Remembering a Giant Man of Faith and Action

Many are thinking this week of Vaclav Havel, playwright, activist, rebel, man-about-town, President and philosopher. The world is poorer for his passing.

Today I've been on the road with Lindsay and Elisabeth Balint of Toledo and Budapest (Great Lakes Consortium)and Mate Varga of Budapest (Civil College and Hungarian Community Development Association) and his friend Csabo to Szentendre, a beautiful village about a half hour upriver on the Danube from Budapest. This is a living town that has seven historic churches, windy narrow streets, ethnic roots in Serbian, Greek Orthodox, Calvinist and Roman Catholic ccommunities and a lively arts tradition.

It was also the family home of Father Martin Hernady, who spent 45 years in Toledo Ohio as pastor of St. Stephen's Church in the Birmingham neighborhood. He was an educated man, read history and literature, appreciated art and sport, skied in the Alps when he could, loved conversation and was great company. He was also a consummate political man, who might have been at home among the Medicis or the Hapsburgs. As a parish priest he saw that the power of the church grows from its people, and the job of the church was to serve the needs of those people wisely. It was Hernady who thought, when the city announced plans to widen the road between the parish and the neighborhood, let's hold Mass in the middle of the street! The ladies came out - Father said it would be ok - and they made news, and the Mayor came over and the neighborhood organized and the plans got changed.

Hernady was a national leader among Hungarian Americans and other ethnics as well, conspiring with Msgr. Geno Baroni to bring together the Black, brown and broke - the urban ethnics and the other disempowered people to defend cities and families and communities.

He welcomed me in to the Birmingham neighborhood when I arrived in Toledo in July of 1981. He was a wise advisor, and a great strategist who was willing to risk his status when the people were ready to act. He knew the politicians would come around once the people put on enough pressure. He often quoted me a Latin political truth (maybe it was his own...) and that's what I wrote on the wrapping paper on the floweres that Elizabeth Balint brought for the gravesite today. "Mundus Vult Decipi" he'd say. "The world wants to be fooled." Sure enough the politicians took credit for the new truck route outside the community.

Hernady knew how to support leaders - he promoted young acivists like Peter Ujvagi (later City councillor, State Rep and now County Administrator) and Marcy Kaptur (city planner and now US Congresswoman). He retired to home (over here) but Birmingham was his home, too.

Thanks for your strength and your wisdom, Father Hernady. It was good to visit you today. I hope we make you proud!

Budapest, Looking Back

So the Work Days turned out to be quite full, very little time for blogging. I'll go through in order, but it's Tuesday and Lindsay and I are off to our favorite bookstore/tea house in the old castle district of Budapest to celebrate our 31st anniversary in quiet style!

Day one in Banska Bystrica we drove in from Budapest with Mate Varga of Hungary and Elizabeth Balint of Toledo and Budapest. We arrived, grabbed a coffee and went to work, reviewing 66 applications for the exchange program that will bring 14 US organizers here and 28 europeans to the US for 6 weeks. The task was to identify the first 16. I guess it's a lot like the Needmor proposal reading process. For every applicant there are three or four others out there who are interested, involved in good work but just couldn't get away for 6 weeks. Every applicant represents a story - and reading and hearing about these stories is tremendously encouraging. One Roma (gypsy) woman told of her struggle to please her family as a "perfect Roma girl" but breaking out to prove that this could also include going to college, getting a job, causing a stir, standing up for herself. I admit to being touched by her courage.

The process goes on - we'll meet some of the Hungarian applicants later today. But by 7:30 that night when we finally broke for dinner, we had sixteen names (the tentative list) and possible "matches" for the US organizations they'd visit. The reality is unfolding - in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania there will be this year (2012) a lot of meeting, preparation, travel and training. At the end, there will be a new generation of activists who know what they mean when they say "community organizing" and are - together - doing it!

A picture of the food at our lodgings (the Kuria) in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. More toomorrow.

Food Food Food!

Wowee have we had some great food! Even though I shouldn't eat chocolate, I decided to go for it while in Belgium - and that is some FINE chocolate! A totally OTHER thing from even the best US stuff...be nice to us and you may get a taste when we get home!

and the Fries - frites in Belgium are best when cooked in the outdoor stands, because it's there where they're twice-cooked in "animal fat". We got the best from a stand behind a church, with bearnaise sauce - one of twenty-four choices (mayonnaise, ketchup...). See accompanying picture.

Very good also when accompanying Moules - mussels. I had two big kettles of Moules, one with a lobster-bisque sauce, one served a mariniere - sort of a celery clear soup that was VERY good dipped with crusty bread...

