings along our trip with Mary and she became fascinated. She was at an age when she was ready to retire from education; she has six different credentials some including Special Ed, Administration, and Counseling. Mary thought it would be interesting to spend a year living here in Budapest and started to e-mail me about the possibilities. With this touch of interest and my enthusiasm for living here, I was more than happy to supply her with details of our daily living, web sites to investigate, and other avenues to explore for more information. Some of the web sites were for The Budapest Sun: an English newspaper and the Ex-Pat Relocation Center that assists with Work Permits and Residency Permits. She was good about following up with all of them and sent comments that assured me of her having investigated each lead provided. All was going well with our exchange and I had offered Mary a place to stay for one to two weeks while she orients and settles once she arrived. Shortly into our, what turned into months of communication, she sent me a note that she had found someone else who lived in Budapest and was communicating with him also. She gave me the site of the bulletin board to see their exchange. When I went to read these, she had posted that “friends of mine have offered to allow me to stay as long with them as I wanted, until I find a place of my own.” I immediately, wrote her and reiterated that I had indeed said one to two weeks. She never responded to this correction. The next experience that I thought was unusual was that in spite of all of my notes about our difficulty with getting Work and Residency permits and all that it entailed, she contacted the Hungarian Consulate in L.A. and decided to start the paperwork. This could never be completed properly since she did not have any of the papers she would have needed from here to complete the application, like a job offer, her letter from the employment office stating no Hungarians were qualified first, etc. When she complained that she wasted the $50.00 fee, I could not sympathize since I had warned her against it multiple times. I have to admit that I was significant in sending her motivational sayings to move in some direction or another when she was faltering about when she would arrive. However, I explained factually, that if she arrived prior to our starting to teach, we would have more time to assist getting her oriented and out on her own. Also, we had our friends, Rochelle and Karl coming October 14th and would need the double bed that was to be hers in the meanwhile. She agreed with this logic and arranged to arrive on Friday, September 13th. This should have been an omen. Prior to her leaving California, I had asked Mary to please bring us a jar of anything from Trader Joe’s (a specialty grocery store) that had artichokes in it. We cannot get artichokes here and miss TJ’s tremendously for many reasons. She agreed to do this after asking me twenty questions, which at first I thought was a sign of her being thorough. A few e-mails later, she mentioned that she did not want to drag a jar around with her since she was first visiting friends in New Jersey, so would get the item there. I wrote back that TJ’s is a West coast chain and if it were available in NJ, I would have bought it myself on our last trip there. She agreed to get something for us. Though emotion can be misconstrued easily in e-mails, there seemed to be resistance there. When we were in the States, I sent Mary a flyer with the information on the airport shuttle that would take her directly to our door. I included 200 HUF for a tip for the driver since I guessed she would not have changed money at the airport. She had e-mailed that if she did not get it, she was sure that the driver would be thrilled to get a U.S. dollar. This really upset me since we had written about Hungarian pride, I had sent her sites about the Hungarians and their nationalism, and then to have the ethnocentric thinking that the Almighty U.S. dollar was so ingratiating that all would love to have one, really set me off. Aside for the above, exchanging one dollar for HUF would not be possible and therefore a waste for both giver and recipient. I then realized I had my hands full with cultural training and perhaps I had bit off more than I was willing to chew, but the forces were in motion. Mary was a self admitted clothes and shoe collector and had a difficult time paring down her wardrobe to two suitcases. Our mutual friend was thrilled since she inherited Mary’s left behinds. Again, I sent her a multitude of suggestions of what she would need for starting out her in the months ahead, what she would need to buy and the expense of the clothes, though the quality was poor. The day of arrival came and I greeted her at the downstairs door. On her bedroom door in the apartment, I had a sign welcoming her to Budapest and stating this would be her room. This sign was significant, so remember it existed. Ron had bought a lovely flower for her room and we bought a very nice woven basket for her to keep her toiletries in. We do not have shelves in the bathroom for our things and keep our own in baskets. In the basket were guides and brochures to the city, copies of the Budapest Sun, and other little things. We also bought a plastic container for other things that she may not have. I also bought a little notebook and named it “Mary’s Survival Guide to Budapest”. In it I had labels with what trams were closest to the apartment and how to come back from that stop. I did the same for the subway and various other things that were close to the apartment. It included our address, our home number as well as our mobile phone numbers. It was sufficient for her to explore on her own without fears of getting lost and not finding her way back. She was duly impressed and grateful. She decided to stay up, though she had traveled all night and had had a full day in NYC with her friend prior to leaving the States. We took her to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and she was amazed that we could have a dinner for $2.25 each. We did a brief walk around and then came home to go to bed. The next morning, Mary was as comfortable sitting around in her bathrobe as we were which added a tone of familiarity for all of us. If I am not going out, I have a tendency to work in my bathrobe for an extended period of time so as not to interrupt my momentum. At breakfast the first morning, Mary announces that she only drinks decaf coffee, which we never have in the house and we only have one coffee pot. Then she continues to say that she is prone to panic attacks and hates to read books, though not in the same sentence. Having someone in the house who hates to read books was enough to put me into a panic attack. How could anyone with any type of degree in education hate to read, yet one with six different credentials? I audibly ‘yelped’ at that comment, though being the licensed therapist, the panic attacks just rolled off my back. The idea for Saturday was to help her get a monthly transportation pass and orient her to the neighborhood. These are the grocery stores and this is how you shop in them, this is the bank with the ATM machine, this is the Red line Metro, this is the tram, and so on. However, after a couple of hours, she was exhausted and we had to return home with most of it incomplete. This was understandable considering jet lag. Sunday turned out to be much of the same, with her needing to rest more than she needed to be oriented. Monday turned into a clone of the weekend days. The other thing was that Mary was hungry every few hours. It was not like she was snacking, but EATING. Both of us eat a lot less here than we used to in CA, but Mary was putting away more than both of us combined. When we would normally have enough leftovers for another full meal for both of us, after her arrival, there was nothing left over at all. At first, we thought it may be a stress reaction, but it continued for the time she was here. She is a big woman, towering around 5’11”, though not fat. By Tuesday of that week we both started teaching school and thought she would wander the neighborhood on her own and explore. It did not happen. She clung to us like feather on a goose. This was surprising since she had been to Europe for lengthy periods on her own and was used to traveling independently. By the end of the first week, the lack of having a moment’s privacy was starting to wear on both of our nerves and Ron and I started to get snappy with each other. I soon realized that Mary was not one to clean up after herself in the kitchen and Ron started following her example. This put me into ballistic mode. There is nothing that makes me crazier than an mess in the kitchen. I really had to put my foot down with this and Mary called me compulsive. Regardless, I was not cleaning up after three people. I also had to keep putting all of her things that she left hanging around on her