So we’re nearly two weeks into our Hungarian farming funtime! We have gotten into the swing of things since our last post.
The work here is simple but rewarding. We feed the animals every morning, cutting alfalfa for them all with a scythe (no machinery or automation here!) and then give them all water. Its around 35 degrees here each day so the animals are normally quite thankful for a drink. The little pigs are especially funny and always dive straight into the water troughs for a bath.
We also help pick courgettes at Tamás’s parents farm, most of which go to the pigs as they are too overgrown (though definitely not overgrown for an English palette!).
Apparently the small courgettes get sent to be made into those fancy vegetable crisps, so they have to be around 3.5cm in diameter. Communicating this concept without them speaking any English was a bit of a challenge! We tried holding up different sizes of courgette with thumbs up and thumbs down signs in the form of a question, but even this didn’t get a clear response. But we must have done a reasonable job, as at half past nine in the morning after an hour of courgette picking we were rewarded with a nice glass of red wine, as you do at that time of day.
Despite the language barrier with the grandparents, we came to know them as kind and generous people through deeper forms of communication, such as chess. Tamás’s father turned out to be some sort of undiscovered grandmaster, roundly and frequently beating us when we played. He even toyed with us, in one game giving a dummy gasp as we took his queen and walked right into his carefully set trap to checkmate us. Just as well we don’t know any Hungarian swear words.
We spent our second and final weekend at a friend (and fellow Workaway host) of Tamás’s for a small gathering with food. His place, also a small farm, was in the process of being renovated, and filled with artwork and projects done by past workawayers. He is from Switzerland, moving to Hungary for a more laid-back pace of life. As a result of having Swiss, Hungarian, English and French (his current workawayer) nationalities present, English was the language of choice, and it struck us as interesting that even if we weren’t there, everybody would still be conversing in it. How lucky we Brits are in our native language! We ate some pörkölt (a sort of Hungarian stew) which made use of every part of a sheep you can think of. This didn’t put us off though, and it was delicious probably because it was cooked in the traditional Hungarian way in a special pot over an outdoor fire for about 4 hours.
We just have a couple more days here until we head back up North to the slightly more cosmopolitan Budapest. We have definitely come to enjoy our time here more than we initially expected. But one thing we won’t miss is the water. They do occasionally buy bottled sparkling water but most days tap water is the only option. We were told it is safe to drink, but we discovered it has a VERY strong metallic taste. We think it must be iron as it tastes and smells a bit like blood. It even started to turn my blonde hair orange! Although Craig quite liked my new colour (perhaps unsurprisingly) I was worried about how permanent this effect might be so I avoided washing my hair, relying solely on dry shampoo, for over a week. Here’s hoping for an iron-free shower at the next hosts!
Total joint spend: €2360
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