Beans for a Boy

Video stills from a dinner with a boy:
Dried beans soaking in water.

One day Balint, 9 year old Hungarian boy came to visit me one day with his mother. While we were busy talking in the studio he sneaked into the kitchen where leftovers from lunch were still sitting in a pot on the stove. He took a tea spoon out of the drawer, tasted the vegetarian bean dish, washed the spoon and put it back again into the drawer, leaving no trace of his secret mission. Once home he told his mother and said that my food tasted really good!

A toast with fresh apple juice.

Consuming a bean.

So I decided to invite him over for dinner one night, but alone!!! His mother dropped him off, and the two of us had to make conversation over dinner without an interpreter. The only thing we both agreed to do is talk and reply regardless weather we understood anything that was being said, which was most likely very little, if anything at all.

No thanks, to the second helping.

Homemade ice cream for desert.

He brought with him a wonderful gift, a handmade book containing a short story illustrated with art, diagrams and even a musical notation for a song. It became a great conversation piece. I still don't know what it is about, but it is quite magical.

He is trying to explain his story to me, I am trying to make sense of it.


He liked the dinner and the whole event so much that he now wants to cook a dinner for me at his place! This is tentatively scheduled for later this summer as time is running out with only one day left. I filmed the whole event and once I have figured out what was said I intend to edit it and show for all to enjoy.

Text and a song.

I thought it was extremely brave of this kid to go to the house of a foreigner, have dinner with him on his own and eat food that he is not accustomed to. This kid does not know what xenophobia is and with his fantastic attitude and sense of adventure probably never will. The relative social isolation I have experienced in Sturovo from adults has been compensated for by the wonderful spontaneous interactions with kids.

A pirate turned into a cow, or something... (translation pending)