Bullet Points are easy to read

  • I've been working the night shift at the orphanage almost every night the past week. It's my favorite shift, so I don't mind that I've had to work extra hours. I'm willing to give up basketball to be there to put the kids to bed. I just think that somebody should be there to go to each bed and tell the kids, "Good night, I love you." No three-year-old should go to bed without that.
  • The night shift gets tougher, though, since each night I get begged harder to stay behind. The hardest is the last room, where all the oldest kids are, since they're three and four years old, and they actually understand that I'm leaving for the night. Gabi tells me to sit down next to her bed and stay the night with her. Sanda comes over to order me not to go back to my house. Nati comes and crawls in my lap. Pamela offers me her bed. It gets harder every night to say no. I'd honestly stay if the workers let me.
  • A new team is here from Wyoming - they're the first big team whose principle language is English since the beginning of the summer. It's nice to have a loud dining room again. One bought a duckling in the marketplace today ("Sixty cents!" he said. "It was a bargain."). Naturally, it's incredibly cute, but the little thing won't shut up. Plus, there's poop everywhere. Its name is George, or maybe Wilson, depending on who you ask.
  • I'm trying to befriend the stray horse who has been hanging around by the clinic. She's an old, swayback pure white retired cart horse, and I have dreams that someday we'll become such good friends that we will ride bareback together everywhere. She remains skittish and aloof, but I hold out hope that I'll break through, and we'll be best friends, like the Black Stallion and whoever rode the Black Stallion.
  • In the meantime, I've been riding around on a bike that Chris found. It's an rusty red grandmother bicycle from the seventies, with three speeds and "Free Spirit" emblazoned on its side. It also has two flat tires and a lot of loose parts, and so the Romanians laugh whenever I ride by. I don't care. I'm trying to teach myself how to ride with no hands. I'm up to a full second.
  • I finished the first draft of one of my screenplays, and sent it out for critique to a few people whose counsel I trust, and who I figured probably didn't have much of anything better to do, anyway.* Never underestimate the power of intelligent people with too much time on their hands. I might later post a second draft and submit it for general review to any readers who also seem to have more time than they know what to do with.
  • And finally, my dad sent me some pictures that he took of me with the kids at the orphanage. I'll post them soon, possibly within the hour if I can get them up in time. If not, you might have to wait another week.

* This is what's known in the business as a "defensive comment." If anyone complains that I didn't ask for their opinion on my script, I can simply reply: "Oh! Well, I figured you were too busy." Of course, if you made it this far on the post, we can be pretty sure that you weren't.

More Tales of Travel

Life has been awfully slow the past few days. Sarah left a few days ago, which leaves me without my closest friend in Romania, and as a result, things are less fun. In addition, the German team left at 4:30 this morning, and we stayed up all night before they left to send them off. I've been exhausted all day. I've been trying without success to put together some screenplays for the fall, but I find myself completely lacking creativity. I seem to be in a slump. I may ask for advice on such a topic in a later post.

On the other hand, we had an awesome lunch today (it was deep-fried... uh... meat, and something like french fries. It was unbelieveably good), plans to make a face-meltingly cool documentary are underway, and it looks like Chris, JA, and I can all get our own rooms by Thursday. So things are looking up. Plus, God's been teaching me cool things about faith and persistence through my exhaustion, so I've got nothing to complain about on that front.

I promised that I'd write more stories from Budapest and Oradea, and I meant it this time. Consistent readers would point out that I rarely keep my e-promises, but here's one more, just like I said. I've got another one partially finished, and that may surface soon, as well:

A Tax On Americans

I discovered in Budapest that Hungarians - or at least, Budapestians - don't really seem to like Americans. They put up with us, for sure, since they provide a steady stream of cash, but the sense seems to be that they'd really like for all of us to clear out and leave 'em in peace.

A clear example of this is the following tale. JA and I decided to take the subway across Budapest to visit Margarite Island, said to be a popular hang-out spot for Budapestites. So we wandered down to the subway station and looked around to see where we could find tickets. All the directions were written in Hungarian, but a helpful local Budapestonian pointed us to a small queue on the opposite wall of the station where tickets could be purchased. Thanking her, we sauntered over and JA purchased the tickets for us (I figured JA would be a good translator for me, since he used to speak fluent Hungarian, even though he's forgotten most of it. To my surprise, he didn't even attempt it, though, and instead communicated by speaking English in a Romanian accent to whatever Budapester we happened to be talking to, which probably didn't help matters any).