bed, hoping she would get the idea that I do not like clutter or a mess hanging around. It took her awhile. Every time we went out, she calculated how much we spent. Her wallet was safely tucked into her shoulder bag. It did not see the light of day except for when she bought her transportation pass. The first week, we bought all of the groceries and she never offered to chip in at all. Since she was a stranger and eating enough to keep an army alive, it was getting expensive. When we went shopping, she wanted to join us and added things to the basket that she recognized. It would seem that she would have offered to pay for those items, but she did not. We had mentioned in conversation that we will not get our salary from the universities until we have our final Visas and that may take months. This did not seem to sink in. During week two, when she followed us to the grocery store, she finally paid for a day’s groceries. We have to shop daily since our refrigerator is small and the freezer is almost non-existent. Groceries for a day runs around $5.00 to 7.00 depending on other staples needed. During her time with us, she footed the bill for groceries five times. She paid for dinner out twice, but we took her to our favorite cheap restaurants since that is where we normally eat anyway. Once she complained that dinner for the three of us was about $14.00 and she thought that was too expensive. She is the one that ordered the extra side dishes though. All during this time, Mary was talking about meeting her cousin in Germany and another friend in Turkey. She stated that since she was planning to travel in the near future (eons away for us), there was no sense in getting her own apartment right away. Whoa!!! What does this mean? Let’s reconnoiter here. You are not going to Germany until the end of October and Turkey possibly after that and you think you will have a room available and waiting for you all of this time? Then and only then you will start looking for an apartment? This is when I started having panic attacks. There was no questioning as to whether or not this plan was acceptable to us or not, it was assumed that it would be. I gently, yes, I had control and gently reminded her that we had company coming in October, therefore if she were to stay she was being moved to the single bed. That was fine with her. THEN she started talking about her daughter coming to visit her and staying with her in her room, HERE! This almost sent me to the doctor to be medicated. Of course, Ron never shared any of his feelings openly and continued to be the host with the most, so she felt assured that she was welcomed to make our home her own. The final straw was when we came home one day and found her original “Welcome” sign that I had on the door, flipped over and she had written “Advanced to Roomate”. Yes, I know roommate has two m’s, but I am relating this as it was written. Ah, pardon me, but roommates SHARE expenses equally. By this point, Ron and I were having to go out for coffee just to have fifteen minutes alone together. When we were home, she was with us every minute unless we sequestered ourselves in the bedroom, but we felt rude doing that. She spend every minute I was not here on the computer and much of the time when I was here and would allow her on. I found out later that she was printing crossword puzzles from the Sacramento Bee and other sources. At one point, I found our business stationery in the printer and she was printing on the back of it. When I told her about it, she blamed it on Ron and denied doing it. Ron certainly knows the expense of it and does not use it for general reasons. I also told her that printer cartridges were $16.00 a piece for black ink and that the crosswords were using a lot of ink. Though she said she would replace a cartridge and stop printing them out, neither happened. Finally, I shoved her out the door and forced her to get out of the apartment on her own. She attended a meeting of the International Women’s Association and started to meet some other women. Our friend Shuli, who is looking for another apartment, took Mary with her one day when she was with the realtor. Mary’s comments were about the expense, but not about the possibility of moving out. Shuli called me later to say that Mary bought cigarettes and then forgot them on the counter where she bought them. The clerk came running after her to give them to her. Also, she forgot her bag at the coffee house and they had to go back for it. The home phone is billed by the minute and it is expensive. Everyone uses a mobile phone since they are much cheaper to use and no on gives out their home phone number if they can help it. This knowledge did not keep her from using the phone to make her calls to her newfound friends or any other person she could think of calling. Our friend Attila brought her to get a mobile phone, which is a necessity here, after much prompting from me. She did not know if she wanted the expense of a mobile phone. Since she is not a resident and does not have a business, she could not get a subscription service anyway. She could buy a phone for $40.00 and then buy cards with pre-paid minutes on them. This was a cheaper option and would save us money on our phone bill. Mary made good use of her phone. One day she called me to say she was in the subway and did not know whether to take the train on the left or right side of the platform. I reminded her that the stops were listed in big letters on the wall and she just needed to look at the arrows pointing to our stop. She claims to like maps and be good at reading them, but she was continually disoriented or confused as to where she was. I contributed it to culture shock at first. Ron and I bought subscription seats to the English language theater. Tickets for the season were $36.00 each for six plays and one bonus play. At the end of September, it was Mary’s birthday. We bought her a ticket for the play that we were scheduled for the night of her birthday. She invited a newfound friend, a young woman from my writers group to come along. After the play, we stayed at the theater and had dinner at the restaurant there. Since it was Mary’s birthday, we treated for dinner. With Kristen there, we naturally treated her also. Mary announced that she wanted to take the three of us for dinner as her birthday present to us. Ron had found a review of a restaurant that he had wanted to try, so we all agreed on Sunday for brunch. That Sunday, Ron and Mary went to the cathedral for mass and the music. I met them at the restaurant later as did Kristen. Each entree on the menu was in the range of $2.50 to $3.50, but Mary kept commenting about how expensive everything was priced. I was ready to offer to pay for ourselves just to shut her up. It was really getting irritating that she complained about expenses so much when she was not doling out her share, but could go on and on about her potential trips to Germany and Turkey. As October 1st approached, we decided that if she was to be a roommate (with two m’s), then she would be presented with her share of the bills. Ron figured out all of our expenses of rent, utilities, cable, Internet, and house phone and divided it by 3. He gave it to her and said this is what sharing the costs would be. It came to $180.00 a month. He then said that we would collect all grocery receipts and split the cost three ways at the end of each week. Since this was like feeding a growing teen boy, she was getting the lion’s share of that deal. Although she agreed that this was reasonable and even offered to increase the amount by a few bucks, the next day she found a realtor and was apartment hunting. Praise all higher powers regardless of their names. Prior to leaving home, Mary had taken interior design classes at the community college. Thinking there was light at the end of the tunnel with her apartment hunting; she analyzed the furnishings of each apartment and nixed it. My mantra was, “You are only planning on a year here, why do you care?” Well she could not possibly live anywhere that did not have design potential after staying in our apartment. The light at the end of the tunnel was getting dimmer and dimmer by the day. We were to leave on October 4th for Veszprém, in another part of Hungary. We were both presenting at an IATEFL conference (International Association for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language). Days before, Mary announced she found an apartment and would be signing the lease the day we were leaving town. The choir of angels singing the Alleluia chorus was audible to all and not just in my head. There still was no sight of any money to assist in feeding her, the phone bill, the ink cartridge, etc., but there was an end in sight. Funny, but her apartment costs around $450.00 a month, but that did not seem to be an issue. She planned on staying in our apartment until Monday and then moving to her own when we returned. To be continued…

