Shaking a Leg at the FMK

This is for all of you coming to Ben and Krisztina's wedding on 4th of July.
Look and learn - you will be expected to have reached this standard by then!

The video is taking too long to upload - will have to find a different way of doing it-until then here is the first frame!

Haller Neighbourhood

Showroom Camping !

Relaxing at Work!

Antonio and Tiziana with Lula and Cissy (Princess)

Walter and his Wife, from Zurich

Unimog,The Ultimate Outfit! What is Am plotting with those scissors?

Plane Tree. We are located underneath this beautiful tree inhabited by birds, bugs and bats.

Sky Bike

Sleeping Rough

Local Supermarket. Good bottle of Muscat 70 pence !

Man Descending a Staircase

City Balcony on Haller utca

Cardiac Hospital next door. Sirens day and night! Not far to go in an emergency!

Friday 22nd May

Antonio, Tiziana, Lula and Cissy, our lovely Italian neighbours made us delicious linguine and pomodoro for supper last night. Calabrian speciality bread and salami,sun dried tomatoes and parmesan to start! They are our neighbours to the left. To the right are a couple from Zurich and opposite a couple from Denmark although he is originally American.(we call him the Reverend because he makes friends with everyone, wears a tie on Sunday and his number plate begins RV)
Tiziana looked over our van this morning and said 'piccolo! but it has everything necessary'
Our solar panel is causing a stir amongst several men who look it over admiringly and tell us at length all about their attempts to solar power their vans (which all hook up to the mains) but ofcourse it's still far too expensive!

Run Rabbit Run

www.camping-waldsee.de

Woods near Roth, Bavaria

May Tree on the main square in Grein on the Danube

Grein Municipal Theatre - the oldest in Austria 1791 - it is said that Napoleon sat in the box on the right.

A rare treat for you all - Tina & Am 'in drag'

The Danube fron Greinburg Castle, still in the possesion of the Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (Prince Albert's family 1840 m. Queen Victoria)

Bakery, Spitz, Wachau, Austria

Beneath Vienna - following in the footsteps of the Third Man

Field near Balaton


Ripening Almonds (for Susie)

The Gnome of Paloznak, above Lake Balaton

Our office in sunny Budapest

'.... eet doesn't start very well' the lady on the end of the rescue service phone said but we are underway again and all we needed was a bolt - the mechanic in Workington somehow managed to loose one - all that chatting to his mates.
As we are leaving Jabbeke we catch a glimpse of a bright green field full of red and blue rabbits. Surreal - we are reminded of an incident the night before as we were arriving in the aforementioned place tired, bleary eyed and concerned about the van. Running towards us in the middle of the road was a lop eared rabbit chased by a crowd of teenage girls oblivious to all save the rabbit. Am reminded us that in the Native American Animal Cards the Rabbit symbolises fear. Oh! Oh!
Later we stop at a new motorway service 'pod' and low and behold the daily special is rabbit fricase!
There are too many rabbits in Belgiun for our liking.
Later still, we get to the Rein side camping at Meerbusch. The sun is warm and after a couple of litres of the local draught pils the rabbits are getting considerably smaller - reduced to a handful of babies lolling about on the grass in the park platz. (for yellow eyed Jane)

Snap Happy!

The Lokals sitting out in the evening sun Hidegkut near Lake Balaton 18th May

Wiener Schnitzel, Maria Ellend, Austria on the Roman Wine Road Carnuntum 18th May

1000 miles from Cardiff

A sink friend at Roth

Friday night, 15th May. Peaceful camp in the woods by a lake near Roth, Bavaria. Here the beer was a gorgeous 11% knockout. slept beautifully!

The other bank of the Rhein after having crossed the following day. Near Dusseldorf.
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Asparagus Peeler in action - it's in season - delicious!

The Rhein Ferry at Meerbusch
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On the banks of the Rhein

'Pillow' the pride and joy of her retired parents lives on the campsite.

13th May, in Jabbeke. Helle, the Belgian AA man fits a new bolt to the alternator and charges us 1 Euro!
The very empathetic lady on the AA phone said 'you 'av zee age ...' she meant the van of course which is 11!

