REFLECTING

Dear friends,

It is January. I am back in Grand Rapids, Michigan, joining my fellow Calvin students trudging through wickedly-deep snow banks, wincing against needle-like gusts of wind on our way to interim classes each day.

I am currently taking a homework break, watching more snowflakes dive-bomb my driveway...and also skimming through blogs, personal journals, class papers, haphazardly-scribbled phrases, and sketches from my semester in Hungary. Each note or reflection gives another flash of clarity to my experience this fall, so I'll post them as I find them. This is one journal I wrote for class after coming back from the Netherlands (November 26-30).

We were standing at the bus stop; dipping and waddling toward us was a group of five or six middle-aged women, bundled as bulkily as we were against the biting December wind newly cutting across the flat fields. But we saw that the arrival of winter in our midst did not dim their happy, mirthful eyes nor cause them to bury silent mouths inside thick scarves; instead they chattered brightly and their joyful, light tones sailed to us on the cold air. When they joined us by the bus stop, taking refuge with us behind the slight wind block, they looked me in the eye and called "Goede!"
I was stunned. This semester, I have not been greeted by a stranger at a bus stop, unless it was a gruff shove of a shoulder or the leering look of an early-morning drunk.
My eyes got big with surprise and I greeted them back with a "Goede morgen" and a smile…an exchange I am well used to in Pella, Iowa. The clear leader of this pack of morning travelers asked me another question in Dutch--but sensing my hesitation, quickly switched to English--not begrudgingly, but gladly, happy to include me in their conversation.
Sometimes I think the Iron Curtain slammed down like a steel gate in people's minds as well as in economic and political spheres in Eastern Europe. And even when the curtain was lifted, and the Berlin Wall knocked down, it seems like there was no key to free the psychological barrier of fear and mistrust that descended like an eternal verdict on this Eastern world.
I love Budapest, and I have been graciously welcomed to warm meals, hot tea, and cozy beds by Eastern Europeans on our group trips. But on the whole, I more often am assaulted by cold shoulders and wary eyes on the daily commute, at the market, in the city. Whereas the people I've met in Amsterdam and Vienna seemed to enjoy public life and leave room for outsiders to enter and participate in their lives, public life is lacking on this side of that iron barrier. We've talked about this in terms of political and social involvement, and we see it tangibly acted out in the daily sphere. Before I went to Amsterdam, I forgot what it was to see people running, canoeing, and exercising outside; to enjoy a friendly smile on a morning tram; to ask a question without a roll of the eyes or resentful spit of words.
That may be one of the only things I miss here in Budapest. The openness.