Pin It Now!

Monday, July 08, 2002

Three Days of Hell

0 comments

July 8, 2002 I have just spent three days of hell going through the Visa process and it is still unclear to me and the university that hired me. I will relay what happened for your reference and for whatever school you decide on. I was hired by Eötvös Loránd University, which has the reputation of being the premier university in Hungary and some at the U.S. Embassy, say all of Central Europe. They had a student intern contact me to get the Visa process started. First, some background information. The intern’s name was Bálant. Ron and I had already started a Hungarian corporation, which at the time (Feb.) was supposed to exempt us from needing a Work Permit or Residency Visa since we were the owners. As the ink was drying on the corporation papers, the attorney told us that the laws had changed Jan. 1, 2002. We were now only allowed to manage our business, but we were not allowed to teach through the business. If we wanted to do this, we would need Work Permits and then Residency Permits. The attorney was supposed to do this for us, but then bailed out on it. We found Business Umbrella, a company that specializes in ex-pat needs such as these. Here we met Mona Martin and thought we found gold. Mona did all of the paperwork for our Work Permits. She arranged for our diplomas to be translated at the official translation office. She then submitted our applications to the Employment Office with the qualifications for the jobs. Realistically, we may not have been able to get jobs with our own corporation if the Employment Office found a Hungarian who needed a job and met some of the qualifications. Mona warned us that they did not even have to speak English fluently or have the stated qualifications for the Employment Office to deny our applications. We had to wait six long weeks before our applications were approved. The next step was to get our physical exam, which has to be done here in Hungary, by an authorized doctor. Mona met us at the clinic and four hours later, we had our medical certificates. She then submitted the complete application for our work permits. After one month, we had them and it was then and only then that we were able to work legally. At this point, Mona dropped two bombs on us. The first was that she was leaving Business Umbrella and going to the more expensive agency, The Ex-Pat Relocation Center. The second was that she could not assist with the Residency Permits. We had to do it on our own. We were upset and confused since we do not speak Hungarian, we knew this was another nightmare about to happen. We had three people call the NYC Hungarian Consulate, one who spoke Hungarian, and all three received differing information. The only piece that was identical was that you have to return to your country of citizenship in order to get the Residency Visa, but not until the work permit is issued. Two weeks later, Mona called us and said that she would be starting at the Ex-Pat Center in three weeks and they DO assist with the Residency Permits. We were thrilled, though we knew this meant higher fees. It was worth the lesser amount of education. We met and she had taken all of our files from her previous employer. Unethical, perhaps, but it saved us lots of time and having to redo lots of work and forms. What she needed from us was another “official form that needed to be culled from the district government’s office. After paying a fee, it would be available in three days. All of this was for the D-3 Residency Visa. Mona put together packets for each of us with all of the paperwork, forms, photos that we would need to just hand to the NYC Hungarian consulate. When we told her that we both have since been employed by universities, she said that we should get the Visas and then she would have to cancel out Work Permits and get them reissued for universities. Our permits were for our business and private language schools only. She also said that our Work Permits were for our District only and not outside of it. This sounded fishy and when we mentioned it to a dozen people, everyone said that did not sound valid. We would deal with that at a later time. We made our reservations for the States for August. Fares had skyrocketed since first checking. I received a call from the university’s student Bálant whose job it was to in his words, lead me through the quagmire of red tape. Through the university’s connections, they found that after getting one form, Bálant could take me to the Ministry of the Interior’s office to get a stamp to present to the consulate in NYC and all would be well. They had to send a letter to the Ministry of Education, which they would in turn receive a letter of approval from the Ministry to hire me. As of February, 2002, there is a new law, which is a bilateral agreement for an exchange of language educators between the U.S. and Hungary. This is supposed to make things easier. Insert a chuckle here. With this letter in hand, the Ministry of Interior would have us come to the VIP office and all would be done in minutes and without needing an appointment. That was what they were told. For this agreement and to teach in government funded schools, you need a D-2 Visa. One Wednesday, Bálant met me at the university and we went to an official office to get a document that was needed. We had to stand in line to pay our fee for the form, and then stand in line to get a number for getting the form. When we received the number 463, they were just calling number 129. The intern thought it prudent to go find the office of the Ministry of the Interior, which is closed on Wednesdays, but we would know the location for an early Friday morning visit. We found it and returned to wait for 3 ½ hours before our number was called and the form was handed over. This was the same form that Ron and I had already received from the local office. When I wearily explained this to Bálant, he said we would each need one. What I was thinking was that for $4.00 more, we could have received it through the local office in three days and no waiting in line. The temperature hovered around 90 degrees that day and the humidity was high. It was done and over. Friday morning was the end of the process until NYC. In the meanwhile, Ron’s university had no idea about this new law so I had Bálant make copies of everything he had that Ron could bring to his university and have them start the process for him. He made an appointment with his director. When he arrived, she told him she was in a state of depression since she received word that nine of her faculty was being laid off due to budget cuts. Some had taught for twenty years. This would not effect his position since he was under a grant. With summer here, most were on vacation and she had no idea how long it would take to get the letters needed, though he emphasized they were needed before our trip to the States on August 20th. On Friday morning, we met with Bálant and ventured off to the Ministry of the Interior. At 8:30 am, there were about two hundred people already in lines. The office opens at 8:30. It took Bálant about fifteen minutes to find someone who could tell him which line was the VIP line and it actually was in a different building. The line at the VIP office was smaller with about twenty people waiting. Bálant who up to now has had a demure, non-assertive manner, must have felt pushed to the edge and pushed himself to the front of the line. When the officer looked over my passport, she said there was nothing she could do since I did not have the stamp from the consulate and to add insult, we did not have an appointment. Bálant argued with her and said the university officials had called and was told we had to come here first before going to the consulate in NYC and that we did not need an appointment. This was with Hungarians speaking to Hungarians. I can imagine if we had tried to navigate this system on our own. As we left with our tails between our legs, Bálant called the university to tell them of our failures and I also had him call Mona Martin. She told him that it is impossible to have two Visas, one D-2 for an educational facility and a D-3 for our business. Bálant explained to her that we would no longer need a Work Permit, since the new law does away with them for educational institutions that are government funded. However, now we had to decide if we were going to teach for the universities or run our business. This was a no brainer…the universities. No one at this moment knows if the application form for the D-2 Visa is the same as the application for the D-3 Visa, so that has to be checked on. Later in the day, Bálant called and said “You need to move on this process in order to be done when school starts on September 6th.” What can I do that has not been done already, I asked. The last step is fly to NYC. The system is crazy, but I know from working with immigrants that the system in the States is just as convoluted. We do not make it any easier and without the native language; you are up the proverbial creek. So now, we are making decisions about the business. Once we get our Residency for the universities, our Work Permits are no longer valid. That was a waste of money. We are not able to teach through our business in Hungary, but since we want to consult outside of the country, we do not want to dissolve it. We are considering hiring a manager/marketer for local business and then hiring teachers to teach. Decisions, decisions! It has not proven much better for American friends that are married to Hungarians as some have been refused long-term residency unless they have been married for longer than three years. As Hungary is vying for European Union membership, laws change weekly and to add to the mix, the government changed after a national election just months ago. Laws are bound to change yet again. The fees for this roller coaster ride are getting expensive with fees for everything and payments to services for providing assistance. Fortunately, the universities do not charge for their services. Ron received a call from his university. They need him to have a physical. He called Mona to get a copy of the physical he had already and she did not have it. She did not think it would be needed, so she left it at the prior employment. Strangely, she did have mine. Ron had surgery on his ear, so I am a bit concerned about his having to go for another physical. Though his ear surgery was for a skin growth that is not contagious, things are never clear cut here. And the beat goes on.

Pin It Now!

Tuesday, May 14, 2002

I GOT THE JOB...

0 comments

This post has migrated from another one of my blogs set for deletion. I received THE call from Dr. Bollabas. I was offered the position. She said she was certain she wanted me as soon as our interview was over, but she needed to interview the others too. She asked that I come in later in the week to go over paperwork. I am on CLOUD 9!

Pin It Now!

