ENG:

This letter (or rather “retrospective diary”) was written in March 2014 in 20 pages, which was then sent to 20 of my friends. The unsophisticated style occurring sometimes is due to the primary audience of friends. On those reading through themselves, it usually had a nice impact: many of them reported meditative experience pulling out of everyday greyness, that’s why I made the whole of it available here, in 12 parts - this one is the final part. Eventual supplements will be always in footnotes.  /CLICK HERE for the former parts/

/…/ When I reported about my pilgrimage and my plans to return home, many told me they envied me. It’s strange for me because I was never in a position to envy. But you who’ve read the story of this short pilgrimage may be able to see that the main part of my project is torment and hardship. I don’t think many would like to complete it this way. However, these difficulties bring lots of joy for me, and therefore, since I went to hitchhike to Budaörs in the end of August and slept at the bank of a ditch ‘cause nobody’s brought me that day, from that day on neither I am envy of anybody, as I feel that I’m there where I’m supposed to be right now… And nobody should want to be there where I’m supposed to be.

I’ve got no money, no job, no woman, neither do I have Martini, champaign, internet, not even food sometimes, however, I appreciate in every moment that e.g. the socks on my feet are clean and dry, even if I only have two pairs of them in all. And two t-shirts, a shorts and a trousers. Why the hell should I have more stuff?! And meanwhile I feel in my guts that my life line is moving towards something great this way. If we deconstruct and reduce the ego to the minimum, this feeling in the guts is the communication chanel to God! But it will mystify us until we don't do this deconstruction...

Moreover, I’ve got time! Which by the way doesn’t exist as we know, but I have it, wehehe… to run, meditate, read Nietzsche and Jung, and to write that long retrospection for you. And I’ve got ocean, sandy beach, stony relaxation place. And a lot of shit to be thrown out of my mind, so I’m waiting for the wifi-connection to empty it a little bit to my blog. I immediately post my first “theatrical play”, you can soon check it out. I was laughing a lot while I was writing it... And some day there will be a camino blog too!¹

A narrow little evening pilgrim jamboree

So far the biggest number of pilgrims in this albergue were 5 in one night, when we also did kind of a little party. This time there’s the typical emotional talks and fate analysis, which is cool, so the tendency should start, to bring at least this number of pilgrims a day. Since I arrived in Galicia this was the first time I got drunk a bit. By rarifying these events, this also counts as a celebration.

It was just the third day of my stay here when a pyknic-looking local guy around fifty came in and said that he sees from outside I’m alone, sure I’m bored – do I want to buy stuffs from him. Obviously there’s no budget for things like this, there’s total puritanism but it’s cool that things are going smoothly here. And that lad is a good guy, sometimes comes to talk a bit without any special reason.  Doing this Spanish people like a lot. There was a carnival tent party, a kind of Spanish village celebration day, the dude was there in a clown costume and people were marching to the stage in groups to make fool of themselves for free, which activity I value above all things; that’s why I think the world of the institution of Karaoke and also used to be the emperor of every air guitar contests.

Pure strength and harshness - air guitar contest Sziget 2005, that time the second place only ;((((

There came a pilgrim looking for some kind of hippies. I didn’t know of whom he was talking about but anyway I mentioned him the cooperative of Auroras, and by the time I went there to visit Rocinante, the guy was already there, staying as long as next October. There are interesting faces who appear especially concentrated out of the camino season. A big piece of a Latvian guy from Riga has been marching by foot for 6 months through Lithuania, Poland, Germany and France. He was story-telling during the whole evening, then arrived another delinquent of the day, a German retired man with the maximum of 55 kilos who started to explicate how much weight he lost on the pilgrimage but still felt fat. While his legs’ diameter is around the size of my arms’. And the Latvian guy who by the way was actually fat couldn’t really react to it so just blinked a few and then went to sleep without a word, however until then he didn’t shut his mouth for even a second. I’ve never seen an anorexic man, especially not in a sixties release. I always believed it is a body image disorder of teenage girls... By the way, it’s an open-plan room with kind of quasi-bulkheads – one night I woke up for the fact that the separately arrived German guy in his fifties and the alemana with 35 of age are screwing... So, stuffs like that.