The Best Restaurant goes to the Taverne du Passage, a classic bistro type spot in the old fashioned covered gallery shopping area that was frequented by Victor Hugo and Jacques Brel and Georges Simenon. This place (see pic) had starched linen table cloths and waiters with gold braid epaulets on their starched white jackets and champagne chilling on the bar in a shell-shaped bucket! Lindsay had the same meal basically twice - a vegetable soup, slightly creamy, leeky, one night squash flavored and the next green pea-flavored; followed by a true filet of sole meuniere, served with a fish knife of course, buttery and perfectly cooked, beautiful fresh flavor, with braised endive one night. She had the light flavored Maes beer in an elegant glass. I had the herring - pickled and basking on a fresh pickled vegetable salad of peas, carrots and capers. Then the Moules the first night. The dessert on night #1 was Sorbet du Cassis - a black currant flavor almost too intense, and two big scoops. I had profiteroles - three crusty light globes of pastry with creme inside and ice cream, with dark hot fudge over top. We crawled out, moaning. My meal the second night - I had read that Jacques Brel ordered this - was cheese croquettes - two breaded lightly fried hunks of creamy, runny cheese, with a pile of flash fried parsley and fresh lemon to squeeze over. Then Tete du Veau avec Sauce Grimiche - literally Head of Calf. Piping hot, three hunks of tongue and five big pieces of (what can I say...) were a bit of meat, gristle and luscious fat and skin, braised and creamy and rich. The sauce was a mystery, but delicious - bright yellow, obviously some boiled egg chopped in. Afterwards, the waiter explained it's a fresh mayonnaise made with capers, pickles, fresh herbs and - yes - a bit of the calves brains mixed in. If only you could have been there!

A big surprise, a timely find, was Charlie's Boulangerie, near St. Catherine's Square. A bright, light, modern place, very crowded on a Sunday morning, where we sat at a counter and drank black dark oily coffee and ate hot fresh croissants and brioche and a cherry clafouti - a little eggy cupcake with sour cherries. Part of the delight of the place was watching the guys behind the glass in the kitchen putting fresh baguettes into the giant rotating ovens and making fresh sandwiches with thin crusty mini-baguettes and fresh apple slices and great long hunks of brie and the other ones with smoked ham sliced see-through thin and stone ground mustard and fresh tomato. The bag of ten "choux" was a yummy 1.5 euro super find..little puff pastry balls with sugar on top that broke into nothing but buttery crust and flavor in the mouth!

But the official Best Meal of the Trip, so far...today's midday meal, at the table in Elizabeth Balint's newly renovated apartment here in Budapest. Cooked mostly by her mother...it started with Elizabeth's cheese spread, orange and crunchy and creamy, on fresh rye bread. Then a light, fresh vegetable soup. Then Chicken Paprikas, falling off the bone, on top of homemade egg noodles with sour cream to top it off. Then...drum roll...a cut glass dish of delight, a chestnut puree dish to die for. Whipped cream and thin strands of chestnut puree (mixed with rum, of course) and sour cherries perched all around. We ate firsts, we ate seconds, we cleaned up the last few spoonfuls, we scraped the spoon, we licked the plates and the bowls. We are happy, and an hour's walk by the Danube at sunset restored equilbrium and a bit of self respect. We may get more later!

We won't dwell on the street food - might have been a mistake to choose what we did, but we got caught up in the drama of the Christmas Market. We are looking forward to Kajo's Mom's Mushroom soup, of course. We loved the light dinner at the little place near the church where we ate quiche and salad and croque monsiieur. But it'll be tough to beat Mrs. Balint.

All Music!

The first thing we do when contemplating travel is to check for music events - and Brussels has really delivered! For our musical friends, here's a listing with some oohing and aahing!

First was Les samedi's de l'orgue (Saturdays of the Organ) concert series - this was in an old church, kind of beat up, called Notre-Dame aux Riches Claires. (Great story - the Poor Clare's were the big deal back in the day. A bunch of women were ok with all the rules except poverty, so they were chartered as the Rich Clares!) Gruesomely uncomfortable chairs (90 degree backs, low to the ground, small) but the young guy Yoann Tardivel (fast fingers and toes!) put together an hour that entranced and impresssed: Georg Boehm, Girolamo Frescobaldi (tedious) Dietrich Buxtehude (stirring) Benoit Mernier (modern, strange, fascinating) and JS Bach to take it home! (this was free)

That was 5 to 6 pm. We walked over to the area for the next concert, ate soup and quiche and croque monsieur (ham and cheese hot sandwiches) then to the Eglise des Minimes for (gulp) 30 euros each (seventy five bucks or so). Big high ceilinged, beat up old church, square in layout. There we heard the Huelgas Ensemble present five hymns from the Eton Choir Book. Greatest hits of 1490, these were swirling meldy and harmony, a capella voices, hypnotic and beatuful, echoing in the great church building, each voice lifted by the others. We were dazed by the beauty. (although an hour and a half in the same d*mnd chairs nearly crippled me!) One of the singers (a Brit) told us afterwards that it was a transcendent experience to sing it...

Monday - today - started with the 12th annual Lundi D'Orgue (Monday of the Organ!) at a ratty looking (outside) church called Eglise Notre-Dame du Finistere (Our Lady of the Ends of the Earth. The inside was beautiful, dark wood and Mary Chapel and an unbelievable organ (see pictures). Bart Jacobs (organist at the Brussels Cathedral) played four pieces by A. DeBoeck. More conventional, beautiful, not so interesting but still... (This was also free.)