Tuesday, May 07, 2002

The Interview

0 comments

When I was waiting for the bus to go to my interview, it never showed up after 30 minutes. The schedule shows it arriving every 7 minutes at this time of the day. In a panic over being late, I called a taxi from my mobile phone, then realized when it did not go through that I did not know how to call a land line from my mobile. I ran home and called the taxi to arrive at the university right on time. Dr. Bollabas was meeting with a student and asked me to wait a minute. It turned into fifteen, then I was asked into her office where we were constantly interrupted by students needing their index books signed. By the end of the interview, she said she had ten candidates to interview in all, but she would be making her decision by next Tuesday. She then asked me if I would be home on Tuesday. I said I would be. Then she said "Around 5:00 on Tuesday?" I affirmed that I would be, but she further stated "Here is my phone number and e-mail address in case we miss each other on Tuesday." With my past experiences, I knew not to be too excited over this, but I was hopeful. It was going to be a long time living through life until next Tuesday.

Pin It Now!

Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Confession

0 comments

Confession April 30, 2002 If confession is indeed good for the soul, then I should be feeling much lighter by the time you read this. I am not one to readily share my flaws, preferring to maintain that invincible façade. A façade that is so easily penetrated in private moments when those I love and respect are not witnesses to my weaknesses. This morning, I woke up later than usual. Ron had to go to his “new university” to observe one more time, the teacher he will be replacing. He really did not need to, he chose to so that he could be prepared for all of new faces he will be standing in front of come fall. I am not sure if it was the additional sleep or the dreams from the night’s slumber that put me in a strange frame of mind. The morning was a restless one and although it was only Monday morning, I knew that my student this afternoon would be canceling his class. This would leave me free all day without obligations; not needing to be anywhere. I could stay in the nest all day. Why things turned out the way they did, I will never know. My mind never stops. Thinking, thinking, all of the time, the thoughts, and ideas are a constant stream. Many times, I wake tired because my mind was so active the previous night, when my body was expecting rest. I ever have a day like this again, someone had better strap me down or lock me in a closet with no windows until the mood passes. Questions flooded over me all day, but answers never followed. Living in Budapest should be enough of excitement for anyone, but I was not feeling content. What seemed like years of build up was sitting on the surface, but knowing that was a gross exaggeration, I decided that months were not an unreasonable assumption. My view was being filtered and I could not live with it any longer. As much as we love this apartment, there are things that I cannot live with. It seemed like the perfect time to do something drastic, after all, Ron was not home. I was alone. I had privacy, no one to distract me, no one try and talk me out of it. I hate getting high, but today, I knew there was no way of accomplishing my goal without it. If I did not do it, no one else would do the things that I needed to make myself happy. That old saying, “If you want something done right, do it yourself”, was so true in this situation. Once I had decided on what needed to be done, I gathered the necessary things and set them out. Some things were left here by the daughter of the landlord. They were not too difficult to find. Other things I was able to find around town. Funny how some things are easier to find than others, but that is always the way it is. Isn’t it? Just as I was ready, Ron walked in. He was home early than either of us expected. He looked around at the things that I had set out. At first, he never said a word, but I could see the thoughts meandering through his mind like one of those signs you see in bars. The words go flashing by in bright little lights that spell out the words. The words that I could see flashing in his mind were “Why do you have to do this today? I do not want any part of this.” What he managed to utter was “I am going to take a rest.” I could not read his face. There was no sign of approval or disapproval, just resignation. I am going to get high and he does not care. I had a moment of anger at his lack of concern. He knows how much I hate it. He knows I avoid it for as long as I can, he did not seem interested in helping me make things better without my taking desperate measures. Sure there have been times when I succumbed to peer pressure, sometimes his, and have gone to limits that I never could or would have attempted on my own. Sometimes, it was good, but most of the time I experienced more fear than I ever thought imaginable. This time I was on my own. I had to get up and I had to do it by myself. We know many people who get high every chance they get for many different reasons. They like living on the edge. I do not like it at all, I just need to do it sometimes. Other fears wormed their way into the whole scenario too. When I am high, I have little control, my balance is off, I do not think rationally, and I panic easily. What if I lost my balance and smashed through a window? Crazy thoughts rushed through my head like they always do during times like this. The irrational cycle spins on and on and does not stop until the whole thing comes to an end when I am once again grounded and safe until next time. I never think there will be a next time, until it confronts me once again and I am faced with my demons one more time. I hate being weak! Once I was up, nothing was like it seemed it should be, but of course that is always the way it is, isn’t it. Sometimes it was worse than I expected it to be and at moments, I was pleasantly surprised to see that things were not as awful as I had imagined they would be. It did not stop my knees from shaking or my fears of going head first flying through the air of four floors. At times, my hands went grabbing the air, searching for something to hold on to, to support me and give me reassurance that I was going to be alright. The worst part of the whole ordeal was going up and down, up and down. I thought I had it planned well enough that I would not have the down times as often as I did, but there were more than I had expected. That is what was the most wearing part of the whole thing. After the first three hours, the school called to say that my student had just called to cancel. I knew that was going to happen all morning, but I was grateful for the confirmation and their timing. I happened to be down at the time the phone rang. If I were not, it would have been more than disturbing. If I had to leave the house before this was all over, it would have been a disaster for sure. Had I been smarter, I would have had the mobile phone clipped to my pocket in case I got into trouble or hurt myself, but whom would I call, 911? Hardly! It took six hours before the whole thing was over. Never had I anticipated six hours. Perhaps it is a blessing that that never occurred to me. If it had, I would probably never have started and I would still be a malcontent. Will I pay for this tomorrow? I am sure I will. I am sure my body will remind me that I am not as limber as I once was and cannot do the things that I used to do without paying the price. It is something that I hate, but I knew I could not stand for it. I had to get high. So friends, now I have confessed. Seeing the words on the computer screen has not helped yet. Maybe, just maybe after this is mailed out to you and I know that I cannot reach in and snatch it back, knowing that my secret is out; I will feel the conversion that comes from admitting your imperfections. Never again will I wash 42 windows in one day, especially the high ones. Getting high on that damn ladder is just as scary to me as riding the chairlift in Innsbruck. Even the second step makes me shaky, so the next time the windows need washing, I will horsewhip Ron into doing it or put an ad in the paper. By the way, if you happened to think that I was confessing anything other than my fear of heights, you ought to be ashamed thinking that I could mean anything else.

Pin It Now!

A Job!

0 comments

This has been moved from my other blog, set for deletion. Just by chance, there was an advertisement in the Budapest Sun for a university position in the American Studies department at ELTE university. I revised my C.V. to be current and went down in person to turn it in. I was told I would be called for an interview, but before I left, the Department Head made an appointment to meet with me early next week.

Pin It Now!