Yesterday the first Hungarian pilgrim arrived, together with the first awkward moments. Big rover with a pack of 30 kilos and with some more years lived. He trampled down the Northern camino.The boss went to deal with something while I was writing the guy’s personal data. He’s already heard about me in Santiago, about the Hungarian with the donkey. So we have sympathized a little bit when it turned out he’s got no money… uh-oh. But he’s got stones from which he prepares jewelries – could he pay with stone donativo? My head just became heavy ‘cause since Balázs arrived here from Budapest, I heard at least three times his opinion about this kind being so unabashed and stories that he took a knock many times because of them. And “you don’t say on the bus, neither in the shop that sorry I don’t have money” etc., so I’m not to let this kind of pilgrim in, especially that we hardly have paying guests. (This connection I don’t really understand, but I’m just an employee or what.) So I told the guy that I don’t think this could be an option. He insisted that he would even work, he’s good in many things in case there’s stuffs to repair or anything like that. He waited until Balázs returned, this time we were talking. Although, I strongly empathize with these survivor pilgrims since I’m one of them too. Moreover this is from Debrecen, very much remembers me of the singer of the popular band from Debrecen "Tankcsapda" (called Lukács Laci), maybe they are relatives but I failed to ask, plus thing that his first names are Lukács and Márk, which are my confirmation names.

However, he asked incredibly lamely: when the owner returned complaining (as usual he does) that he hasn’t eaten anything today and also his car needs to be taken to the mechanic, and the guy then: “Balázs, would it be OK if I pay with stones?” … “Well, it fucking wouldn’t!”and he flooded the guy the same ocean of arguments with educational intent, so I’ve listened it for the fourth time, and the usual part of which is also that how annoying if somebody is incapable even to ask. So far I thought it means an unashamed-ungrateful pretentiousness, but this lad was only asking very awkwardly. (By the way, not everyone is a communication genius, asking is really a great skill to have, as well as receiving, thanking. And, well, giving too.)

He told me while leaving that okay that we also have no money but it doesn’t cost anything if he sleeps here, and according to the principle of fairness we should help our compatriot in the distance, and instead he even got to be fucking told off. The problem is that I totally agree this. I can’t even imagine how one can not agree with it.

Then it turned out that Balázs just didn’t sympathize with him, that’s why he didn’t even think about helping. But the thing is that he didn’t even have a sentence of conversation with him. They shook hands, he was stinking and got into the box of parasite bums, and from that on he wasn’t interested in him at all. As you could have read above, I also got into situations to permanently have homeless bouquet without the ability of doing anything about it. And I talked with this guy and I received a much more detailed picture of him, which I don’t want to fill the place with. I only go into details regarding some happenings in a baroque style so that I give a look about resonances of my little soul, in this certain case about my cognitive dissonance (=acting against my attitude, and the resulting feeling of discomfort).

Anyway, he could be “not so OK”, he didn’t even have an identity card, only a passport, he told when Bajnai ex- prime minister introduced the passport with chip and fingerprints (does it really exist?), he suddenly made one of the old type valid for 10 years. First I was thinking maybe he’s just irritated by the Orwell-afterfeeling, which I am actually. But if my theory is true and he’s a relative of Lukács Laci, then Lukács must be his second name ‘cause who the hell is named Lukács nowadays. My child is born, how I should name him, eh... let’s see... Lukács! Do you like it, woman? Eh… good… Do anyone of you have an acquaintance named Lukács? I don’t. He may have arranged in the bureaucratic mazes that they write it as a first name ‘cause the family name stated a typical Hungarian "guess name" that you say to data-asking controllers coming first to your mind… Despite all of this I would naturally let him in if it was up to me, as it is my mania to strengthen compatriot ties.[2] (Moreover, it weights a lot how you speak about places, say, if he speaks about it to some people how they dealt with him here, it can easily stick to us, so even if I told him to leave, maybe I would have been more diplomatic or at least a more professional kind of host like “OK, you take a shower, sleep, leave before 9 am and tell everyone how cool this place is but don’t say about you getting it for free” – I would have solved the situation like this… I also have to add if I had a place like this, probably I would have lead it to bankrupt already... I'm not a good capitalist. But at least already not even a bad one. I'm just simply not a capitalist.)

Albergue Delfín (Muxia) nowedays – the owner is already a Hungarian lady called Roze, hugs to her from here :)

So much for the past. As for the present, there’s relax and happiness. I wasn’t starving as a teacher or as a tender-writer, but still have goose bumps if I remember those times. And here I’m all smiles even just looking out of the show-window with full panorama. According to the boss Balázs, it’s good to spend a transitional period as a volunteer or a pilgrim but for the future you must have some kind of “perspectives”. Only that for me this is the perspective itself! Especially if I read that certain book, even I could think too that there’s no past and future...

