Mother's Day

In Hungary, Mother's Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May, whereas in the United States, it is the second Sunday. What this meant for our family is that we effectively did nothing on either day. I can share two Mother's Day concerts in which the kids performed, however, and maybe it's not too late to honor the mother I'm thinking about most this year, here in this entry.

First, in Szulok a couple of weeks ago, all the children at the girls' school gathered with dancing and poetry and a surprise gift of flowers and cloth eggs. The building you see below houses the two classrooms (first and third grade in one room, second and fourth in the other), a library, a kitchen, a computer lab, an art room, and the gym in which the children performed. I hope that some time soon our girls take a camera to school and capture their experiences more specifically, and maybe even write about it as well.

The performances were very sweet. I was interested to see two of the little ones flub or forget lines, because it seems the Hungarian kids are so self-possessed, fluid and clear in the many times they recite memorized verse or speech publically, that I was happy to spot the progression. Our girls have kept up, too, and I always like to see them in that formal stance with hands at sides or crossed at wrists, faithfully pronounce the words I so little understand. In this case, Viktor wrote to Tibor to find a poem in English for the girls to recite for Stephanie, and it was a fun surprise. Interestingly, Maisie and Amelia were a little harder to hear than usual. Sophie was resonant and clear.

One of the skits looked like it was about boys in the family taking their mother's hard work for granted. You can see a cross-section below. The girl had almost no lines, but she did walk around with that enormous bag, looking very forlorn.

Finally the children sang together, as presented in the video below, and then delivered flowers and gifts to their waiting mothers.

Last weekend, Barcs had a much bigger Mother's Day concert in its Culture House. Children played instruments, sang, danced and recited poetry to a packed room. I've included some photographs of kids I thought were cute, like this little boy with the big guitar, and some footage of the girls in their orchestra, Sophie playing the violin, and finally kids from a folk dance group hollaring some steps I'd like to remember. Again, the children flooded the room at the end with gifts. In Sophie's lovely video, you might also note the rhythmic clapping that grows out of the applause. This is something Hungarian audiences do to show appreciation for a performance: clapping is desultory and then narrows in on itself as everyone claps together in a steady pulse. She deserved it too.

The video below includes two of the dances with our girls. The first dance includes some very awkward partnering that my filming does its best to emphasize, because everyone looks so unhappy, and no one more unhappy than Sophie, who had hurt her foot earlier in the day and wasn't hiding it. Stephanie said that it looked like a middle school dance where the teachers force boys and girls to hold each other and move. You also don't have to look hard to observe another detail: boys gripping the hell out of girls' arms. I didn't catch this with the camera, but after the dance, many of the young ladies were rubbing their arms as the curtains closed around them. The other thing I thought was fun about the dance is that it is set to a Hungarian translation of "Cat's in the Cradle," a song about a son neglecting the attentions of his father and then paying for it when he grows up -- an odd but adorable choice for a Mother's Day performance.

The second dance in the video is performed by girls only, and each carries and cuddles a doll. The girls were instructed to gaze into its eyes as if it were the most important thing in their lives. They end up looking morose instead. My favorite part of this dance was the preparation for it, in which, for rehearsals and then the dance itself, the kids carried their dolls in a bag, because I love to say, "Bag of Babies."

The video below is the folk dancing group.

And now, the mother I am thinking of most this year. We didn't send her flowers, as intended, or letters, or chocolate or any such thing, and yet we can't think of a Mother's Day more precious. But we thought of you, I promise.

Lauren, we love you, and we are so happy for you and Maude and Jeff, and we are proud to be a part of your family. What a change in your life, and how full our hearts! Happy Mother's Day.