Having purchased our tickets, we followed the flocking queue of people, most of whom had not purchased any sort of ticket, down the nearby escalator, where we were accosted by subway employees specially trained to spot Americans. The head lady asked for our tickets, which we blithely handed over, not suspecting a trap. She took our tickets, put them in her pocket, and fined us each 2000 forint (about $10 apiece). It turned out that on the wall next to the escalator was a ticket punching machine into which we were to insert our ticket. We hadn't noticed the machine, since no Budapestalongs were using it, which assumable was part of the trap. We asked if we could go back up the escalator and punch our tickets now, since we simply weren't aware of the rule. Nothing doing. We tried to leave, since we figured that since we hadn't actually ridden the subway yet, there was no reason we should be paying the fine. They pulled out a cell phone and began to call the police. Since paying ten bucks in better than explaining ourselves in Hungarian prison, we paid up.

The helpful subway workers explained to us that the directions for punching the ticket were written in English and German at the top of the escalator (We checked. They weren't, of course), and written on the back of our tickets (ditto). They might have said more to us, but by then they had spotted a pack of Irish tourists, and were already excitedly explaining to them that each of them that they had better pay up pronto for their insultingly blatant disregard of subway rules. We tried to talk to the tourists to explain to them what the problem was, but we were informed that we had no legal right to be talking to anyone here, in the lobby of a subway, and wouldn't it be better if we left right now. And so we left.

Budapest is a truly beautiful city, a historical city, a well-maintained city, and everyone should see it eventually. But that story is just one example of the sort of treatment we got there. I don't know how many Budapestealites we met who interacted with us with the same charm and warmth you would an escaped convict who knocked up your teenage daughter. I was thrilled to leave.

Return to Beius

I've returned from my adventures in Budapest and Oradea. I have so much to tell I simply can't do it all at once, so I'm going to tell a new vacation story in each post, and that'll have to hold you over for a while. Here's the first one; if you don't understand it, it means you have too much of a social life and aren't spending enough time watching movies:

So while I was in Oradea, I met JA and Chris' brother (Catalin) and sister (Ina). They're really fabulous: on a scale of one to ten, they're both doing better than JA is. When JA introduced me to Catalin, he said, "hey, Ben, this is your brother, Catalin," and Catalin stuck out his hand. A slow smile crept over my face. "Brothers don't shake hands," I said. "Brothers gotta hug!" I engulfed him in a big bear hug. Catalin, who had probably not seen Tommy Boy, had certainly not seen it in English, and likely was rarely forcefully hugged by short pale strangers in the streets of Oradea, seemed a little startled, but recovered nicely. Whenever we got together after that, we always gave each other a hug goodbye.

Immediately after hugging Cata, JA and I returned to the hotel, where our doorman, Francisco, opened to door for us. "Francisco," JA acknowledged. "Ooh, Francisco, that's fun to say." I said to Francisco, stopping for a minute to see if he'd catch the reference.* Francisco regarded me dully, so I continued on, well pleased with myself, to my hotel room, well satisfied with my work. You don't get chances like these often.

I've slept in comfy hotel beds, eaten steak, chicken, pork, and ribs, watched hours of MTV, seen some of the most fabulous architecture ever made, explored two beautiful cities, shopped to my heart's content (it didn't take long), jumped off of a high dive at a water park. I even drank champagne while boating down the Danube through the lights of Budapest (top that!). This week has been absolutely unbelievable. But, honestly, it's really, really nice to back. I missed it. Bad.

*Elf. Duh. C'mon, pull yourself together and start staying in nights. You'll never learn anything if you aren't willing to apply yourself. Now haul yourself down to Blockbuster and get cracking.

Budapest awaits

I leave early tomorrow morning for Budapest, Hungary, for a week of vacation with my family. How many people get to type that as an introductory sentence, eh? Though I'm not here to brag about my good fortune in having my family come out to Central Europe while I'm but a hop-skip-jump away. Well, alright, maybe I am, but there's other things I could mention, too.

For example, I'll only be gone until the 19th, but I'm going to miss all the kids anyway. It's a wonderful thing to see these kids every day, morning, noon, and night. I get there just after they get up, and most nights I put them to bed, too. Being here all summer lets you see breakthroughs.

You see, the workers at the orphanage are, by and large, lazy. They also play favorites. They'll only pay attention to one kid, and take them home on the weekends, play with them, give them special attention, and try to adopt them. But when they find out that they can't adopt them, they turn their backs and ignore them. No kid should have to be rejected again.

But then each summer workers come out and play with the kids, talk to the kids, discipline the kids, really pay attention to the kids. And the kids begin to thrive. It's wonderful to see. Alena no longer looks scared, and she'll run trustingly into a worker's arms. Geta is recovering from her second rejection. The twins are learning that they don't have to cling to the workers. It's unbelievable how suddenly it happens. For weeks they don't talk, and then suddenly they always want to be in your arms.

I'm gonna go to pieces at the end of this summer.