Tonite we went all the way - paid the 60 euro's (with Senior Discount) and sat in the Perfect Seats in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, a stunning art-deco concert hall, and heard the Ricercar Consort play and sing four Bach Christmas Cantatas. Top quality soloists, interesting looking instruments (four long stretchy trumpets, three different sized oboes, a little organ and a harpsichord) and we were once again uplifted, transported, blown away, walked out humming and dancing. And no it was NOT the Belgian beer Lindsay drank right before. Great music!

We'll look in Budapest and Slovakia - but we've got work to do there.

We also enjoyed the anonymous accordion player somwhere up the steps in the dark as we walked to the metro from the concert - very Paris film noir!

Oh, and I'm listening to Jacques Brel as I write.

Ah, music!

Touring Slow and Easy

Ah, the days slip by... Some great meals - more below - some very educational museum visits, about 11,674 miles of walking. Just what we'd hoped for!

The first touring day we got lost looking for the way from the train station to the Grand Place...and saw block after block of government and NGO buildings on our way to getting back on track. When we took the walking tour, we were seeing lots of places for the second time! A very energetic and knowledgeable Fernando took six of us in tow - two Italians, a Catalan a cheery little woman (business lawyer!) from Ho Chi Minh City and me and L - and although the basic rap was in English, he'd lapse into Spanish and Italian at key points to ensure he was understood. He was born in Argentina to Slovak/Hungarian family, and has a Belgian girlfriend. He said they spend a summer here and a summer there - I didn't ask what he was doing freezing here in December!

Anyhow, he gave us the history and politics of the place - how the French Burgundies and the Spanish Holy Roman Emmperors and the German neighbors ebbed and flowed over the place, ending up with One Country and three languages and FIVE parliaments in this little town - Europe, Belgium, Brussels region, the French language communities and the Flemish/Walloon region! Lots and lots of diplomats, attaches and secretaries, lots of temporary real estate demand, strange ethnicities, food and culture. Looking at the Royal Palace, we learned about King Leopold II who got the Congo for himself (not Belgium!), who loved columns (you can recognise his buildings...) and who copied his cousin Queen Victoria's palace gates.

Surprizes from the touring day - Art Nouveau with its leafy vines and wooden decoration was called here "Congo Style", influenced by the exotic woods and jungle experiences of the colonialists. The City Hall was built first one half with a gate at the end, then the tower and the other half. They were uneven, so the gate is off center to the tower and the gallery on the right proportioned to correct visually for the uneven size. (see pic's). The park where the beheadings took place when the Inquisition turned Belium into "Catholic or dead" was re-purposed to honor enlightenment, and ringed with statues representing the workers who came up through there to serve the rich at the top of the hill from the stinking swamp at the bottom. The Palace of Justice was built to impress - even to crush the spirit of the little people who might seek justice there. My first thought upon walking in was - a building can be big enough to inspire or ennoble. Bigger, it can dwarf or overwhelm. Sure enough, our guide showed us the long long long steps that linked the poor area at the bottom of the hill - built to discourage access. He said Hitler visited and was so impressed he asked his architects to copy it. Government or public buildings signal their linguistic identity with their flag - the red rooster for French, the iris flower for Flemish.

Finally, a lot of the historic buildings were demolished in the name of "Brusselization" - providing roads, boulevards and parking. Progress!

More later - I'll include some pictures. I'm eating the chocolate, by the way....and it's all it's said to be! The potatoes are fried twice (the best in animal fat) and the chocolate only heated once...so we're told.

First Day - Currency, Crepes and Nietzche

Tuesday drive to the airport - thanks Judson! - was enlivened by the sight of TWO bald eagles perching over the swamp by the side of the road - if I were superstitious, this would be a very good omen! Overnight flight uneventful, sleepless. Quick cab ride to the place here in Brussels and as I pay the cabbie - a nice young fellow - he says he can't change the 50Euro note that I just got from the cash machine. A mad search in the darkness - it's pretty much night-like at 7:30 AM here - nobody can change this fifty! No shops are open, no passersby have the cash - we drive around, we try another cash machine - only fifties - and finally I give him US$. I knew I should have bought a coffee at the airport!

The place is wonderful - spacious, modern, with a roof garden that makes me wish we were here in May! We nap - and half a day later, we get up! Walk around to orient ourselves and buy house food - and we find a delightful local park. A few pictures here - the walk way is paved with stones in an interesting pattern - and eventually I realize that many are old grave stones - not at all creepy, quite an interesting detail in fact.

Dinner at the neighborhood french cuisine restaurant, La Marquis - magnificent food, mussels with a sort of creamy lobster bisque sauce,french fries from paradise, veal cordon bleu with homemade noodles, and a heavenly apple crepe for dessert! And Karim the Moroccan owner, dapper in a silk jacket and jeans, funny in French and Franglais - we end up somehow discussing why he is an atheist, what role the thinking of Nietzche and others played, etc etc. Great first day!

I spent a little time thinking about fundraising for ECON - I hope readers are ready - there's a pitch coming. Investing in democracy, supporting good work, a great opportunity...the letter will tell the story.

Today we're off to tour - lace, chocolate, art...we'll see what we see!