Week 4: My hosts The Mazsar family

The Mazsar family were very good to me. They had a spare ground floor apartment that was built year before to house Ferko's son Peter while his house was being built, so his family had a comfortable place to live in the interim.

So when I arrived, they gave me a choice to live in the house or in the flat (apartment in Australian English). As I was still in some pain and had a habit of waking during odd hours, thirsty or for whatever reason, I decided to take the flat. It was modern and it had a stand-up shower which was amazing. I really hate the hand held showers, as well as the German style toilets. I could also unpack my bulging suitcases, got a double bed, a kitchen and a huge living room that I set up as an office.

Lots of wood panelling in the main bedroom.

If I woke early, I could go down to the lower kitchen - or woke late - I went upstairs to the upper kitchen.
Matula (Marafko-ne) Olga, the matriarch of the family did most of the cooking in the lower kitchen.
Mazsar Juci - Olga's daughter and wife of Ferko was my guardian so to speak and she was great! She had the same attitude to shopping as my wife Trish and it was comforting to spend hours with her travelling in shopping centres. The Matula's other daughter - Kleiner Gabi (Marafko Gabi) is a doctor in Ravensberg, Germany. Unfortunately I could not meet with her as she had other responsibilities at the time. I personally felt this unfortunate as maybe I could of had some family support for my research.
Ferko (Feri) is a carpenter by trade. He has a very well set up factory at the back of the property, joining up to the residential area. His factory concentrates on fitting out houses with kitchens, doors, ballustrades and panelling. The most amazing thing about this is that they can work directly from forest wood. They have large diameter saws that cut logs into wood slabs, drying kilns, laminator press, (raw laminate strips purchased in Hungary), long table sanders, routers, bandsaws, drill stations, paint-varnish shop and much more.

Some of the detail work Ferko can do on this bannister.

That's the big difference between carpentry shops here in Australia, where carpenters buy seasoned wood from a timberyard and not deal directly with forest woods. Ferko employs up to 8-10 men with a few apprentices.

The almost completed bannister at the back of the house.

The house is a newer late 70's design in almost a modern avant guard Soviet style for the period. It has 3 stories, a garage, a courtyard in the back separating the factory from the house. Behind and to the left of the house are chicken coops and a rather large plot of arable land and an orchard. To the right of the house are drying stacks for sawn wood, a piggery, storerooms and at least one 'pincer' or basement. Next to the house there is a showroom of sorts and another entry where heavy vehicles are kept.

View out to the back  taken before the bannister - and there's Kevin - another Marafko relation.

A new house in the 70's - it was built opposite to my demolished grandfather's workshop which had a blacksmith and shoemaker's factory in a long porta style.

So Ferko, Juci and Olga were my hosts and with the help of Peter, I managed to get the shower repaired, internet working a few grand tours of the establishment, some great food and downtime with some TV, a chance to read my Kindle and time enough to meet some elusive Marafkos.

Garage - Pavilon and my flat in the background.

Rear of the main house. Kitchen and offices below.

Planting Paprika plants in the back lot - around 20,000 plants.

Orchard - these are young trees.

Sheets of laminate ready to be glued and pressed on cupboard doors etc.

A 'bograc' - Cooking pot with wild boar stew.

This was made to feed about a dozen of us after the paprikas planting.

Some pics of the carpentry factory:

Dowling jig

Huge sander - 3 or 4 meter belt sander.

3 metre cutting table.

Drying kiln in the back corner.

Rough saw to cut slabs.

More wood stored.

Wood slabs exterior drying

As you can see, my hosts are rural wealthy and so atypical of what I expected. My 14 days in Hidaskurt were well spent. It was here that I gained almost 7 kilos from the rich food that included the best kolbasz, fish, cheeses and yogyhurts. The one thing I couldn't stand was the huge amount of salt that was used in the preparation, cooking and serving of food. I like salt, though the quantities used was a real overkill. Eventually I became sick and bought some cooking oats which I ate almost exclusively for a few days to help rid my body of excess salt. The most longed for foods and stews, salivating at the prospect of eating it, was ruined for me. All I tasted was salt and those stews and soups went to waste.

This sow is expecting some little piglets. Unfortunately I missed out on the event.

Next post: Back to Budapest, The Danube floods, Vác and Érd.