• by IPS Correspondents (ozd, hungary)
• Monday, November 14, 1994
• Inter Press Service

OZD, Hungary, Nov 14 (IPS) - This north-eastern city ranks as one of Hungary's most polluted, and is considered one of the country's most dangerous areas. But for many of the country's minority Gypsies, it at least provides steady employment.

"Sure it's hard, bending down in the holes all day, digging in the heat. But what else can we do?" asks Attila, 32, slamming a six-foot iron pick into the side of a ten-foot hole as he and others burrow into the earth for the iron scrap and their share of the free market.

The work is dreary and the dust a health hazard but a full day earns a family 1,500 forints (14.50 dollars) -- one-and-a half times the average national salary. Most of those show up are regulars. Others, like Aladar 31, come occasionally. "I just go when I need money."

Some 200 families pick-and-shovel from dawn to dusk through the rugged 151-year-old slag left by the local foundry to sell for its iron content.

"Look at my arms, I can't even get them clean anymore," forty- nine-year-old Geza complains through a toothless mouth as he thumps a lump of iron slag on the scale standing among the scrap metal and rock landscape.

He stares across the several kilometres of filth and collects 260 forints (2.50 dollars) from the scale-keeper. He and his sons then turn the cart and shuffle back to the hole-pocked hill to again begin digging.

Geza and the others are far from bitter. For many, this work is their only income. In the city below only one of three dozen chimneys towering there ever works these days.

Once this city near the Slovakian border stood as the core of Hungary's industrial heartland churning out one-third of the country's steel. There Geza, along with 22,000 of the city's 47,000 population, worked at the Ozd Metallurgical Works and local mines.

The plant's closing a few years ago left 40 percent out of work and plunged a socialist paradise into a foul smelling wasteland of brick and rust. Today, only a decrepit shell remains and business appears limited to 253 cheap pubs, a few cafeterias, one disco and the local Social Welfare office.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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