so here i am in budapest which is actually quite nice. am eating lots of nice hungarian food, had some raw beef today, really, steak tartare, okay so thats not too too hungarian and stuff but i had it with a hungarian. with hungarian desert.
my friends here are majorly into feeding me. and everyone tells me their problems, ever the good doctor fishbreath, me.
the situation here in hungary is a hell of a lot better than in romania but my friend attila is in a bad way, which is kinda horrible. he says its worse, worse than before, for gypsies. much worse, he says. it might be better for hungarians, but it is quite okay to hate gypsies.
he sits all day at his desk and does nothing. when i give the usual platitudes such as you must write, it is the only thing that will help blablabla, he says, why. no use, he says. take me to a hospital, lock me up, he says. and this time i wont let anyone visit, not even you. or my wife. or my children, he says.
his wife orsolya is also a good friend of mine. in fact, she is trying to help me with that romanian thing. she is not a gypsy. they have 3 children. the oldest, marci, boy, 12, kept getting called stinking gypsy in school for the past year. the principal apologized, then the teacher apologized. but the other children would not stop. and the doorframe at their place is cracked where marci hit it with his fist. so orsolya has now moved him to another school. things seem better.
marci is a very intelligent boy and a good student. he is angry, at his father also cause he cant understand why he is the way he is, now. so then i thought of a bit of fun might be needed. i understand these things. fun-needing and stuff.
me and marci, we went to the zoo yesterday. marci is very methodical and he checked off each animal on the zoomap as we visited that particular place. this way we didnt miss any of them. the kangaroos were a particular favorite of his, me i liked the large apes. i told him about the three women who lived with the three species, to study them. he liked that. we had a lot of fun.
then we had supper at a turkish place. he really liked that too. so we discussed to not, okay shit, i cant remember the english word for it, to not rub the fun we had into the other 2 kids faces. cause, as we discussed, that would be cruel.
when we got back, attila was still at his desk. not saying anything. marci decided to show me his electric train set so he pulled out all the pieces and set them up on the carpet. one of the track pieces seemed to have short in it. the train kept stopping. so he got angry and swore. but i laughed, oh well, so then he nudged the train along with a pencil.
i am worried about my friend attila. i am worried that he will kill himself.
marci is pronounced, martsi. it is short for marton.
-e
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