HANDS

„Blessed are the many hands…”, was a saying in my village. Many hands stripped more feathers, crumbled more corn, collected more hay, and gathered more sticks… The jobs were done quicker. In the atmosphere of being together, songs, tales, jokes were born and the tempo and rhythm of the hands quickened.

Our “Harp with many strings” course in Velem started with the arrival of the “crew”. We, the organisers and teachers, prepared our place for a day.

We got a cleaned house. “You should have seen what a dirty house the previous group had left”, complained the owner. “If we left any trash behind you could push my nose in it”, I vowed.

For further cleaning, the “cleaned house” needed scrubbing brushes, cleaning detergents, mopping tools, and hoovering the beds. 

It is a strange habit of mines to keep the bins in order. I have been seeing selective, clean bins abroad for 20 years now. They can be kept tidy with only a little effort.

The youth camp’s completely full dustbin smelled at the entrance of the house. We scrubbed some of the indoor bins, and we got rid of the others. We needed bags to put in the bins. “We don’t have any here.” “Then we buy some.” “Where?” “In Szombathely for example, if they don’t sell any closer. But why wouldn’t they sell in a holiday resort where you can smell 68 different types of pine trees’ scents; and it is famous for its healing air and excellent drinking water.” 

“And where did they put their rubbish last week at the arts and craft fair? They also talked on the radio about the wide range of arts and craft presented at the fair.” “They might have brought bags from somewhere.”

We also brought some in a hurry from Szombathely. Until then we put the already cleaned bins upside down out into the sun to dry. Thus, the shiny bags were placed into the shiny bins.

The showers needed strong brushes and lots of bleach. We cleaned the plastic shower grids outside; the already clean (from black sticky smear) ones were sunbathing next to each other on the stone ledge.

The brave enough youngsters volunteered to try to beat the bigger rugs. They dishearteningly said, that the more they beat the rugs the more dust came off. “Hose them”, I said while I was pruning the prickly bushes (I brought a pair of shears and protective gloves from home).

Zoli put his daughter, Anna down, the one-year-old camp baby, and deftly fitted the pipe. They washed the rugs (placed on the bushes), suggested and controlled by the wonderful Zsóka, somewhere behind the house. They dried by the next day in the bright sun of July.

The kitchen table was covered with tin. Various filths formed maps and piles in its undulate bends and corners. It is suitable for creative ideas but let’s not put our bread on it. I love cleaning and rubbing big flat surfaces with water and large circling moves anyway, so I selfishly kept my success. Some members of the crew cleaned, packed, prepared, and arranged by themselves as independent engines, while others carrying as a group prepared the girls’ dormitory, the boys’ dormitory, the children’s dormitory, upstairs room, the dining room, the music room….

For the first night for our own little circle, at home I chose an especially beautiful candlelit music. However, by 10pm I fell asleep. I go to bed early in the evening usually. As the first guest of the clean shower, I happily splashed in the hot shower. I could see the bright stars from my bed while my friends were eating and settling down downstairs and around. The participants of the course, fifty adults, children, friends and newcomers will arrive tomorrow morning. I would never do this alone, but with these people? Behind my closed eyes I saw the active characters of the day, my friends whom I love, moving from scene to scene. We were scrubbing the bin with Bea. She is going to be a flutist; she got in to the Academy. Would they consider at the Music Academy that she could scrub bins? I fell asleep with a smile. 

The light of dawn came through my window; I do not like to sleep behind closed drapery. With excited joy, I sneaked downstairs barefoot on the crackling wooden stairs. On the huge tree I found tiny black cherries, I could reach the lower branches. I made myself smeary with the cherries while I ate them. They mowed the huge lawn nicely, I could easily pick up the little paper and garbage left there. That many bending is enough as a morning moving routine for person over 60 years. Behind the bushes, however, flies roared over the big piles. I have to ask a hoe for that. 

I collect and dig different rubbish in different places of my life. If we dock on a Greek island, my first job is to collect the rubbish in a bag. Unfortunately, there are plenty of plastic bags as the sea washes them ashore. Behind the cliffs, the results of the human diets are piling up. Elsewhere and everywhere. On the island of Madeira when you stand on top of the cliffs you have the spectacular view: the rolling, blue Atlantic Ocean, but few steps away from you the shameful brown piles with used toilet paper. – Thomas Mann describes it so vividly how Moses, cursing and shaking his hands, told his people to use spades. I would love to do the same with my whole heart. But I am not a leader, with no power. So, I burry the piles.

