On the road… again!
Afghanistan to Zambia
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek

 

H for Hungary

 

Most people wonder about where they came from, or where their grandparents came from. The Footloose Forester was no different in that regard. In the case of his grandparents on his father’s side, the family knew that they emigrated from Hungary early in the 1900s, so it might be possible to trace their roots, even as a lark during a personal trip. So Footloose Forester gave it a try on a detour of his travel during annual leave from Kenya.

As time blurs the details, he wanted to record some of the things he saw and try to make sense of how such sojourns came about. As he remembers it now, wife Thu and daughter Lucy planned to return to the United States in May or June of 1994 just before his contract was up.  Lucy needed to enroll in a new school and she needed to be settled down in time. The Footloose Forester was asked to extend his contract for another five months, but he did have unused annual leave that he was permitted to take. So he planned to take in Malta and Hungary on the way to England and Wales; and then to visit Cyprus and Egypt on the way back. Only a check of an expired passport with its visa stamps will confirm whether or not that was the right itinerary, or the right years.

In any case, the Footloose Forester landed outside Budapest on schedule and took a bus into town. Before settling into his hotel room, he checked out the local telephone book and saw that there were only two entries for Pellek.  He called both of them from a payphone.  Since he did not speak Hungarian or Slovak, he spoke in German, but the parties on the other end understood well enough.  He arranged to meet them both the following day.

 

Flag of Hungary

 

The first Pellek he met was a woman in her early 70s who lived in a public housing complex in the university district near one of the Danube River bridges. Her name was Zoltan.  She didn’t know of our ancestors who emigrated to the United States. The other Pellek was also a woman, who was also in her late sixties and whose name was also Zoltan.  Very puzzling!  Zoltan is a man’s name. Maybe it was a case of his not properly hearing what was being said. It would not be the first time that he, and others around him, thought they heard words that they did not hear.

She lived on the other side of the Danube in a very pleasant middle-class neighborhood, in the Pest district of Budapest. Getting there was by public bus, and Footloose Forester enjoyed the challenge of finding the proper bus stop and walking the rest of the way to the address he had in his notebook.  Although she also didn’t know any other Pellek family members in Budapest, she said that outside of town there were lots of them.  In retrospect, the detour to Hungary incited more questions than answers.