Ferry in the Mist - Channel crossing 18.30 12th May

Iris and Kitty checking out the facilities.

Budapest At Last!

We arrived on Tuesday tired and hot - it's 30C here!
Sorry for the long delay between posts but we were not connected up.
Hope to do better now.
What follows is a series of photos to give a flavour of the journey 1500 miles long - there is a lot more to come - stay with us and please contribute.
The astute ones amongst you will have noticed that the sequence of photos is back to front .... just to fox you .... you are lucky it isn't all in Hungarian!!!

Romani Tales

Tina and Roma with Bear, Near Obrovac, Yugoslavia 1988



Mami, Annemarie and Roma Children, Duisburg am Rhein April 1991

Romani Tales

4 days ‘till liftoff !

Just a few days ago we received the latest educational production, from the Romani Project at the School of Languages, Linguistics, & Cultures, Manchester University, a DVD-ROM called ‘Romani Tales,’ It is really interesting, FREE and follows in the wake of their previous (also excellent) interactive journey to the Romani Language (2007)
‘… its aim is to promote awareness of Romani culture and its diversity across the communities of Roms, Gypsies and Travellers in the UK and across Europe. Young people are invited to follow the narratives of Romani people from ten different countries who share with us their thoughts about work, school, marriage and traditions. They can listen to people’s attitudes to Romani people and are prompted to reflect on their own attitudes. Those who know some Romani can follow the narratives in the original sound, as told by the speakers’ says Professor Yaron Matras, the project coordinator.

It is surprising how little people, know about Gypsies and what they do know almost always conforms to the stereotypical view.
Very few people seem to have actually met any Gypsies in situations other than doorstop encounters where they were selling something or at the movies where they are generally portrayed as degraded characters.

This is one of the reasons why we are making this journey … to try to unhinge the stereotypes.

I wonder if my brothers (thank you for your posts) or nephews have come across Ricardo Quaresma of Inter Milan ? He’s a fantastic football player apparently – he’s also a Gypsy.
Marli, the Portuguese bartender in Manchester on the Romani Tales DVD tells us about Quaresma and informs us that Gypsies are colourful, landless but culturally interesting and although they are associated with poverty they are also associated with great richness.
He also recommends ‘Gogol Bordello’ – a Gypsy Punk Band – if you havn’t heard them you are really missing something …. ‘utza, utza, utza !’ (phonetic)
Cheers Marli.

http://romani.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/ romani@manchester.ac.uk

Outings

First Breakfast ... eggy bread ... yummy


Christo was here !




9 days to go.

Everything is ready …we just have to pack the van. We did a dry run on Friday so we know that the gear will all fit in its appointed places but it is quite tricky. The tripod was awkward because of its shape and sticky out bits – eventually we decided that the only place it could go is in the ‘dead space’ behind the passenger seat. In fact rather a lot of things have ended up there – can only hope it’s big enough to accommodate them all.
The van has been the job of work. Finding it, converting to a camper and preparing it for a major road trip has been ongoing for the last year. Things have not always gone smoothly. For example, don’t take your van for its MOT on a Friday 13th – it’s just asking for trouble – in our case £300 worth of welding underneath. What was galling was that we had it looked over before we bought it but 6 months later the same mechanic decides it needs all this work … Transits are known for it … so he says. Did we buy a rust bucket? We will soon know.
To discover its foibles we took it on a test run at Easter to meet the family in the Lake District. We had a couple of problems. We parked up at the campsite in the field where we parked last year but the Transit is much heavier than the caravan so we sank into the grass and got stuck straight away. No one batted an eyelid … I grabbed the first bloke I saw …he went off, came back with a 4x4 and towed us off so the first night we perched on the only bit of hard standing we could find, right by the entrance … in everybody’s way. With the beautiful weather that followed, the field soon dried out and we were able to go on and off easily and try out the new awning that attaches to the side door and gives us an additional 3x2.5 meter extension to our living quarters. It was more complicated to erect than the instructions said but it’ll be easier next time. Its’ light and opens right up – a really useful bit of kit – quite a luxurious extra room.
We had a couple of mechanical failures to deal with too. Two at once. One – a thing called a relay. The indicators packed up – a fuse perhaps? Chris, an extreme canoeist staying on the campsite with us, left his wife, the comfort of his beanbag infront of the bar-b-q and pint-pot-of-wine in hand, prezel torch on head, came to our rescue.
We didn’t even know where the fuses are located. Chris did. He went through every single one and then decided it was relay such and such and we could get one in any Halfords. Phew. The second thing was a bit more complicated. An orange light was illuminating on the dashboard. It could be one of two things or if we were really unlucky – both. Battery or alternator said Chris. Bank Holiday Monday … no mechanics working – what a to do. It turned out to be the alternator, we found a parts shop in Workington and they knew a garage to fit it … just like that … but ofcourse it cost another £150 quid.
Teething troubles – let’s hope. Tomorrow we are taking van to Brecon to see Gwen and Helma, over from Holland … walking in the Beacons … sure we’ll be fine. We’ve got breakdown cover now.
And that was a saga. European Breakdown cover for longer than 90 days. The only people who do it are the AA … but it costs – ouch! Poor Annemarie was on it for a whole day and a half but she got us there in the end … at a price.

