In a wedding in the Transylvanian Szék/Sic, when every guest found his or her place, and before serving the first plate, the ritual called “showing” takes place. The groomsman, in a loud voice so it can be heard well even at the end of the wedding tent, says thanks to each and everyone by name for the wedding present given – mostly in cash – to the young couple.
After the recent catastrophe we are far from speaking about weddings in Szék, but now we also perform the “showing” as we promised it three weeks ago when we asked for help for our friends in Szék whose house was destroyed by the flood.
On our appeal 110 thousand forints and 150 euros, all in all about 550 euros have arrived thus far from nineteen readers of ours: 42, Anna, Csaba, Effe, Gyetvai Ági, Hamar Laci, Katarina Ludik, Marika, Melinda and Gergely, Petteri, Petya, Ritoók Magda, Sebestyén Angéla, Szedlák Ádám, Tenczer Ágó, Tóth Gábor, Vándor Kinga, Vida Zsófia, Wang Wei. We gratefully thank to everyone for your generous support!
Whoever could not personally take over the bamboo (of which we still have some) can download the promised classical Chinese manual of bamboo painting here (342 MB), or in four parts of ~85 MB here: 1, 2, 3, 4.Even more people asked for an account number to which, however, they have not yet transferred their contribution. Some others wrote that they would spread the word among their friends, but no echo has been heard this far, as only the readers of Río Wang and Kata’s blogs have sent any donation. Nevertheless we do hope that some help will come from the other places as well.
We are also grateful for the help of the Hungarian portals mandiner.hu and blog.hu which also inserted our appeal in their daily blogroll. True, the first one emphasized in the lead the bamboo rather than Szék, so it did not necessarily catch the attention of the readers interested in supporting catastrophe-struck people. But the other, the largest Hungarian blog portal most probably made a generous exception with us, as I do not remember any other case when they included any post written at a different blog portal like ours at Blogger.
We have to specially mention our non-Hungarian readers. Río Wang has ninety-seven registered followers, two hundred and fifty subscribers on Google Reader, and although we do not exactly know how many people read it on a daily basis through other readers and how many others have inserted it in their blogrolls, they also must be well over a hundred. With all this, from outside Hungary we received support only from Effe (Italy), Katarina Ludik (Slovakia) and of course Wang Wei.
We can only guess the reasons of this almost complete lack of response. Perhaps for the other readers Szék is a too far away and too exotic place, about which they only like to read here in Río Wang, but they do not even think it seriously that they can effectively help them. Perhaps they did not believe that those ten or twenty euros, the price of a fast lunch, can mean a serious help in a place where for some people this is the wage for a whole day. It is also possible that on the basis of their own experiences they do not even imagine that there can be a place in Europe where in case of such a catastrophe there comes absolutely no help, neither from the state, nor from social or relief organizations, but one depends exclusively on himself.
| By clicking here you can send via PayPal or from bank card any amount to the flood victims of Szék. We will send a receipt of each donation. Thank you for your help. |
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3 comentarios:
It seems that the inclusion of a Pay Pal Donate! button, inspired by Julia, was a good idea. Just within a short time after its inclusion both río Wang’s co-author Két Sheng / Gyuri from Copenhagen and Stephen Judd from New Zealand (the farthest point of the globe from where I’m writing this) sent a donation this way. Thank you very much!
A whole day has not yet passed since the publication of this post, and already a lot of people helped again. After the first two donations of last night, Rebecca Friedman (France), Pető István (Hungary), Julia (Argentina) and Klaus Fabricius (Germany/Mallorca, editor of the fantastic Mallorca daily photo blog) have also sent their contributions in this way, 188 euro all in all. Several readers have also asked for an account number for a bank transfer. Thank you very much!
The Hungarian portal mandiner.hu has made publicity to the initiative again, this time dedicating a whole article of press review to this post, sending lots of visitors to us. Thanks a lot for your help!
Till now we have received further 230 euros, 10 thousand yens and 106 thousand forints, that is about 710 euros both from those mentioned in the previous comment and from Bakos Ágnes & Kontra Péter, Dulka Erika, Fra (Italy), Gróbné Borbély Monika, H.E., Rostás Márta, Várkonyi Ildikó, W (Singapore). Together with the sum already sent to Szék this is about 1260 euros, from altogether thirty-four donors. Some more people have also asked for an account number for bank transfer, so there we also expect further support.
We will take personally this amount and whatever more arrives until August 24 to Szék, on the day of Saint Bartholomew – the only saint venerated by this Protestant village –, the yearly celebrated memorial day of the village’s devastation by the Tartars in 1717. After that we will give a report both on the feast and on the destruction by the flood as well as the prospects and chances of the reconstruction.
Many readers have asked us about what the small amount they are able to give is enough for, what it means for the people of Szék and what they can achieve with the help of it. As you can see, the several small (or not even that small) amounts together have already some weight. Of course it does not cover the complete building of a new house, for the prices in Romania are alreay close to those in Western Europe. But in a village where almost every man have worked in the building industry, and thus the workforce will be lent by the relatives, this is a good starting capital for buying the first materials – for example to lay the foundations of the new house before the autumn rains. But this financial help is also a moral one, indicating to the people of Szék that they are not left alone, that several people from all around the world are watching them, worry for them and take care of them, and this palpably gives them force to the efforts they have to take now.
And as to what they can achieve with the help of this support, is partly the question of the future. On the day of Bartholomew we will ask them about their plans and chances and we will report about them.
A last thing that nobody asked of us, but we regard it as our duty to answer to this not asked question. In Szék the landslide has destroyed the homes of six families, the following flood damaged even more houses, and a family remained without father during the rescue works. Why, then, do we collect for only one family? For two reasons. The one is that until we only receive limited support, we feel it more effective to help to one single family in having a roof over their heads than to distribute it among several families which equally cannot do much with their share, and so the support would ooze off. The other is that among the victims of the disaster this is the family we know personally, and there we can follow with attention the use of the support received from our readers, that is, to take responsibility for its being spent really for the purpose we asked for and for which you have honored us with your confidence.
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