It is hard to understand though, I moaned, that big house with numerous toilets is here and yet, they used the place behind the bushes.

In my lonely morning walk I got my first ideas: I would like some signs with my messages. I would make them right away but I cannot find the papers at the drawing tools, they put them away. I tear little pieces from the wrapping paper and I write with a small pencil “Designated smoking area. Keep your cigarette butts in this ashtray.” I clean a single glass ashtray, we won’t have many smokers. “We do not throw Enikő’s food away. Ask for a taste before.”

We offer two options: vegetarian food on site or traditional food with meet from the nearby Avar restaurant. I was surprised that the majority chose the new way (vegetarian).

We call the artist of the vegetarian menu the queen, she cooks and serves with two young ladies-in-waiting, and we queue up with our plates. They cannot give out plate with food on them already, no, no. As years go by, my repugnance gets stronger: starving children appear in front my eyes when I see a plate with leftover food. You don’t even have to go to Africa anymore, they starve right next door.

Enikő prepares her special inventions for fifty-five people, she smiles and enjoys her success, the plates are completely empty when they get to the dishwasher. We always get salad in the evenings, never tried flavours in colourful piles with exciting dressings. We ate enough and didn’t fall into food coma. The ones, who are interested, write the recipes down from the board, there is no secret, they learn. We will make some room for presentations next year; it would be great to know the ratios and the way of making the dishes.

There is only one shower cabin in the bathroom. A coloured board is hung up on its door. On one side of the board there is a figure wearing a skirt, on the other side there is a figure with beard and beard is coloured in golden. The bearded figure shows if there is a man in the bathroom. We, ladies, turn the figure wearing a skirt over.

We put the large washed rugs in the music room. We got rid of the chairs; we sit, lie and roll on the floor. The place of our evening Bach music breathes immaculate faith. The ones who cleaned and carried the rugs stretch out with a satisfied sigh on the result of their services. “Blessed are the many hands…”

The trio of Náditündér-Eszter-Andrea draw the beautifully colour-coded weekly timetable on the big blackboard. The four groups are marked with four colours by now; we let them come up with their team names. And they do. “Yarrows, let’s get started”, they call for the start. The yarrows get along well quite soon, come together, and also come up with scenarios. Wasn’t their name choice lucky?

On my early morning walks, I meet Zsóka who collects, arranges and boxes herbs and flowers. As we embrace each other, I come up with thing, this and that and I tell one after the other. I don’t even write them down, Zsóka remembers them by hearing and passes the messages.

Eszter was up late at night to write and count, and yet she is fresh and up in the morning to push her roommate’s, Náditündér’s car into the bathroom. Slowly the house starts to buzz, you can hear footsteps on the stairs, and the pipes come to life in the bathroom and shower. The sleepy ones cover their heads with their blankets for an extra snooze. The fresh ones are already carrying their fruit bowls. They settle at the bushes in the garden, and we start the day with concert of the birds. Then as the second part of the breakfast we get a delicious porridge an hour later, so that the fresh fruit can pass its fresh energy to our waking bodies.

Miklós leaves by his minibus. He goes to the train station in Szombathely to pick up the newcomers. He gets a full shopping list as well. “If I leave earlier, I can shop before they arrive”, he says naturally. His assignment was not about this but he is willing to transport, shop and carry reliably. Nobody asks ever twice. We never ask him, hoping that he forgets it. He never forgets. Should he be late? He is never late. Someone asks me “Who raised this kid like this? We salute his parents.” Because he is only 19 years old, we would overlook his forgetfulness or little mess. But there is nothing to overlook.

Being reliable is a royal value in my eyes. A rare gem. I hold on to it with both my hands around me.

Someone shouts another order to the departing bus: we need polybe (a vitamin B tablet) from the pharmacy, and chamomile tea. Miklós writes down into his palm with a felt-tip pen. Polybe, chamomile. And he leaves, driving the big car on the bumpy forest road with his colourful palm. 