Friday, April 26, 2002

A Sojourn to Macedonia

0 comments

A Sojourn to Macedonia Being asked to present at a conference in Macedonia by the Regional English Language Officer of the U. S. Embassy, was thrilling, yet filled me with trepidation at the same time. After all, this was why I had worked for a doctorate degree, to do this type of work, yet when first faced with the opportunity, all of my insecurities rose to the surface. With seventeen years of combined teaching experience, this was a ludicrous reaction. What could I say that could be of any consequence to these conference attendees? Perhaps, I needed to attend more conferences as a participant before making the leap to presenter. Since meeting my friend Myrtis at the start of my doctoral program, I knew that I wanted to be like her when I grew up. Growing pains are mercilessly difficult to endure. Myrtis along with her husband Randall, have worked all over the European continent. Myrtis has taught English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language in a dozen countries. She wrote a book using Albanian folktales to teach English, while she herself was teaching there. She has written other workbooks for teaching English using United States history as the foundation since. She spent a year in Croatia on a Fellowship, then the next year went to Slovakia on a Fulbright. There is not a country in the world that Myrtis has not formed a contact person. She not only knows how to meet the right people, but she has the knowledge, experience, and confidence to support her decisions to pursue interesting adventures and assignments. Her husband, Randall has given her the freedom for many years to put his career aspirations aside so that she could pursue her professional goals. He has had the advantages of living on the edge through her choices, but at the same time, he has been a true partner in their relationship. Randall is a computer wizard. His talents add a dimension to Myrtis’ work that she most likely would not have the know how for if she had the time and energy to accomplish what Randall can do effortlessly, to help her shine ever brighter than she does on her own merits. They are a team to be admired and emulated. It is Myrtis who put me in touch with Damon Anderson, the Regional English Language Officer of sixteen countries of our part of the world. His office fortunately, is in Budapest. After first meeting, the three of us quickly transcended a professional relationship to one of mutual respect and friendship. Damon did a bit of arm twisting and convinced me that I needed to go to Macedonia to present at this conference. His enthusiasm of the new university that he had just visited and the teachers working there was beyond my scope of appreciation at the time. Respecting Damon’s judgment, feeling that he was indeed my advocate, I agreed to make the journey and make my way through the professional rite of passage as a presenter. Damon was able to pay my airfare; the university was paying for all other expenses. Ron was going to attend, but we had to pay for his airfare ourselves. My initial topic for my presentation was “Action Research: The EFL Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom”. This seemed like a reasonable topic for educators, but after sending in the proposal, I started having doubts. What if these Macedonian and Albanian instructors were not as fluent in English as I had assumed? What if this topic is way off the mark for the theme of the conference which was “Teaching English: Moving from the Traditional to the Contemporary”. My worst nightmare was that the U. S. professor from the States that was coordinating this and coerced Damon to send people to give this conference validity, felt betrayed. What if I let Damon down by being a disaster? I had to fall back on my motto since leaving California, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”. Normally, during these times of overwhelming apprehension, I resort to the “What is the worst thing that could happen?” thinking to work my way through the underlying issues and find resolution. This time, though the worst that could happen scenario was to move out of Budapest to save face with Damon and go hide my head in the sand somewhere in the Arabian desert. Knowing that I could fill a semester with a topic like Action Research, I narrowed it down to Classroom Assessment; a sub-topic of Action Research. After all, I only had forty-five minutes to speak. Having used Classroom Assessment myself, I knew my resistance to it in the beginning, but the power it held for my students and myself as a professional, prompted me to hone in on this area for this presentation. Not only did I have the whole presentation on overhead transparencies, I also had the same thing in same thing as a handout for the participants. I knew that in forty-five minutes, I would never be able to cover the thirty plus pages of work I had accumulated, but it was important for me to give the teachers a ready tool that could be implemented immediately in their classroom. Not only did I have my own reputation to build, but also I had Damon’s trust that had to be maintained, therefore, the presentation took many hours of thought and preparation. The day arrived and Ron and I made our first trip to the Budapest airport. We had never flown in or out of Budapest before, so this in itself was an adventure. At check in, the reservationist again asked if we had our Visa for Macedonia. We again repeated that the U.S. Embassy told us that we no longer needed one. The night before, I had checked the Macedonian website and they still list U.S. residents as needing a Visa, but I was depending on our governmental informant to be the most current. She told us we could buy a Visa at the airport when we arrived there. When it was time to go through security, we put our carry on luggage on the conveyor to be x-rayed. My bag was marked for inspection and I had to open it for the security person. It was surprising to me that he checked each pocket of the suitcase, which are many. He opened all of my toiletries and went through each one. Then he pulled out my haircutting scissors. I have had these scissors since I was in Beauty School, over 30 years. They are like an extension of my hand and without malice of forethought; they travel with me wherever I go. It never dawned on me that they could be considered a terrorist weapon since usually they are packed in my checked luggage. I had more concerns about my precious scissors being absconded, than I had fear of being accused of being a potential hijacker. When the security had a confab over what to do with the scissors and me, all in Hungarian of course, they decided that since I was headed for Skopje it was not that relevant to stop me. Our Malev (the Hungarian airlines) flight was uneventful, but the service was excellent. Although the flight was just over an hour, a light lunch was served. At the airport, we went through Passport Control without a problem. There was no mention of a Visa and the office that had the sign “Visas Purchased Here” definitely had an abandoned look. At the time, we did not realize that most of the country has that same appearance. We were able to exit the airport without a Visa and without a hassle. The airport was smaller than the smallest Wal Mart in the U.S. As you exit any international section of an airport, the throngs of people waiting to greet you are kept at bay by barricades. They are not allowed to meet you at the gate like a domestic flight in some airports. This was no exception, but as is typical in underdeveloped countries, the masses are mainly taxi drivers trying to convince you that they are there specifically to fulfill your desires for transportation. With great expectation, I had anticipated seeing someone with a sign that read “Dr. James” on it being held by the driver sent by the university. Since I rarely see my name with Dr. in front of it unless I initiate it myself, I am not used to the title that I worked so diligently to achieve. Sometimes the small things in life can be very gratifying. There was however, a person holding a sign. It read “Dr. David Francis”. I knew that Dr. Francis was flying in on Friday and that the driver was for us. He apologized at getting the signs wrong and when we were seated in the car, he showed us another sign that read “Dr. Ryan James and Dr. Ron Schmitz”. Ron was amused by his ‘promotion’ and I satiated with the small bit of professional recognition. The hotel that we were booked at was a quaint two-story building with a restaurant in off the lobby. All of the desk people, only men, wore traditional Macedonian attire. When we checked in, we were informed that the university had booked us in separate rooms. Ron had a spacious room with a queen-sized bed and I had a small room with a sloped ceiling that looked like someone’s converted attic. It only had room for a single bed. This was not going to do at all. We went down to the desk clerk and told them that we had requested one room with a double bed and that we would share Ron’s room. The clerk insisted that the university had required the two rooms and we should accept this. When I understood that his reasoning for insisting was that the hotel was fully booked and they did not have another room with two twin beds, I made it clear that the one bed was adequate. My point was that we would be saving the university 55 Euros a night for my room and they hotel could use if for another occupant since they were booked anyway. After moving my things into the one room, we went to explore the city. It was listed as a four star hotel, but I believe that you only saw the four stars if you hit your head on the sloped ceiling and counted them as they floated in front of your eyes. Skopje