The Fáklya weekend, a 2 powercuts and a reading group mtg

You may recall that my post last Friday was written in a powercut. Well, we survived it, but living in a 120 year old long peasant house with tiny windows only on one side, (to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter), was strange. Your eyes get used to the dark, but it was most welcome when the power came back on and we could see again.

A couple of late red roses in October

We also did a fair amount of work outside, Roy preparing the garden with a bit of mowing and I with pruning the roses. We also worked in the Bunkhouse, getting it ready for the comrades and putting on the heating. As it happens, the comrades were a tad late, but knowing them as well as I do now, I never expected them to arrive on time. Finally, two carloads turned up around 6:30 pm within 5 minutes of each other and Adriam, the only one to come by bus, at 8 pm.

 

Adriam, Zsófi and Roy around the fire

This late arrival made dinner also quite late, I think it was about 9 pm when we sat down round the firepit to eat a delicious lecsó with bread, cooked by Hanna. I thought we were having potato paprikash that night and lecsó on Saturday, but all their cooking plans have changed, albeit without telling me. Never mind, I thought, at least we will have Roy's roast on Saturday evening. In the meantime we have also made an apple crumble (Roy) and a Somlói Galuska (me), for afters.

Levi, Márkó, Zsófi, Hanna, Noor, Marci etc.

In the evening sitting around the fire in the darkness was lovely. Roy put the lights on and fixed up some temporary ones too, so we were slightly lit up, but once the wood fire was well lit, that provided most of the light. I usually fade out between 8 pm and 9 pm, but that Friday I went to bed around midnight, feeling really happy.

 

A fierce fire just for atmosphere

Saturday started with my short leadoff on the Are You a Communist? campaign. This was based on Alan Woods' introductory article in the current issue of In Defence of Marxism magazine. I think most people enjoyed it and we did have a lively debate afterwards about the main message. After a fag break, we went onto the main topic of the day, which was a last minute inclusion, due to its urgent current affair nature and the importance for all of us to sing from the same hymn sheet.

Noor, Adriam, Hanna, Zsófi, Marci, Márkó and Bence

Naturally, the topic was the Hamas attack on Israel the previous Saturday and Israel's revenge bombing of the Gaza strip. The IMT made a statement on the matter and we read that together, with a Q & A afterwards. There were some criticisms of the hard tone of the statement and especially of the demands, which were already published on our FB page, with the exact translation of the IMT published demands earlier on. We didn't completely agree on some things, but the main purpose of the weekend was to learn, and a debate, with whatever outcome, can only facilitate that.

 

Hanna and Noor chopping veg

Due to this extra topic, Hanna started cooking late and lunch was even later. This really upset poor Roy, because he knew that with such a late lunch nobody will be hungry enough to eat the roast pork with all the trimmings, he planned to cook for the evening meal. As it happens, we did arrive at a compromise, and while we were away on our hike, he did roast the pork and made some mashed potatoes and the evening meal was leftovers from the night before, plus what Roy cooked, followed by the two dessert courses mentioned above.

 

That is where we were waiting for Béla

The main event that evening, however, was not so much the food or even the politics, but the drama that developed around our comrade Béla, who arrived very late on Saturday afternoon. We told him that we would leave on our hike in the Bér hills by 3 pm, but he only turned up at 4 pm. As he doesn't believe in money, he hitchhikes everywhere, and it took him this long to get lifts between BP and the village. We were already an hour on our hike, when he rang Zsófi. We agreed to wait 15 minutes for him round the Rocks Exhibition at the foot of the andesite columns, which we did. He still didn't turn up and we were all getting cold hanging about, so we carried on, thinking he might have changed his mind or turned back. We couldn't get him on the phone either, so we thought no more about him, just enjoyed the glorious views from the top of the andesite columns and the beauty of the hills of the Cserhát.

Sebe, Marci, Bence, Márkó, Hanna + Zsófi on top of the andesite columns

We got back from the forest by 5:30 pm, when it started getting dark and waiting for dinner I had a phonecall from Béla, advising us that he is lost in the forest and could I tell him which way to go? That was rather difficult, considering that he couldn't explain where exactly he was. So Levi and Zsófi jumped into Levi's little Suzuki to find him. Well, I didn't think that that was a good idea, but said nothing and it almost turned out a disaster, but thankfully Levi had the brains to stop where the dirt lane got deep ruts around it and started climbing at 45 degrees.

In the deepth of the forest

They decided to call the Mountain Rescue, which they did and about 2 hours later Béla got dropped off by the rescuers, looking none the worse for his ordeal. Apparently, he was terribly afraid of wild animals in the dark, which was not without reason, as our hills are now full of bears, wolves and have always had bore, which are the target of most hunters in these parts. With Béla turning up, everybody calmed down and we had Roy's roast round the fire, followed by apple crumble and/or somlói galuska.

 

Preparing leaflets for the demo

Sunday had only a couple of hours, if that, for discussion and we read a short article by Karl Marx, written in 1857 about the Sepoy Rebellion in India and the brutality with which the British put them down. The analogies with the current events in Israel/Palestine did not escape anyone. After that they packed up, cleaned the house, did the washing up and departed by 11:30 am to get to the demonstration and protest about the state of social housing in Hungary to be held that afternoon in BP.

 

The whole weekend was extremely exhausting for us oldies, but worth every bit of effort, as we enjoyed the company of young people and found a lot of things exciting, interesting and fun about them. My political activity is getting more and more involved and I feel quite young as a result. Needless to say, that we spent the whole of Monday resting, trying to recover, but we promised them that we'll do it again, if they want to come again. The only bit of activity we had to do, was to make some lecsó with the leftover peppers, which were wilting a bit and had to be cooked soon. We popped over to Szirák and bought some tomatoes and onions. All of it ended up in 6 large 1 litre jars, which will be much appreciated in the winter.

Six jars of lecsó

On Tuesday, we realised that there is going to be yet another powercut, so we decided to scarper and leave for BP just as it hit us. We completely forgot in the morning, and it was me who thought with just 30 minutes to go to jump out of bed, tidy up, pack, have breakfast and leave before the powercut. We just made it, but only because, this time they were 15 minutes late switching the power off. We travelled in to BP, got a bit lost on account of me putting the wrong address into the GPS, but corrected just in time.

 

The Auróra where we had the reading group

Yesterday I had a reading group meeting back in the Aurora, where we had it for the first time two weeks ago. Quite unexpectedly I was the only executive member present, but things worked out OK.  There was an interesting crowd that turned up this time. We numbered 12, with 4 or 5 online following the discussion. We were discussing Chapter IX. of Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed with 5 prepared questions to answer and 3 more posed by Bence. There were three old girls, me included, which made for an interesting dynamic. Not everybody contributed, but it was still very lively. We stayed for a few drinks in the bar afterwards and Roy joined us later.

Today we are having another branch meeting at the flat, which has now become quite a habit. There are other people's flats and/or houses where we can meet, but ours is about the most central and while we are in BP, they can always have the meeting here. Obviously, should we have some reason to be out of town, they'll have to make alternative arrangements, but personally, I really like them here.

Next post hopefully on Wednesday and regularly weekly after that.