Amaro Drom

By way of an introduction to the project; what follows is an article that Annemarie wrote for

‘Amaro Drom’ the Roma magazine produced by the Roma Parliament in Budapest, April 2009.

Old Transit Van Travels, to meet Roma …

We are two award winning women photographers, artists and gardeners living in Wales, UK, who have been working together for many years, mainly on projects we have raised money for ourselves from public agencies like the Arts Council of Wales, who are funding this coming visit to Hungary. Doing things this way we can purposely choose to photograph/film events or people, if they are willing to collaborate, and we can freely comment on subjects and circumstances we feel strongly about and that in our opinion need drawing attention to and exposure in the public sphere.

Our work is varied and enjoyable having taken us to document former mining communities in South Wales as well as making a kitchen garden locally together with people recovering from mental illness or involving Black and Asian minority groups in London in photo projects documenting their environment - just to mention three examples.

Our main areas of concern are primarily people, especially women, human rights, racism and abuse, poverty, unemployment and ill health.

Secondly the environment which has increasingly been degraded and exploited for profit as well as people, rather than cared for with the future in mind. We also feel the relationship between people and their environment is crucial for it has to be regarded holistically as one entity with a mutually beneficial goal rather than two separate ones ending ultimately in the destruction of both.

With the above in mind we are setting out at the beginning of May 2009 on our journey from the UK to Hungary to meet, to speak with, to listen to and work with Roma individuals, groups, agencies and projects. Last year we have already made contacts and some friends in Budapest, Miskolc, Debrecen and as far away as Oradea in Romania.

From 20^th May we will be staying on a camp site in Budapest for 6 weeks and then move on to live in our converted van parked in a Roma settlement in the North East of Hungary and wherever invited for a further 6 weeks ending around 5^th August.

In this period we are looking for any Roma women, men and children who are willing to meet and speak openly about their present lives and surroundings and how they see the future. We hope to hear ideas of what can best express and advance Romani culture and identity and what has to alter in order to progress in harmony with the environment, be it the surrounding natural habitat or gadje society. We would very much like to hear from individuals, couples, families, professionals, artists, activists, in fact anybody able and keen to express their personal view, feelings and opinion in conversations with us in front of a (video) camera, if possible or in writing or in pictures on paper as a personal statement as a Roma member of a community.

An exhibition of photos, video films and text giving evidence of the Roma voices, pictures and words gathered during our journey is going to be shown in Wales in January 2010.

We then hope to raise additional funding to enable us to show the exhibition in the Roma Parliament, Budapest and the city gallery, Miskolc

This project marks the beginning of what we hope is going to be a long-term relationship with the Roma Parliament. We are very happy that the building has been saved (and all the people in it) and that there is hope for the future. We have also been thinking of ways of sharing our organic gardening skills with Roma women. We could, for example, initiate an environmental project growing fruit and vegetables on derelict land in the VIIIth district. Is anyone interested – could it happen?

See you soon.

Annemarie Schöne & Tina Carr 7^th April 2009