is not a pretty city. Actually, there are no redeeming qualities that were apparent to these Western eyes on our walk. We later learned that an earthquake flattened the city in the 60’s. After the earthquake, the country was a pawn of communism and wars, so the city was never rebuilt to be a showcase, but of utilitarian needs. The parks and all other landscapes are overgrown with grass and weeds. The buildings are modern in architectural design, but are weary looking needing a new coat of paint and in many instances some replacement walls or windows. We walked to the city center to find a bank with a money machine to get some local currency. The Macedonian currency is called the Denar and the rate was about 69 of them to the U.S. dollar. As we approached the center, we say a sign for a bank in Macedonian. Their alphabet is similar to Russian, a Cyrillic alphabet, but we knew what to look for thanks to the desk clerk. We entered the bank, which was hauntingly empty except for the six employees that were sitting and chatting behind the counter. It was striking to see that there was not one piece of paper in the entire customer area. There were no deposit slips, withdrawal slips, or even a dried up pen hanging captive from a secured chain. The floor was littered and probably could not recall the last time it had been mopped. All of the employees jumped up as we entered like they had been shipwrecked on an island and we were their rescuers that they had dreamed about. When there was no apparent sign of a money machine, we asked and were told that it was on the other side of the bank in the mall. We left wondering what function this bank could possibly be providing when there was not one customer inside. How were these six people justifying their salary? Around the corner in a large mall that was three stories of small dismal, depressing shops, we found the money machine. We walked around the mall looking in windows, but it was difficult to tell if a shop was open or not since the lighting was so dim. Many were open, but the merchandise on display in the windows was not a temptation to explore inside any further. As we walked, this young man approached me from behind on my left side. He tried selling me a knife while displaying a fistful of them. When I shook my head, “No!” he further demonstrated that these knives were indeed switchblades. When he pressed the button, a blade emerged that looked like it expanded in length once it hit the open air. It was incredible that a blade that long could have fit into such as compact handle. When I again shook my head negatively, I had this fear that this young man may want to demonstrate the attributes of his wares on my ribcage in order to further convince me of the benefits of owning one of his knives. He did, however, walk away without an incident, but Ron was walking ahead of me so my anxiety was not relieved until the guy was totally out of our proximity of protection. Restaurants abound in the city and many of them are well appointed in décor and atmosphere. They are probably the oasis in the desert of ruin. We went to one restaurant on the edge of the downtown center and had a beer. We ordered a side order of French fries from the waitress who did not speak any English. A few minutes later, a bartender approached to explain in English that they did not serve French fries without a meal. As a substitute, he gave us a bowl of snacks complimentary. Our two large beers cost under $2.50. We went back to the hotel and soon after relaxing in the room, we were ready to go again and the phone rang. Dr. Andy Gridinsky, our host was in the lobby and wanted to meet us. Indiana University was awarded the contract for helping to start SEE University. SEE (South Eastern European University) was established to give Albanian students living in Macedonia an opportunity to earn an education. Due to the political strife that is on going, the Albanians have a difficult, sometimes impossible time being accepted into the admissions of the University of Skopje. The University is a joint effort of the U.S. government and the European Union for a three-year commitment at this point in time. Andy, as he likes to be addressed is one of three American professors who was contracted to develop the English department. Andy is small in stature and slight in build. His nervous energy and body language had me believing that I was in the presence of Woody Allen. That was an image that held for a couple of days. A woman named Annie, a Senior Fellow who is coordinating the Albanian project under the direction of Damon Anderson, accompanied him. She too, is the same body type as Andy, but both are powerhouse of action. The four of us went to dinner at a local restaurant where Andy shared more of the background of the teachers that were organizing the conference. We learned that the conference was by invitation only. Some of the teachers wanted to invite teachers from the high schools to attend, but due to the politics, this was negated. If they invited Albanian teachers, they would have to invite Macedonian teachers as well. Due to the politics, it was thought best to avoid problems. There were to be a total of about 40 conference participants including the presenters. Andy kept referring to Dr. Francis, Ron, and me as the “big guns” and the “heavy hitters” that lent credence to this conference for the teachers. He explained that without us there, they would not feel it was as important as it was for both their professional development and their self-esteem. With every sentence he spoke, I could feel my shoulders drooping more and more with the weight of responsibility that was being added to them. When we returned to the hotel, we were informed by the desk clerk that they just received a ‘final’ confirmation of rooms from the university and there was yet another mistake. Ron and I were supposed to be placed in an apartment, not an ordinary room. He wanted us to move into our new larger quarters, but we convinced him our current space was more than adequate and we could stay where we were. Most of these teachers have never taught on a university level before and most did not even have a Masters degree, not for lack of desire, but for lack of accessibility. They were capable instructors, but many were trained in the old and traditional schools under the Communist regime and were not privy to more contemporary techniques and pedagogy. The university opened late in November, behind schedule due to conflict in the region. For many of them, this was the first conference they had ever attended and it was definitely their first time to be presenters. They were all overwhelmed with fear and Andy asked that we be generous in our understanding of the situation. If nothing else, this was going to be an Experience with a capital E. The university is located in the town of Tetovo, about 40 meters from Skopje. Due to the continual unrest between the Albanians and the Macedonians, none of the foreign university staff is allowed to live in Tetovo. Local staff is also encouraged to be off of the campus by 5:00 pm. Each morning they are bussed to the university and each evening they are bussed back to Skopje. The same was to hold true for the presenters. Breakfast was served in the hotel breakfast room at 7:00 am. It was a wonderful buffet of assorted cereals, juices, coffee, but most interestingly, an assortment of cheeses that we had never tasted before. At 8:00 am, the bus was ready to transport us to the university. The other international speakers that arrived to present were professors from Albania, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and the British Council sent one speaker. The university is an eclectic mix of buildings that are modern in design. They were pre-fabricated buildings that were assembled in Austria and trucked to the site where they are now. Most of the buildings are painted in shocking blue, but others like the dormitories are a more subdued deep gold. The multi-purpose room where the cafeteria is is a pale gray color. Although all of the buildings stand out due to their unusual colors, one in particular is painted blue, sea foam green, and gold each color in a broad vertical band down the front. One person suggested it was used as a color sample for the rest of the campus. We all made jokes about the color scheme of the buildings, but it did provide for an eye-catching and exciting atmosphere that demanded attention on the landscape. Even in the dreariness of winter, these colors held the power to raise one’s spirits. The land surrounding the buildings is just now producing grass, which has the faculty very excited. On two sides of the perimeter are apple orchards, which were in bloom, giving the entire campus a country feeling. Surrounding the area are mountains, which make the backdrop look like someone has plastered a huge mural on a humongous wall to decorate the area. There was a reception opening the conference in the multi-purpose room. Since Friday was a school day, there were many students on campus as well. As we met the teachers, they proudly pointed out some of their students. The ease of interaction between the students and teachers was apparent. Unfortunately, we did not have time in the full schedule to meet and speak with students. The reception was followed by an opening meeting that was attended by the British Ambassador to Macedonia, an Ambassador’s representative from the U.S. Embassy, the Secretary General of the university, and one of the teachers. Each of the two days was ambitiously filled with workshops and presentations. They had two concurrent sessions for each time slot with a total of twenty-six sessions planned. Half of the workshops were the university teachers presenting and the others were