Human Migration

(Photo from CNN: Private citizens in Hungary stop to offer food and water to the walking refugees.)

What is different about reading about the human migration from California versus Hungary? It is only fifteen miles away. Always a profound teaching to live in foreign country and experience the history and unique vibration. Hungary's postwar recovery was different then Austria's and Germany's. Their recovery aide came in the form of guns from Russia, a political dictatorship, and forced cooperatives. Austria and Germany benefited from the Marshal Plan, so they recovered with a different economic fervor. Budapest is an elegant city, but shows the fatigue of war and a challenged economy. The people are resilient, but are also supporting a high population of Gypsies. Adding the human migration to an already challenged environment is part of the current turmoil and building of a fence. It wasn't too many years ago that "the fence" came down between the East and the West.

I have visited Hungary on and off since 1987. I always sensed the different texture of ex-Eastern block European countries vs. a Western block European county. When I compare and contrast this to India, I see what a stress the sheer number of humans has on the environment. Hungarians still have farms and space, but they have the memory of war and a slowly encroaching government control.

Part of a recent news article:

They (a Serbian aid worker in Hungary) remember war.

"One day you are handing out aid, the next day you can be receiving it," a Serbian aid worker told me. "The starting point for any conversation or debate about helping and finding a solution needs to start with that notion. That this can be any one of us."

Compassion for the individuals in the human migration. The movement to a new country is only a step. Securing a place to live, work, and proper paperwork is only a part of what is to follow.

Day four Nador: longing with saddle, bridle, side reins, work in hand, poles on the ground, and starting to prepare for mounting.