Viewing the sunrise from the mountain of Muxia

For me Paul Watzlawic’s book entitled Change was an attitude changing basic work, let me recommend it here. The book is about why many of us feel themselves inside the cycle of their problems, no matter how they change the settings. They change their living place, work, husband, then find themselves in the same shit again. Because the real change is on second order: doesn’t happen in the same system but quits it. One doesn’t realize that in the same system only the same result can happen from the same ingredients. And the ingredient – yourself – you can’t change so the system has to be changed. I am definitely on the way to quit the system which wants to dictate I have to have a so called perspective that in this content is equal to have a career. And I think people can actually have a higher perspective than that in this world. For example to make it better.

I was really trying what am I good at and in the given system I was actually shitty or maximum an average in everything but now I’ve found (and partly created) something: I’m good at pilgrimage. Only that it’s outside the system… This all doesn’t mean I want to stay here on the Camino forever. It would be nice to try out other things too here or at home or other places, but I don’t think one have to see everything in the world. There’s not only learning by induction but also by deduction: we see and experience some things and get the “formula” and draw the conclusion regarding other things as well, of course while carefully and consciously avoiding of boxing in stereotypes.

After the Barcelona guys the next person with whom I was talking about Uruguay was Renée who hasn’t got idea about the existence of this country before his pilgrimage. Then he was walking together with a pilgrim from Uruguay telling a lot about it – so did he to me. For example that it’s a traditionally agricultural country and people don’t really need anything else, they love the rustic characteristics and also the nature, which the government also protects. President Mujica is a legend, right, requesting only 10% of the wages, living in a farm around Montevideo and drives to work in his ancient VW Beatle. They can’t stand him in the UN ‘cause he stands up in shorts and sandals to support things like stopping the industrialization of the world, because if the number of cars per person in India will be the same as in Germany for example, then it will mean the end of the planet. Obviously he’s not participating in the world press, only in independent forums, as it is better if all that people in the world know is it’s an insignificant country with a relatively good football team and that’s all. However, he’s a national hero at home, in his youth he was a guerrilla together with his wife. Every representative has only one cycle there, so does he, then goes back to work, there’s no imbedding into concrete, which resulted a cross-party politician-businessman mafia since the regime change in Hungary. I’ve read a touristic blog, in which people collect 10 positive and 10 negative facts about certain countries. In connection with Uruguay they only found 7 negative things, among which there’s one like it’s boring to drive there ‘cause you hardly find other cars on the roads – so, there’s 11 positive facts. Moreover, we talked about the country also with the Brazilian journalist lady who has already spent a lot of her time there, likes to chill out, as she considers Brazil very businesslike, in contrast to Uruguay which is still full of virgin beaches for long kilometers… Must-seen. Who comes?

As a long term goal I’d like to get free of the prison of the fucking money and move towards self-preservation and rotate the conclusions of it – towards which I’m just doing the first steps. I would need money, but actually I’m not so anxious without it already. I’m pretty sure that if the whole population of Europe and America lived so and consumed as much as me in the past one and a half month, the ecosystem would get into balance as well as the people’s set of value, and the terrorist monocracy of broker-banker world mafia would upset. I am now finally the one who doesn’t speak things into the air as a smart-ass philologist but actually does the things. I’m the modern human, fuck it, one must move with the times! And those, in turn, making selfies with their iPhones just stay the bitches of the age.

The fall of Don Quixote may be necessary but I still feel better than compromising beneath my dignity.

…

Click:  http://galicia360.com/muxia-santuario-da-virxen-da-barca/

[1] And here it is, you’re just reading it. And you can smile at the old blog here: http://emberekruhaban.blog.hu/

[2] Last time a French guy stopped to rest at my little stamping station. I just had to drive away with my bike Frau Brinkmann to buy ink pad so I asked him to stamp for the people until I return. I just remembered on my way that he’s mentioned he’d spent some time in prison for thievery. But when I asked him to help out, it didn’t even come to my mind that he may rob me. I returned in an hour and he was there on the spot with sprouted money, which then I shared with him. At first he didn’t want to accept it… The feeling of unity is one of the Camino's miracle: you learn that it’s not reciprocity that you have to make with kindness and trust, but to circulate and pass. And by the way, these (my kind of) poor ones are the most grateful, sometimes in a way you don’t expect. As well as the most sensitive to hypocrites.