Botond Perger is from a small town in Hungary and studies tourism and catering in Budapest. He is desperate to work abroad when he finishes – not just for money, but for the adventure

I think people should care more for each other. Not long ago, I was coming home from Budapest and getting off the train at Pilisvörösvár, the town where I live. It was almost as hot as it’s been lately, and I saw a girl collapsing at the station. Maybe her sugar level was low, maybe it was something more serious, I don’t know. Nobody stopped. I put her in the recovery position and called an ambulance. 

I turned 20 this year, and I really want to work abroad after I finish university. I’m a bit bored of Hungary and the so-called “Hungarian mentality”, not only because Hungarians don’t care much for each other, but because they are often picky, disparaging and blunt.

But my main reason is different: I’m looking for adventure.

I wouldn’t change my mind even if some kind of magic transformed Hungarian people tomorrow, and all the brash ones suddenly began killing me with kindness. I’m seeking new places, new adventures, the experience of being in a relationship in which we use another language. 

I study tourism and catering in Budapest, and I would like to graduate before I leave. I might never use my degree, it might be worthless, and I’ll probably do the same jobs as people without a degree. Still, I want to graduate just so I can show off my diploma sometimes. 

I’ve worked every summer since I was 14, almost always in catering. I was a food delivery guy and waiter at a local restaurant, I stacked shelves in a supermarket, and early on, I worked for a gardener. I always wanted to earn money. My parents were not very generous, even though they could have been since they aren’t poor at all. They just didn’t want me to get money without making any effort. 

I’m currently working remotely as a chat room moderator and support assistant for a British company, and I earn double what my friends do at their jobs. I can work from anywhere, so I enjoy it. 

Once I leave Hungary, my aim is to get a job on a cruise ship. It’s hard work, they say, sometimes 17 hours a day, so for a year you don’t have a life. But, you can earn enough money to start a life.  

It’s not difficult to get a job in tourism and catering in Hungary. The virus and economic crisis has obviously affected us too, but I hope that everything will be back to normal soon. The government introduced a state of emergency on 17 March. I remember the date because I had an exam the next day that I would probably have failed. The virus saved me. 

It’s July now, pubs and restaurants are opening up, and last Saturday we could party at the local football and booze festival until 8am, which is absolutely a good sign. The festival is organized every year on the football pitch in Pilisszentiván, a village near my town of Pilisvörösvár. 

My grandparents and great grandparents both lived in the capital city of Budapest, only 20km from here. My father’s parents moved to Pilisszentiván around 30 years ago. The village and the town are both inhabited by people of German ancestry: our surname, Perger, sounds German, but our family is not originally from the village. My father’s parents had a pub in Budapest, while my mother’s mum owned a newspaper store where my mum worked for a while. We then came to Pilisvörösvár because, at the time, the villages here had nothing – no shops, no vets. Things are much better now.

My dad was a professional football player and later became a coach, and now he works with my mum at the Pension Payment Directorate. Mum is a kind of secretary, and I have no idea what my dad does there, but football is his life. He never said so, but I feel like he is disappointed that I don't play football. For a long time I played American football, and my team, the Budapest Wolves, won the national cup twice, but he never came to see a game. Once I played European football at the local cup as a substitute for the local team. It was a really low level match: the goalkeepers were smoking during the game. But my dad was there to see me play. 

But I digress: My parents really want me to move out of the house. They would be a bit sad, of course, if I were to move abroad forever and only return for a week at Christmas. 

I have family living in Germany that could help me to get a job and find my way there, although Germany is not my favourite country. When I visited there, I felt that German people are very different from us. 

My sister agrees: she just moved back from Germany where she was studying for years, but now she’ll continue her business school remotely. She said it wasn’t easy to integrate as the only Hungarian in the school. I have the feeling that the western Europeans think we are a bit weird. 

I love living here, and I love these villages and small towns. I think it’s rare to have such strong friendships as I do, and me and most of my friends went to nursery school together and still meet almost every day. Still, I would leave them and move abroad just to experience something different. Most of my friends want to stay in the country, which is fine with me. I think Hungarians are supposed to live in Hungary, it's natural to live where you were born. At the same time, I think it’s also natural that I’m constantly thinking about exploring new places on Earth. 

We had elections two years ago, the same year I was graduating from high school. I was 18 that year and expected to have at least a short lecture in school about elections and the right to vote in general. We had nothing like that. Maybe it sounds silly, but I expected the representatives of parties to come to the schools and tell us about their parties and programmes. 

Before the elections, I didn’t even know which parties were running, and I wasn’t interested enough to look them up online. Still, I was excited to vote, but on the day of the elections on 8 April, 2018, I learned that I wasn’t eligible. My 18th birthday was on the 16 April, eight days later. My next chance to vote was at the municipal elections in October 2019, but I didn’t vote then either. I don’t even know who the mayor is, I only heard they elected a new one. 

I’m actually a bit ashamed that I’m not politically active. I heard that young people are not really willing to vote while seniors are very active when elections come around. I don’t think that’s right: old people can’t even use smart phones properly. I haven’t got any problems with older people, and it’s obviously not a requirement to use modern phones, but what I mean is that the world is changing and developing, and I don’t think it’s right that the people who are deciding the future don’t want to keep up. They don’t even know what wifi or passwords are. 

My grandma is on Facebook and she shared a post warning that the platform would be suspended between the 29 and 31 of February. She didn’t get the joke. I felt so bad about it so I immediately called her and asked her to delete the stupid post.