Mária Baranyi

I can’t exactly remember under what circumstances, but mother was presented with an opportunity, an offer to take a conductor role with the Volan Company. And this was a once in a lifetime opportunity back then. She completed a company training course. I’m not sure whether you remember, but back in those days there were conductors on the boards of buses. And Mother was fairly popular. She was loved by people. And so she had lots of friends. She was enormously popular. And had the looks as well. She went to see the hairdresser on a regular basis, wore skirt suits and she was always neat. And then came the days when she was succumbing to her illness, she could not get about on her own but was not crippled yet, and, I don’t know how but found a new opportunity for herself. Herbs and snails are still collected in villages today, and Mother bacame an intermediary. She bought them and sold them on to the entrepreneur. Mother, rather smartly, could get a small income out of this. This is how I saw her, always making something out of nothing. It was also quite a statement that she was the only one in her family who dared get a divorce. This wasn’t allowd for the Roma, especially not in those days. It is still not encouraged but nowadays many of them do get one. But back then it was unfathomable that she sues for a divorce and gets it. Nonetheless, she did, becoming an avantguardist and a trailblazer in this respect as well.

I heard that the Hungarian Radio is about to launch a Roma Media Trainee Program. There was a deluge of applicants. The requirements for the interview were very tough. I self-prepared for it and went for the interview. They took me on. There were the five of us admitted, three to Radio Kossuth and two to the Hungarian Televison. Once the trainee year was over they called to offer me a one year contract. I was over the Moon! One year later I was given a permanent contract and I worked for them for six years. I worked for all sorts of magazine shows that I listened to when I was a child. It was literally a dream that my card opens the door of the Hungarian Radio. It was too good to be true. Also, the way sounds were breathed life into. This dream period lasted for quite long. Eventually, I ended up in 180 Minutes. This was a morning news program. A lot of stress and effort. My speciality was socio-reports, so it was still along the old social worker line. There was no need to start from scratch, I could rely on my previous knowledge an contacts. They tolerated that I had no knowledge or affinity to politics but I was good at social topics and will volunteer to do the onerous part of the workload. I will do the field work and it will be flesh and blood reports that I bring back with more people opening up to the microphone. In return for taking more than my fair share of the work I could establish my own turf. ”If it is a socio-report, Marcsi will go. ‘Superb! Just out of this world!’ I was also highly acclaimed professionally. There was, for example, a campaign called Get closer! about how disabled people are presented in the media. At this contest my report entitled The Blind Boy and His Dog won the first prize.