9th June 2020 Dear Diary, I thought that I was locked up, I believed I would lose everything, I imagined I cannot go anywhere and I will not survive! Then I realized, that was locked up already, and yet I survived. I was locked up in a country for 17 years, but I left and now I am locked up in a another country. I was an outcast there and here too. Nonetheless, I had a good time and survived. I was locked u pin a system, and now I am locked up again, in the same one. I am trapped between restrictions, the restrictions of society. I am stuffed in a box and moan about it, sometimes I accept it...

25th March 2020 Dear Diary, Wondering what a storyteller does during quarantine? Here is my list:  a storyteller does the dishes, cooks, does the dishes, cooks, does the dishes, cooks, tells the kids which chapter of the Biology book to read for homework, blows her  nose, washes her hands, does the washing, cooks, does the dishes, listens to the kids telling her the Biology homework, tells the kids the Grammar homework, teaches them the different word types, reads dictations, tells the kid the folk dance homework assignment, doesn't show how to do it, tells the kids the Music homework,...

14th April 2020Dear Diary, What do storytellers do to be remembered? They tell stories. But what if there is a lock down? Well, just go live on Facebook. I, too, began to think about how and what to tell. We had a couple of pre-recorded videos, long before there was any news of the quarantine, when we started the recordings, so I thought we should continue now, and a couple of the 'winders' were happy to join, so I cut and edited for long hours, and eventually uploaded to YouTube. At last, we are present there as well. Everyone is struggling to be seen and heard, but the have to be...

5th February 2020 Dear Diary, Last week we were in Szatmár County again to tell a story, and the next day Enikő arranged that we all visit Aunt Ilonka. We knew we weren’t going to collect tales, but it’s always good to talk to the elderly, there’s a lot of good to learn from them, and I especially love their life stories. Aunt Ilonka greeted me with a set table, the smell of the chicken broth immediately engaged my nose, and I immediately knew that this was the moment when my diet plan was going to collapse. Not to mention the amount and assortiment of drinks lined up on the table: plum...