I grab the trunk of the huge, foliaged linden tree, I touch it, I feel it with my palm. “Help, Linden Tree!” Its green leaves sway up high, much closer to the sky. It always knows the things about life: how much food, water, light should reach its leaves, fruit and when. It distributes, weighs, works and creates. “Linden Tree!” “Well then, I’ll watch over you down there, you little people.”

“Györgyi, where is your hand?” And Györgyi’s silver voice shines through: “Come forward, green branch, green leaf come, come with the bush, keep your bush.” We set off on the spacious lawn; wriggle under each other’s arms, we sing, a big group of adults and children we sing under the trees swaying in the breeze.

It has started, here we are. Many of us? Well, many. Behold, the linden tree has so many leaves and it takes care all of them.

A day here has many hours and many minutes, and many events in those many minutes. The ones who teach, nurse their groups. The ones who are free for the moment, they comfort, massage, make herbal teas, or have a healing conversation with the ones who need. The schedule is unusually full, full with birdwatching at dawn and Bach music late at night. On the third day, the ones who attended before ask to relax a bit, leave more time to retreat, to have a chat. OK, we plan fewer programmes for next year, leave more free time in the schedule. 

For now, though, I enjoy the buzzing “beehive”. Here is a group, settled on the grass; they learn ancient Csángó and Gyimes songs with Györgyi. Further away, some intensely knead the clay to be patterned; smear paints over large papers, sometimes together with peers. The participants of the nature programmes disappear then reappear from the forest, from the stream. They played and learned, they gained knowledge. Our fourteen children are busy as well; our only big girl lays just upstairs. She was taken to the doctor last night because she felt sick; she hardly can cope with her body suddenly growing. Next morning, she presents me with a beautiful experience when whispering her clever questions into my ears, showing her belonging to us, then pulling her long mosquito-like legs under and asking to sit on my lap. Everyone takes the countless steps towards becoming a woman differently; some skip, some jump, some walk slowly, some hesitate then move on… My desire to help may hide in the tip of my fingers. Even a drop of energy-spark can end up in a good place, so I touch her hand and I concentrate on it.

On my third morning walk, I find fresh trash. Oh, those napkins and those wickedly empty apple juice boxes. They are hanging around on our green lawn. Of course, I pick them up, but don’t relax, no, no. “What programme do you have for collecting garbage?” I ask our environmentalist. Zoltán checks his notes: “There will be one, they pick up the trash on the path then count them at the end, piece by piece.” I do not like it. No.

I mutter under my nose. There is no personal experience behind such a written programme. Anyone who picks up trash regularly knows that a single empty bottle breaks into million pieces. The shards of a plastic cup involve countless bending. The straws break. When littering, it is not the piece that matters but the pieces of the piece, the debris. And counting them will not make you emotionally related to it. You need to be disgusted by the trash, discover its unlikeness, its unpleasant view, and collect it by touching. Then the experience will last.

The next day morning I call together the camp, we start together today, all, here with me. A buzzing crowd comes together on the lawn. We get down on our knees, even on our belly, then we ask the big pine trees, the linden tree: “How do you see the grass here, just above your roots?” The trees nod in the wind. We listen with them, we listen to them. Then I shout: “Who is coming with me as “Filthy guy? Let’s litter!” The kids rush. We pull the trash from the bags, tear them into small pieces then throw them. We are loud, we shout, we scream from the top of our lungs. “We are the filthy guys, let there be dirt everywhere, lot of dirt!” The big place becomes dirty very quickly. A terrifying view. A real dramatic change. We fall silent. I ask quietly: “Look up the trees, what do they think about this? This is their home.” If there were smaller trees, we would climb on them to see from their top. They lift the small children. We look at our work carefully, and ask the trees within ourselves. We talk to them.

Silence is very important; I wait patiently for the children then the adults to start picking up the trash. We just collect and collect them into bags. We carry the bins from the house along with the kitchen leftovers in procession to the large, green four-door container through the lawn. Little Laura heroically carries a large portion, the children start rolling the bins and carrying the bags. They climb to the top of the container and from there they dispose the full bags and empty the bins.

 I am nervous a bit if someone slips in it. Watch my little dears! They don’t fall in it. The job was done. The camp is clean and shiny again. We walk back to the house, and they leave for their classes. I notice someone who stops under the big pine tree and looks up to the top, stands there and watches. She just slowly turns towards the art room. She turns back once more at the top of the stairs. She watches the pine tree.

