IN THE HEART OF HUNGARY

I have wandered much in my life and travelled some but my recent trip to Hungary was truly a journey I longed for all my life.
The three hour delay at Amsterdam Airport seemed hardly significant when I considered the fourty nine years I had already waited to at last set foot on Hungarian soil. It was the most delightful feeling to hug my waiting family at the Budapest Airport. After many hugs and kisses we were whisked away in two cars to meet the ferry which would shuttle us over to St. Andrew's Island. As I stood in the twilight, on the shore of the Danube, I couldn't help thinking how delicious the apples that my Aunt Maria had brought from her garden in Szombathely, tasted. Or perhaps it was the reality that I am actually standing at the shore of the Danube with my beautiful hungarian family, which made the flavour of the apples seem especially sweet to taste. As though reading my thoughts, my Aunt Maria slowly turned to me and said, "Eniko, are we dreaming? Are we really standing here, together at this moment?” It really was a dream - one that had come true for us.

In the following two, very short weeks, I had the opportunity to meet all the family I had never known while growing up in Canada. My parents had been the only two to have left Hungary during the 1956 revolution and other than my Aunt Klara who had come on a few visits, my cousin Tamas was the only other family member who had once come for a short visit many years ago. So my only contact over the years has been through telephone, regular mail and email. While staying with my Aunt Klara at her place on St. Andrew’s Island, we enjoyed a wonderful gathering of my father’s family. It was truly a pleasurable experience which was complimented with home cooked porkolt and nokedli prepared in a traditional outdoor fashion, in a cauldron hanging over an open fire. Needless to say, there was a seemingly endless supply of home baked goods at every table we were welcomed to during our stay. The hospitality....and food, were forever present at each turn of our journey. I was asked by several family members, how it felt to be in Hungary. My response was that, "I felt very much at home, as though I had always been here and I suppose that is so because in my heart, I have truly always been here".

For my two sons, Truman 11, and Marshall 10, this has been a remarkable experience. We visited Esztergom, Sopron, Szombathely, Buk, Heviz, Lake Balaton, St Andrew's Island, Margit's Island and of course the two sides of Budapest. All of which had the most amazing historical structures and architecture which, in some cases, dated as far back as two thousand years in history, as was the case with some of the Roman ruins found in Szombathely. On our visit to Esztergom, we had the unique opportunity to actually walk into another country, and after touring the Basilica which included climbing the nine hundred and twenty winding, narrowing stairs to the top dome of this thousand year old piece of architectural wonder, that is just what we did. We took a stroll through the old cobbled streets of Esztergom, alongside a little canal until we arrived at the old bridge which crossed the Danube into Slovakia. On either end of the bridge were the now vacant, sealed and guardless, border patrol booths which now seem to stand as quiet reminders of a not so free Europe.

Although all of the sights were undoubtedly awe inspiring, the time I was able to share with my family was more wonderful than anything I could have imagined. We all discovered each other and we also discovered another interesting thing; there is a special communication that children share which does not require actually speaking in the same tongue and it is called "fun". For all the children that were there, none spoke English and mine spoke no more than a couple of words of Hungarian and yet they played for hours using their secret language called "Fun". It was truly an amazing journey.

One of the most difficult things I have had to do in my life was...to leave.

Eniko Ocsko

(Note: Eniko, Steve Ocsko’s daughter, born in Victoria,B.C. Not only respects her root and her heritage but she is proud of it and feels ardent and enthusiastic about Hungary and its people.
Tibor Szamecz)

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