the guest lecturers. The teachers overwhelmed us in a positive way with comments like “We never thought we would be important enough to have guests such as you come here” or “We were told you were coming, but we did not believe that it would really happen. After all, why would you come here for us? Who are we to have such important people have an interest in us?” It was apparent that these comments and other of a similar vein were not being parroted to elicit sympathy or an aggrandized response. They were sincere responses to years of subjugation and repression that has caused a lack of confidence in their worthiness as human beings not even considering themselves as professionals. It was heartbreaking as well as heartwarming at the same time. I have never felt such as sense of being appreciated in my life. Even though Ron did not present, he had as much attention to the point of adoration as I was receiving. Every word that we uttered was attended with great interest and the teachers surrounded us continually during each break vying for our attentions. Interestingly, this was not much different from the other visiting professionals who also demanded our time and attention. At the beginning, they had set out sign up sheets for each of the day’s workshops, limiting each to 20 participants. My presentation was scheduled for the first thing on Saturday morning. I secretly feared that no one would want to listen to a workshop on research first thing in the morning and that I would be speaking to the ghosts inhabiting the mountains. Each workshop given on Friday was obviously prepared with gusto. The teachers did their best to make their presentations engaging and they succeeded nicely. Interestingly, it was a few of the visiting professors from Kosovo who did not take to heart the contemporary piece of this conference and preached outdated methodology. It was the woman from the British Council who called them to task. Lunch was provided in the cafeteria at VIP tables for all of us. Dinner was a group gathering at a restaurant in Skopje. It was a great experience to have such a quality opportunity to sit in a relaxed atmosphere with so many teachers and discuss their situations from the different countries. One professor from Albania, shared with us that she had been teaching for over 30 years and this was her very first conference. She lamented that she never had the opportunity before since most conferences are held in the capital city and she would have had to pay all of her own expenses to attend. Since their monthly salary is less than $400.00 a month and she is a widow raising three daughters, it was impossible. Without the sponsorship of the U.S. Embassy, she would not be sitting with us that evening. The heartbreaking part was when she said that she had long ago realized that she was a good teacher, but could have been a great teacher with some additional training. Now she is approaching retirement and will never have the chance to reach her goals. Ron and I were both on the verge of tears many times during the weekend, hearing these teacher’s stories. It was funny during this dinner that one young female teacher, who was about 25 years old, beautiful, though she wore pounds of eye makeup, sat next to Ron staring at him through the whole dinner. At first, he was amused, but it persisted for so long, he started getting embarrassed. She would not be distracted from attending to his every action for more than a few seconds at a time. She hardly touched her dinner lest it create a diversion for her. The university teachers are obviously a team. This is a major achievement considering three of them are Macedonian. Some live in Skopje and the others live in Tetovo, which could be cause for additional marginalization. Their mutual respect and camaraderie is apparent both on the campus and off. One of the presentations by a Macedonian teacher revolved her evolution of acceptance not only from her colleagues, but also and maybe more importantly to her students. Her reflections were dramatic and touching to all attendees of her workshop and the consensus was that she should publish this piece. Saturday morning seemed to arrive too many hours too early. Before I had a chance to be nervous, we were on the bus to the campus. I went immediately to the room where I was going to present and set up the overhead projector and set out my transparencies. Then I did a follow-up to make sure that my photocopied handouts were ready. When I looked at the sign up sheets for the day, all were blank. I had no idea how many people would be in my session. At 9:00, everyone was corralled into the building for the start of the day’s workshops. I was pleasantly surprised, actually shocked, to see all of the seats filled with attentive people. I explained at the beginning that I knew there was more material than I could ever present in 45 minutes, but if I could get through the first half, they would have all of the tools they needed to be successful in without further instructions. The presentation went flawlessly. My nerves were steel and I felt like I was speaking to new friends, no longer were they strangers. The one thing that I am fascinated about is the use of humor and its cultural implications. There are always some appropriate cartoons or jokes in my presentations to take the edge off. One never knows how this will be understood or appreciated by an international audience. In this presentation, I had a cartoon of an elderly man sitting at a computer, while his wife was on the phone to their son. The caption said “Okay, your father was finally able to catch a mouse, now what do we do with him?” In the picture there was a mouse in a mousetrap hanging over the side of the desk. The point was that although we may think our listener is on the same wavelength of thinking as we are, due to many factors, the message perceived may be entirely different. Therefore, we cannot make assumptions that our listener fully understands our speech. I think that the cartoon drove the point home to myself also, as there was not even a snicker of appreciation from my audience, though I did get a number of smiles. At the end of the session, the Fulbright Scholar came up to me and said “That was an awesome presentation. I learned a great deal, plus I am so impressed with your preparation and ease with presenting. That was great!” The teachers from the university were my main concern and true audience, so I was leery about their reaction. As soon as I was done, they surrounded me to make comments like “You have the most fluid way of expressing ideas that I have ever heard”, “That was extremely helpful and I cannot wait to try it in my classroom”, “What a wonderful way to provide students with a say in their education, that was phenomenal”, and “Your handout is so complete and useful, it is wonderful.” It went on from there and I felt like a newly discovered movie star being surrounded my fans. I was more relieved to be able to share with them something that they would find useful and that they would implement than the admiration. My goal was accomplished in that they had a tool that they would feel would add to their professionalism and I was successful. That evening, we were all treated to dinner at yet another restaurant in Skopje. With the conference ended after two successful days of workshops, the change in the teacher’s demeanor was dramatic and obvious. They had gone from ordinary people who had the opportunity to teach at a new university to invested professionals with self-confidence that were interested in pursuing their own professional goals and dreams. The recurring theme of the conversation for the evening was that they thought the three professors from the Indiana project were insane when they suggested a conference. None of them thought they could present since none of them had even been to a conference before. None of them believed that anyone but their own members would show up at all. The outpouring of appreciation for our caring enough to attend combined with the emotionally charged sense of newly discovered self-awareness was more than I had ever experienced and melted me into a lump of emotion. As is the Albanian custom, there are a number of toasts made during the meal. Dr. Francis toasted their success. I then offered a toast stating “All of your have just experienced a rite of passage. You have transcended the passage from amateurs to professionals and I am proud to welcome you as colleagues.” The irony was that I too had gone through a rite of passage, but it did not occur to me until much later. To get this out with dry eyes was my major challenge for the evening. One of the teachers from the university stood and said “None of you know me. You think you know me, but none of you know my whole name. I have a very long name and now I will tell you what my name is.” He then proceeded by stating his first name, then went around the tables and called out each of our first names and finally ending with his last name. He then ended it by stating “That is who I am.” It was one of the most powerful statements of inclusiveness that most of these people have witnessed and it was difficult for many of them to stay dry eyed. For one evening, people from Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Britain, and the United States were all one. On that note, the evening ended. Ron and I walked back to the hotel with the others staying at our hotel. We were all elated by our experience. Some of the presenters had to take buses to get there and were facing a journey back that would be up to twelve hours long. The sacrifices that they made to be there to be presenters were as impressive as the conference itself. I cannot say that we would have that dedication. At breakfast on Sunday