I watch the top of the pine tree from my window at night. The black foliage gently rocks the cones. They dance.

I would like my reports to reach educators, trainers, children camp’s leaders. The moral of our game is quite compelling. But how would it work in the hands of adults who are not heated by passion. I’ll go around in a different children’s camp first.

A children’s resort on a beautiful waterside. Aesthetic surroundings, caring educators, colourful programmes. On the spacious lawn of the waterfront, I pick up the “inappropriate” things left here and there. Little girls arrive in well-behaved pairs after their breakfast. They settle on the grass in a circle for a talk. Their leader, a young woman, holds a notebook and stands in front of them, well prepared and attentive. The area is empty nobody else is there yet. I bend and put the trash into the bag.

I would expect them to ask “What are you doing, Miss?” Nobody asks. They don’t even look at me, their eyes avoid me. Their leader’s too. I stop carefully near them. I wait and hope. Without success, they don’t care what I do, not even why I do it. They are on holiday here. It is not their job to pick up the trash.

I pick the ones left near them and I move on.

Two boys sit on stones on the shore, watching the beautifully sparkling water. They are having a chat. I am around them, picking up trash. They don’t look at me. I say “Don’t you want to join me to collect the trash?” “Nah, I am so tired, and sleepy.” says the taller boy. The shorter boy looks in front of him embarrassedly, doesn’t move.

A big group arrives nicely, many of them holding apple juice, others with ice-cream in paper cones. First, they rip off the covers of the straws attached to the juice boxes, and then throw them away. After finishing the juice, they throw the straws as well. A tall blond girl walks to the bin with her empty box and throws it in the bin. The others don’t even look at her. They just leave their empty ones on the grass. They also leave the colourful, patterned paper ice-cream cones. Later, with full attention, they shake the grass off of their giant towels, then walk back to have lunch. They all are well-groomed, cared for children, most likely from nurturing homes, their parents pay their holidays.

I groan for few days. Can’t they see what a lonely woman is doing around them? That a person in shorts walking around and picking up trash? Strange, but they just leave me to. If I smoked and threw the cigarette butts, they would leave me the same way. Maybe the words need to be spoken. I should say something; everybody is used to the words. I talk to a young man first who is packing up his surf. “What do you think these little cellophanes are?” The boy kindly says “The packages of the straws.” He doesn’t continue the conversation; doesn’t ask why I pick them up. He is not interested. He packs up, lifts his surf onto his shoulder, says bye friendly and leaves.

I slowly become furious and very curious. Do they really not see these? I stop in front of a group and I smile at them. “The grass looks nicer without any trash on it, doesn’t it?” Two girls look around uncertainly: what is nicer and where? The others keep playing cards, playing on their little computers. They don’t care.

The speakers cry out loud over the heads of the children lying in the strong sun. It is the Danubius radio, crackling, for hours. Today, I’m not escaping, I will just watch. A cheerful big mum sunbathing beside me, her two small kids are checking out bugs next to the water. “What do you think about the music?”, I ask. “The music?”, she wonders. “About what we hear now.” “Oh, about this? I don’t mind.” “Wouldn’t you like some silence instead?” “For what?”, she asks kindly. “You could hear the waves on the lake.” She just looks, smiles and waves forgivingly. “Oh, the waves”, she says and shakes the sunscreen, “Come Anita, I’ll put some cream on your back.”

A very smart looking young man, lying on the grass, just read, now is looking around. “Are you happy with this music?”, I try. “No, it’s terrible. It’s crackling.” “And what if it wasn’t crackling and the sound was good quality, would you be happy?” “That is different, that case I would be happy.” “Wouldn’t you rather have some silence?” “Silence?”, he wonders, “Why?” “You could hear the birds.” “They don’t sing at noon anyway.” “Then maybe the wind as it moves the branches.” “There is nothing in that”, he says but not in a negative way, but rather in an explanatory way. I don’t bother him anymore, I let him read.

What the most beautiful was about being there in Velem was the silence and sounds of the forest. I can never get enough of the silence, it is never enough, I always wish more. Is this the way an alcoholic would want the alcohol and a drug addict the drugs? No. I cannot explain. I rather do more camps in the forest. More camps for lot of people until my strength allows me. Please help, would you?