Kecskemét, Debrecen, Hortobágy

We left as soon as we were able on Thursday afternoon. Amelia had to forego lunch duty clearing tables on Friday, something she loves doing at school and can take or leave at home (leave, usually). To get to Fulbright's program in Debrecen on Friday morning, we would have to spend the night midway. We happily stopped in Kecskemét the way there, Eger the way back.

The girls adored Kecskemét. Our hotel had a lush courtyard and powdered cookies on a plate, and an inviting town center with hot walnut vendors and pastries at the center.

The City Hall, below, is an imposing pink building. At the center of this picture is a bay of iron bells which sweetly ring out melodies by Beethoven or Kodály Zoltán on the hour.


Kodály is one of Kecskemét's most beloved sons. While his good friend, Bartók Béla, would make a bigger name for himself as a composer, music teachers worldwide know Kodály, and many of them use the Kodály Method. He paired what he knew about child development with music literacy, introducing and engaging children to music through games and hand signs, rhythm and movement, leading them to apply explicitly and richly what they first experience implicitly and simply. One of the Fulbright teachers is learning a great deal about this in her work with Kecskét's Kodály Institute. I don't know much about it really, but when our kids work with solfézs, and when they clap out some ta-ta-ti-ti-ta thing, they are experiencing some of what's left of a once nationalized program based on these ideas.

For this reason, we might have felt a connection to Kecskemét even before we arrived, but the main square was also just so pretty!

Below you'll see some of the buildings around the main square of wooded green. The Cifrapalota, or Ornamented Palace. The Moorish synagogue, now House of Science and Technology. The Grammar School of the Calvinist College. A 1956 memorial shadow sculpture. The Franciscan Church. The theater.

As dusk fell the girls slid down a rippled sculpture in front of the square's Catholic Church. A tile in every direction at the sculpture's base pointed to another destination city, demonstrating Kecskemét's centrality to the rest of Hungary, and pre-Trianon Hungary too.

The next morning, we reached the other Fulbrighters in Debrecen, first visiting the American Corners, then taking a tour of Kent's high school, Ady Endre Gimnázium. While there, we lucked into a performance, in English, by its highly esteemed drama students. Introducing the play, a teacher explained that the students would be returning to the English festival in Solymár to defend their top spot in the competition (so I'll see you next weekend, Ady Endre!). The students at the school were highly motivated and energetic city kids, many from wealth -- and Kent expects all to go to university. Back in Barcs, when I'd asked students about desired futures, a clear majority -- males and females together -- said they hope to become police, or soldiers. The top job after this, though stated only by girls, was hairdresser. Poverty is palpable. But visiting students in a top school in city like Debrecen is an important reminder not to generalize what I observe over the rest of Hungary.

Although Debrecen is the nation's second largest city with about 200,000 people, it feels small enough at its center, and the walk from the high school to one of the city's most important landmarks, the Great Reformed Church, was very close. We walked by the chair on which Kossuth Lajos sat when he signed the Hungarian Declaration of Independence, into the chambers where Hungary ceded from the Habsburgs.

Because the Reformed Church is a Calvinist church, the second largest denomination of Hungary, the building inside is plain and shining white. Pews faced multiple directions and towards each other rather than the strict face of a pulpit. But the enormity of the building speaks to the power of the Calvinist church. Debrecen is said to be the Calvinist Rome, which had its first impact on me when two religious academics spent their Fulbright semester thrilled to absorb the rarefied air.

I kind of thought Calvinists were a bunch of conservative nuts who believed in predestination and the basic naughtiness of humankind. Neither of these ideas emerged in any of the discussions or descriptions of the Reformed Church, which instead center on the personalized relationship a person has with God and the importance of education to do so, and the power of the Church throughout history, including their power to withstand the Soviet evisceration of religious institutions. As for my previous knowledge, one speaker did say that married women were separated from unmarried women were separated from married men from unmarried, which sounds unpleasant, and also that boys in grammar school were made to line the walls going up and down the stairs, so they wouldn't be able to look up any skirts, but in general, I would have to say that I don't know anything about Calvinists.




We crowded up a bell tower and took in a terrific view of the city.


Kent explained that the puritan impulses of the Calvinists meant that Debrecen, though larger than so many other places in Hungary, built fewer shopping attractions and amenities. This could be seen even from a height; but the square around the Church includes two beautiful fountains and a rich, luxury hotel.


Before we left downtown Debrecen, we visited a craft complex and were given a short tour of a folk embroidery workshop, a soap boiler, and a tannery exhibit.

Before we left Debrecen for good, we visited its very excellent and large university. The school has 50,000 students and spans almost half a millennium. A former rector gave us an extensive history, content with a volume slightly larger than my bladder.

Amelia sat next to Fulbright's executive director, Huba Bruckner, a deeply kind and knowledgeable man, who, judging by this year's award of the Hungarian Gold Cross of Merit, is respected at every level. Plus we are very fond of him. Amelia looks very alert and happy here. After an hour there, the expression will have faded.

From Debrecen a coach took the Fulbright crowd to Hortobágy National Park. This is the first national park of Hungary and a World Heritage site, miles and miles of grassland called the puszta, similar to Argentine pampas or Russian steppes. Soviets used the desolate acres for forced labor on political enemies.

The wide open air, the grass, the horses and the funny little racka sheep made for a delightful afternoon under the bright sky. Several men performed unnatural stunts with their horses before turning them over to our inexperienced backsides.

We ate a traditional gulyás (which means cattle-driver, or cowboy) before we said goodbye to the Fulbrighters, and then departed for one of our favorite Hungarian destinations yet. Eger.