morning, we were able to say our good-byes to those from the other countries that were leaving that day. Actually, it was all of them except Dr. Francis, Ron, and myself. The professors from Bulgaria gave us a bottle of Bulgarian wine as a token of thanks for attending. Since they were fellow presenters, this was very touching. Andy and Annie came to the hotel at 11:00 am to bring the two Albanian professors to the bus station. We walked with them and went for a farewell coffee. After we saw them off to the bus, we took off on our own. We walked to the ‘old city’ to do some tourist things. The old city is just that, old. It reminded us of the small, unpaved roads in parts of Greece, but the shops were dreary and worn. None of them were open on Sunday, Macedonia being an Islamic and Orthodox Christian country. What was out of context was the number of stores selling wedding dresses or renting them; we were not sure which. Also, there were quite a few jewelry stores as well with all of the precious contents removed from view. At one end was a giant open-air market. Most of the goods for sale were food items, mainly fresh fruits and vegetables. The other things that were for sale were cheap and ordinary items that looked like imports from other countries. We did not see one thing that could be identified as culturally authentic. Ron had come across a store in the mall the first day that sold religious icons and was interested in purchasing one. That store was closed our first day and we never did find it open, so he was hoping to find something similar in this market, but it avoided our discovery. Most of the meats that were sold were not refrigerated and just sat out in the open like many other countries we have been to. Some of the meats were sickening shades of gray. Later in the day, we went left out of our hotel. Across the street from the hotel is a large sports stadium that looks fairly new, but the tickets booths look like they have witnessed war. There were no events to fill the seats with cheering crowds during our visit. Further down, we came across a huge park that had a lake in it. Within the lake were duck houses, each occupied by the feathered fowl that guarded their territory with as much sense of deprivation as the humans around them experience. The park, though it could be lovely, was overgrown with weeds and grass that did not look like it has had the experience of being mowed for many seasons. The fountains were victims of drought and left to sit without a purpose other than to collect falling leaves. Flowers or other spots of color were absent. At the end of the road was a children’s park with rides. Although, it was open, it was another dismal example of the state of the economy and the effects of the history of the country. There were a number of rides that sat lifelessly, decaying with the change of seasons, no longer with a sense of purpose. A children’s choo-choo train splashed with Coca-Cola advertising met its eternal rest in the little station. Snack bars were boarded up and some rides were operating with only one child enjoying the pastime. The only amusement that seemed to be appreciated and fully utilized was the bumper cars. While we lurked watching the action, it seemed that all participants were missing the point of the ride. They were driving the cars like they were taking a driving test. Finally, purely by accident, one driver bumped another and mayhem erupted. Once the drivers found they had a socially acceptable avenue to vent their frustrations, they seemed to awaken to the simple pleasures of the ride. For dinner, we returned to a restaurant that Andy took us to on Thursday evening. They have this assorted appetizer dish that is sufficient for a meal. The appetizers are different ‘salads’, but to an American palate, it really is different cheeses prepared in different ways. This is garnished with three different kinds of olives and a few stuffed grape leaves. The bread is thick and round. They cut a cross in it, but leave it whole then pour garlic butter in the center and toast it. It is delicious with the cheese spreads, oh, sorry, salads smeared on top of it. The other treat is olives that have meat wrapped around them and then are coated with breadcrumbs or something similar and then fried. They are a cardiologist’s nightmare, but they certainly are delicious. Macedonians do not eat until 9:00 pm or later. When you enter a restaurant at 6:00 pm, they find it difficult to believe that you actually want to eat. We had to get up at 3:00 am to get our taxi at 3:50 am for the airport, so we did not have the luxury to wait to eat. We were also told that the streets do not start jumping until around 11:00 pm and that it is not unusual for people to be out and about until 2:00 am during the week and then get up in the morning for work. This explained why the mall was vacated at 4:00 in the afternoon; however, the stores do close at 6:00 pm. Just like Hungary, I often wonder how some stores are able to stay in business. With full stomachs and heads light from beer and wine, we made took our last walk to the hotel for this trip. Members of the Macedonian army blocked off our familiar route back to the hotel. Due to the police regulations, the hotel needed to keep our passports handy for any random checks by the police. Since we did not feel comfortable negotiating the G.I. Joes, we took another way back to the hotel. The streets were black. They do not have an abundance of streetlights, so walking back was less than enjoyable. Every extraneous noise gave me pause to survey my surroundings for any signs of threatening behavior. Promptly at 3:50 am, our driver, the same one who picked us up from the airport was there to drive us back. As we pulled away and were about a mile from the hotel, he told us in very uneven English that the school had not authorized our fare back to the airport, so we would have to pay him the charges. We explained that the professor that arranged for him to come for us was to authorize it and had told us the school was indeed paying the bill. That presumably never was translated, so I was more than grateful we had taken enough cash out of the machine to pay our way. The thought of hitchhiking on Macedonian roads at 4:00 am was more adventure than I was willing to endure. My sense was that there was some double dipping going on, so I made a point of saying I would call the professor to clarify this situation and to make sure he was aware that we had indeed paid the bill. When we arrived at the airport one hour early as instructed, ready for check-in, security checks, and passport control, the driver announced or we surmised, that the army blockaded the airport entrance. There is only one entrance to the airport. The driver’s English is about as good as our Hungarian, but light years better than our Macedonian. Supposedly, the gate would be opened at 5:00 am. BUT we had a 5:20 flight!!! Sure enough, the airport personnel are used to this. Security was less rigorous than in Budapest. It amuses me how many people have what seem to me, meaningless jobs. Perhaps this is to provide employment, but I cannot help but wonder what happens to the self-respect and motivation of the individual. There was one man sitting in a booth before Passport Control. He looked at passports without ever opening one of them and handled it back to the owner. Amazingly, the flight departed promptly at 5:20 am and had an on time arrival. Were we happy to be back in Budapest? You bet we were! To say that this weekend was life changing for me would be a perversion of the phrase. It reached into a level of my soul that up to now had been hidden from my awareness. The teachers touched me with their desire, but lack of opportunity to better themselves. The university offers five Bachelor degrees and four Masters degrees. The only Masters that is missing is in Education. How can an institution of higher learning be so short sighted? The teachers stated that they have been begging for a Masters program with only promises of sometime in the future. This has sparked an idea for an educational equivalent to Doctors Without Borders, Educators Across Borders. I told the teachers there that if they were interested, I would return on my own to provide them with a one-day seminar. I told Andy that I would volunteer my time, money, and energy to fly there once a month to offer intensive classes for a Masters degree if the school would sponsor it. I have also started recruiting volunteer educators who would be willing to provide seminars, teach classes, and be part of additional conferences for these teachers as well as their counterparts in parts of Kosovo and Albania. Teachers are underpaid, under appreciated, and overworked the world over, but you never realize how enriched you are until you spend a weekend with teachers such as these. When I feel this enriched, the only choice for me is to give to others so they feel a sense of self worth. I am relying on other educators being willing to do the same. So I am brainstorming ways to get the word out to other educators of ESL or Teacher Training to be a little part of making the world a better place for future generations. Although Andy suggested that I may be subject to bleeding heart syndrome (his sentiment, my words), I shared with him that as well as being a trained and seasoned educator, my secondary vocation was as a professional Social Worker. I have encountered adversity thousands of times both professionally and personally, but I never give up. As I told one of the teachers, “We don’t always get what we want when we want it, but if we want it enough, we will get one day.” My goal is to make tomorrow THE day for some of these teachers. Any volunteers? Ryan James, MSW, LCSW, Ed.D.

Pin It Now!