A brand new year

Despite spending the New Year’s Eve trying to sleep on an uncomfortable chaise longue wannabe, 2013 started full of expectations and positive energy! New hair, new habits, new projects, new challenges, new old love, it feels like a new era. I am radiating happiness, can you feel it on that side?

... and as I got back to my Dublin home, I was welcomed by lovely cards that travelled a long way to wish me peace, happiness, love and success!

Christmas eating-marathon

In a non-Christian household, Christmas was all about the delicious food that are only available in this season. It is an excuse - as if we needed any - to enjoy our favourite treats  and, as we are in a different country, to try all the local especialities: drink Finnish Glögi with almonds and raisins, joulutartu and sweet buns with Scottish lemon curd, Swedish mud cake, and our very own homemade Turkish lahmacun. 

Proud of his creation!

Timuç’s special version of mud cake, incremented with strawberries and vanilla sauce

About my first protest

There I was, at the entrance of the Iranian embassy in Ireland, when my colleague asked: so, how do you feel in your first protest in Dublin? -  It is actually the my first protest ever! Although I have always admired those who join public demonstrations, for some reason I had never joined any myself. Yesterday we were Iranians and non-Iranians, but we all wanted the same thing - freedom for Nasrin Sotoudeh, an Iranian human rights defender and lawyer, winner of the 2012 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament, who has been in hunger strike since 17 October in protest for prison conditions and increasing harassment against her and her family.  

  

A souvenir from yesterday’s vigil for Nasrin Sotoudeh.

Revisiting Poland

I am sitting in a comfortable train (the Finnish trains are REALLY so nice – I must be getting spoiled!) on my way from Lappeenranta to Helsinki as I write this post. Tonight I am flying to Kraków and I have millions of butterflies in my stomach since I woke up this morning.

This time I visit Poland for a different reason – I am attending the 7^th Economic Forum for Young Leaders in Nowy Sącz (I hope to write more about that in the next few days!). When I left Poland in 2009 I could not imagine that a few years later I will be turning back to this country on my own will. The months I spend in Łomża were not as sweet as they seem now and by the time I was leaving that place I would hate everything Polish! I must have repeated several times I would never visit Poland again. But life is full of surprises, and I have been lucky enough to get this chance to attend a very interesting Forum, meet new, smart people from all over, and see a different part of Poland (the most beautiful, as I have been told).

As for the butterflies, I am taking them with me in every trip – it is always so exciting! Even when the trains waiting for me as not as nice as the Finnish ones...

Do widzenia!

A visit to Sejm, the Polish Parliament, August 2009.

Memories from the rainbow nation

How could I know what awaited for me when I learnt that I would spent a semester in South Africa?

As a good friend wisely said once, I went from hell and back and beyond. I travelled to Zimbabwe with four other wonderful researchers, I produced a short film with the most wonderful team mates one can wish, I spent one week with picteists in the Drakensberg, one of the most special places I have had the chance to see. I met wonderful souls, and fostered friendship bonds I know will be carried for life. It was a journey to a part of the world previously unknown to me, but perhaps more importantly, it was also a journey into myself.

I finish these notes with the sweet memory of that sunset by the Great Zimbabwe ruins. I can nearly hear that melody again if I close my eyes.

Local music and dance, Great Zimbabwe ruins, March 2012

Remember child labour

On this May day I would like to share my submission to a human rights photo contest; it talks about child labour.

The young banana vendor

31 March 2012, Masvingo, Zimbabwe

Denied the chance to simply be children, they have no opportunity to go to school, they have no time to play.  Child labour has been in rise in Zimbabwe since 2000 and this is often attributed to HIV/AIDS, socio-economic hardships and the breakdown of family support systems. While we promise our children a long list of rights, many of them continue to be denied the most basic ones, and child labour remains to be found on large scale farms, in the peasant sector, tea and coffee estates, mines, in domestic employment and in the streets of the country's urban areas.

About the Drakensberg Mountains

Cathedral Peak/Drakensberg, April 2012

Mountains always have this impact on me. I stare at their majesty. As someone who has spent most of her life in flat lands, I simply cannot get used to their beauty.

While it is true that it does not take much for mountains to impress me, the Drakensberg must have some different magic. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. There I met a lovely friend and she taught me the pleasures of bird watching. It was an unforgettable week along the dragon’s spine.

An excursion to Ecseri

It was a friend's suggestion. Curious to understand more about the place she had so promptly elected for a visit during her short stay in Budapest among so many other pearls in the city, I ran to my books. One of them described Ecseri Piac as "one of the biggest flea markets in Central Europe, selling everything from antique jewellery and Soviet Army watches to Fred Astaire-style top hats". Despite not knowing what this hat was all about,  I could only conclude that this would be fun! 

And we had indeed a very good time walking among teddy bears and Nazi artefacts, memories of good and hard times, pieces of gypsy culture or art nouveau style. It is true that I am anyway very easily pleased with whatever that is old. By old I mean something that pre-exists me; in a more fashion, current language, vintage or antique. I find it quite peculiar this feeling of being in the presence of an object that was already around when I came into being. I like to imagine how many  secrets and what sort of  intimacies they have witnessed but would never tell. 

We ate lángos. You might be wondering what is that if you are not one of those familiar with the Hungarian cuisine. Due to its high concentration of grease and the lack of traditional cutlery, I could not register the moment for the posterity. I did not want to decorate my relatively new camera with shiny fingerprints. The fact is that the lángos degustation was a remarkable moment of the day. I was told that it is a summer thing this lángos, but was not explained why; some things one must just accept.

It is not hard to reach Ecseri using public transportation. I did not say it was central, though, so get ready for the trip! Actually, the journey itself can be an unconventional distraction, I enjoyed it very much! Outside the Kőbánya-Kispest metro station (the last stop in the blue line - or first, if you look at the matter from a different perspective!)  the landscape was not the most promising. But we took a tram and it was not long until I felt as if I had been transported to somewhere far from Budapest.

As part of a new policy developed since I left Finland, I did not acquire anything. Do not fool yourself, that was merely the result of pure discipline and auto-control. Instead, I photographed, and later I decided Ecseri deserved its own set on my Flickr.

Practical information: the address is Nagykőrös út 156 and (still according to my book) the market is open from 8-16.00 (Mon-Fri), 6-15.00 (Sat) and 8-13.00 (Sun). A bus stops right at the entrance; to figure out about routes and public transportation in Budapest, I recommend checking Google Maps.