East Bloc Nannies Meet Western Ways : Lifestyle: Jobs are few in Hungary, so young women are coming to America to work. They’re not always prepared for what they find.

BUDAPEST, Hungary —  Zsuzsa Bakonyi’s biggest challenge as a nanny in suburban Indianapolis was trying to keep a straight face.

She found it amusing that Americans fretted over foods and fitness, yet loathed getting out of their cars. There were drive-through banks, drive-through restaurants and even movie theaters where you watched from the parking lot.

Kitchens rumbled like construction sites--microwaves humming, dishwashers sloshing, freezers popping out ice cubes and a deep drawer under the counter pounding boxes and bottles into a disposable block.

Bakonyi finally lost it in a fancy restaurant, collapsing in a fit of laughter when a well-dressed couple asked for their leftovers, making up something about owning a dog.

For most young women reared in the communist austerity of Eastern Europe, life in America is a study in culture shock. Everything from diet to diapering is vastly different back home.

Yet increasing numbers of young Hungarian women are seeking the adventure and experience of the West by working as nannies. They offer live-in child care and housekeeping in return for pocket money and patience as they learn the language and see the world, or at least one faraway corner of it. No official estimates exist, but the number of Hungarian nannies worldwide is widely believed to be several thousand.

It’s a good time to go abroad, because jobs are few in Eastern Europe, with failing factories laying off thousands of workers in the disruptive transition out of socialism’s economic disaster.

English, German and other languages that can be acquired abroad stand those returning from nanny service ahead of their countrymen in job competition that promises to get tougher over the next few years.

“For Hungarian women who are 20 to 25, it’s the perfect time to get away and learn something about another culture,” says Bakonyi, who speaks flawless English and now helps others find positions abroad.

While the benefits are clear for Eastern Europeans seeking to travel and train for the future, there are also attractive advantages for the family that hires a Hungarian au pair. The nannies are accustomed to a six-day workweek and consider housekeeping part of the job--and at $300 or $400 a month for live-in help, they are often less expensive and a great deal more flexible than neighborhood care-givers.

Services that train and place au pairs are in their infancy in Eastern Europe, but a handful of enterprising veterans hope to bridge the gap between the West’s two-career couples looking for at-home child care and the East’s legions of young people eager for the opportunity to spend a year or two abroad.

Maria Veresegyhazi opened one of Budapest’s first adult-education programs last year and in September added a five-week course to train nannies for work in Western Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia. More than 150 students have completed the instruction.

“There has been huge interest in the class. This is our sixth group, and we’ve now got a long waiting list (of hundreds),” she explains. “A lot of Hungarian girls want to learn languages and travel, and this work allows them to do both.”

The 40-hour course covers what would seem to be basic household chores and child care, but the technology and techniques can be perplexing.

No one here has ever encountered a trash compactor, TV dinners or drive-in movies.

“We try to prepare the girls for cultural differences, like the greater environmental awareness that people in the West have,” says Judit Sandor, who teaches the would-be nannies how to recognize detergents containing phosphates or recyclable cans.

Cooking classes highlight Western concerns about fat and sugar, as most Hungarians are used to a notoriously rich and artery-clogging national cuisine.

Ildiko Pechy, who lived with a Vancouver, B.C., family for nearly a year, notes that Europe and America are also worlds apart in the way they bring up their children.

“They don’t discipline their children very well. They let them do whatever they want, which I don’t think is always good for them,” the 23-year-old says of Canadian and American parents. “But those differences can be worked out. Overall, I really liked it. It was a chance to learn the language and to get to know another culture.”

While the nuts and bolts of adjusting to an unfamiliar lifestyle are taught by a number of private schools, it is ultimately up to the prospective nanny whether the experience is rewarding for all involved.

“If you act like a member of the family, and not a slave, they’ll treat you that way,” says Bakonyi, who has been an au pair in France and West Germany as well as Indianapolis. “I tell girls that they will be accepted as part of the family if they make the effort to assimilate. They are the ones who are different, who are foreign, and they have to adjust to get along.”

Bakonyi advises those taking jobs in North America or Australia to buy their own plane tickets, if at all possible, to avoid starting off in debt to others. She also suggests setting down terms for the service in writing and making sure both sides are aware of potential sore points like attitudes toward pets and smoking.

Although no formal regulations govern the au pair practice, those seeking positions abroad generally expect to pay their own transportation or to reimburse the sponsoring family over time. Room and board, spending money of $75 to $100 per week and a designated day off are usually offered in return.

The United States and most Western countries prohibit foreigners from taking jobs without special papers that can take years to arrange. But au pairs traditionally arrive with tourist visas easily acquired with a notarized letter of invitation from the sponsoring family.

Kleger Gyongyi, a 19-year-old paying the equivalent of a month’s wages to earn a nanny certificate, is typical of the new breed of young women who want to go abroad. She considers an American home the best classroom for improving her English so she can get a job in foreign trade when she returns.

“I want to learn the language perfectly, and it’s very expensive to take private classes,” she says in hesitant English. “But I know enough to talk with little children.”

Others taking Sandor’s night-school class express an interest in experiencing life in a country they know only from television and the ousted regime’s warnings about Western decadence.

“In the past it was forbidden to work as a nanny in a Western country, so now there is a special attractiveness to it,” says Pal Nemeskeri, who recently set up a placement office for Hungarian au pairs. “We’re advertising in newspapers in Western Europe and getting names of interested families from au pair agencies in other countries.”