A Volunteer's Impressions of Csangoland
- by Ádám Gerencsér

 

This year I hoped to spend my summer holidays in a way that is both useful for my fellow humans and a new experience for myself. Thank God, my destiny took me to Moldva, where I've spent two and a half weeks in the land of the Csangos. I've come across the website of the Csango Association on the internet and applied per email to volunteer for the organisation. The response was very encouraging and, indeed, I was received warmly, when after twenty hours on the train I arrived... in southern Transylvania, where they picked me up by car and spent the rest of the day driving over the Carpathians to Moldva. (Romania is a big country...)
The Organisation is based in Bacau, a somewhat peculiar town, where the urban planning of the Socialist era and the atmosphere of the Balkans mingle with a distinctly Romanian attitude towards life. My hosts, Attila Hegyeli, who's responsible for the Csango education project, and his wife Melinda, the co-ordinator of the Godparents programme, offered me to stay in their flat. Their home is very characteristic, for its primary function seems to be to accomodate a large number of guests. During my stay there, I slept in every room of the flat, it being the temporary home of Csango teachers, colleagues from the Association, university students. I also had a permanent flatmate, Andrea, a student from Budapest, the other volunteer at the organisation (though she dislikes the term 'volunteer'), who has since then, inspired by the spirit of the place, returned to Csangoland and settled there for a longer stay.
The lion's share of my days was spent in the office, mainly concerned with translating the www.csango.ro website into English and German, and dealing with the Association's foreign correspondence, which to my surprise included a Harvard academic researching traditional Csango music. The staff of the Association work long hours, often under difficult circumstances. Though I never experienced hostility from the average Romanian on the street, local political circles time and again try to interfere with the work of the Association, especially with the Hungarian-language ethnic education project. The press regularly prints articles hostile to the organisation, their online mailing accounts have been broken into several times, in fact, during my stay there a laptop containing confidential information was stolen from the office.
On the two weekends that occured during my stay I took the chance to visit nearby Csango villages. The new friends I've made through my work invited me to spend time at their rural homes, and I was amazed by their respect for newcomers, amazed by how natural it felt to be treated as a member of their family. It was difficult at first to get used to the heavy, very filling local food - I've soon learned the importance of the strong homebrew 'pálinka' in helping along one's digestion. People don't live in affluence, but tend to be generous and genuinely welcoming towards guests - an example is my friend Andrei, a young Csango guy, who insisted on buying a very nice, traditional Moldvan plate for me as a souvenir. Another pleasant experience was a lady from the village Klézse proudly showing off Csango dresses hand-made by her and her ancestors, and the improptu 'fashion show' staged by her two young daughters. And I felt moved in the village of Somoska, when far away from the current borders of my homeland, beyond the Carpathians, a visiting group of Godparents were greeted with beautiful ancient Hungarian songs rising from the lips of Csango children..
There's no need for me to write about the state of Csango education here; the essay by Attila Hegyeli on the Association website sums up the present situation and probably future of ethnic Hungarian education in Eastern Romania concisely and realistically. It has become clear to me that the Csango Association stands on the very frontline of 21st century Hungarian culture. They are on an important mission and we need to understand the weight on their shoulders. Attila told me once that sometimes he feels uneasy when realising that what he and his colleagues have started, cannot and must not come to a halt. If despite all efforts and enthusiasm the Csango education project loses its current momentum, the families down in the villages will feel themselves misled and betrayed, for they also take considerable risks by pushing for native language education for their children. These children are the last generation that still has relatives (mostly grandparents) speaking the ancient tongue. Thus there's no stopping: if this time they fail, the native language will never again be taught in Csangoland.
To sum it all up, my trip to Csangoland was a truly character-shaping experience. Among the many things I've learned from the excellent people I've met were resilience, a sense of vocational calling and that great generosity, the extent of which surprised me, but which to them seems to be a natural part of life.
Finally I need to mention the helpfulness and the politeness with which members of the majority nation related to me, in spite of the general hostility towards minorities displayed in politics and the media. The best example of this occured on my final day: when a random Romanian family heard that I have to wait eight hours at Brasov station for my connection to Hungary, they offered to take me along for their excursion to Bran castle in the mountains. They didn't let me pay for anything, we had dinner together and then they dropped me off at the station 15 minutes before my train was due to depart.

back

---

A truly unusual gift: the Boglár family receives a cow