Hungarians around the world: a Hungarian mother in Uganda

Globoport.hu has recently visited a Hungarian family in Africa: Monika L. Novák has been living in the country for 10 years now. She gave an exclusive interview where she talked about her experiences, the joys and the drawbacks of living in a third world country.

Monika L. Novák is currently managing the HTCC (Hungarian Trade and Cultural Center) in Uganda with her husband, where they’ve been living for 4 year now, having previously spent 6 years in Congo. The couple is not only helping Hungarian businessmen, their guests and clients, but they are also managing a model farm, and Monika is the humanitarian project manager of the African-Hungarian Union (AHU). AHU is gathering supporters to help orphaned children and Monika regularly gives them presents when she visits them. The journey to the orphanage takes 2 days, as all the roads are in a terrible shape.

The family is currently living in Kampala, in a beautiful house, where they have electricity and internet connection most of the time – it’s a luxury that most locals can’t even dream of. Many villages don’t have electricity, and people have to walk several kilometres to get water, but, Monika says, these people are never complaining, and they are always smiling.

What Monika misses the most are her family and friends, but thanks to modern technology, talking to them is possible even though they are so far from each other. What she doesn’t miss at all is stress, depression, moodiness, nastiness, and the lack of tolerance.

Ugandan people are extremely happy and very receptive: neither Monika nor her family ever had bad experiences regarding their skin colour, and everyone around them, including teachers and classmates, are helping them to accommodate to the new culture. Monika’s children – Martin and Málna – are attending an international school, where the language of education is English. Contrary to most Hungarian schools, she said, children have the chance to get personalized education, teachers are helping those who are lagging behind and give more exercises to those who excel in a certain subject.