Midpoint break in Szeged, Hungary

Hello, volunteers! I've been in touch with your wonderful PD, and I know that your midpoint break is just around the corner. I hope that you're all excited about it, since it will be held in my hometown of Szeged, Hungary. I won't be there, unfortunately, so you'll have to continue to think of me as this random mysterious person who occasionally posts on this blog...

I know that you've all received some information about the hostel and the city from your PD, but I want to post a few pictures from my collection to give you a better idea of what to expect. Enjoy!

Dom ter (Dome square) in central Szeged

A gate honoring those who fought in WWI (this is very close to the hostel)

The beginning of Karasz utca (street)

A 2006 volunteer in front of Szeged's best ice cream shop

Inside the salami and paprika museum -- always big hit with LE volunteers!

Yay first week

i hope things are going well for everyone.

i have 3 classes, which, my host mother basically divided up for me. one is for kindergarten -2nd grade, another for 3rd grade - 4th grade, and the other for 5th grade up to...15 year olds. classes are an hour each, and i have an extra 30 minutes class for 4 students who are 15 so that they can just talk about american culture if they want to.

here's what worked:

1. hachi pachi: this game has AMAZING effect on the first two classes. and the oldest kids like it too, if there are enough people. I often hear kids whispering "hachi pachi" to one another when talking among themselves before class.

2. fishy fishy: probably the favorite game of the first two classes. they LOVE running around.

3. musical ball: I made this one up, and, against my worries, it has worked very well. kids sit in circle, pass the ball around . while they do that, i play some exciting music (the last one i played was Numa Numa...yea.) when the music stops the kid with the ball has to answer my question.
kids really like it and giggle a lot.

4. wall race: the big kids surprisingly get REALLY involved in this game. it's a team game. the only thing i'd be careful about is putting the relatively small kids in one group and the older in the other. the small kids lose and complain and so on..

yay! :)

First Week

What worked:

1. 4 Corners

2. Hatchi Patchi

3. Teaching them a dance similar to the Cha Cha Slide

4. With more advanced students, to reinforce numbers, i used uno cards and had them get into groups and work together to make a number like seventy eight. so i'd say "seventy eight" and they'd have to find the number 7 and the number 8 and hold them up in the correct order. And then i would ask them "what number is that" and if they said it correctly they get a point. You can play up to five points, or ten, or whatever.

Shiny happy people

...3 minutes after we arrived to Nagyvárad (Oradea)

FIRST POST FROM ROMANIA

I'm here!
It's absolutely wonderful. I start teaching Tuesday - yay! :)

Question!!

Hello! Jeehyun writing here...I have a question regarding the village students' level of English proficiency. Maybe Jon, Zsofi, or Kinga can help me?

So, as the time of departure nears, I actually got myself to sit down and generate some concrete lesson plans. But I think they can be improved a lot if I knew exactly how proficient my students (both villages are in Romania) are. Would the younger students understand me if I explained the rules of a game in English? I've been trying to learn Hungarian, but couple weeks of cramming can only get me so far...

Thanks!!
JH

Introducing myself and Oradea (Nagyvárad), Romania

Hello, volunteers! You're wonderful PD Jonathan introduced me to you on this blog a few weeks ago, so hopefully my post won't come as complete surprise. Just to recap my background: my name is Zsofi (the Hungarian version of Sophie -- I was born in Szeged, the city in which you'll have your midpoint break), and I was a volunteer in what was back then known as the Eastern Europe Village Project (Croatia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia) in 2004 and 2005. I was later hired as the European Liaison to oversee the newly split Croatia/Romania and Hungary/Slovakia programs for 2006 and 2007. (I first met your PD at orientation in Budapest in 2006.) Although I am no longer formally involved with LE, I try to help out with the Europe programs when I can. If you have any questions for me, ask away!

I also want to introduce you to a very important city in Romania -- Oradea (Romanian name) or Nagyvarad (Hungarian name). Kinga lives and works there, and most -- if not all -- of you will at least pass through the city. I spent a week there last July and had a great time hanging out with Kinga (and the volunteer who taught there during the second session), despite the 100 degree heat. The city isn't huge, but it has some wonderful sights and a picturesque downtown area.

Here are a few photos to get you excited about traveling to Oradea/Nagyvarad!

Hungarian-Romanian border

Me (left) and volunteer Jenny (right) in front of a fountain in Oradea/Nagyvarad

Clothing question

So since I've been researching Romania, rather than working on my finals, I've found that the towns seem to be fairly religious. Kinga, I was just wondering if you thought if you thought I should make sure to pack a set of nice clothes to wear to church with my family.
Thanks!
Lily

You Might Have Been Wondering Too...

I was just wondering if I needed to book the Hostel we're staying in for orientation myself and how I would go about doing that. I also wondered how much per night the Hostel would be.

I emailed Jon and he gave me a really helpful answer and suggested I post the question on the message board!

Here was the response...

Hey Vanessa,

You don't need to worry about booking the hostel. We will take care of the reservation and you will pay when you arrive. While I'll be able to give you an exact nightly rate soon, expect for the time being about $15 per night.


Hope that helped everyone!

Romania/Hungarian Culture

Zsofi Budai, who helped establish and sustain the Croatia/Romania program, astutely pointed out to me in an email that the families we will be staying with in Romania consider themselves first Hungarian and then Romanian. As such, volunteers staying in Romania for two sessions will get to know Hungarian culture better, not Romanian. She writes,

"The places in which they'll be teaching will be overwhelmingly Hungarian, and their students and host families will be Hungarian. I know this is a minor thing, but I've done a lot of research and field work on the issue of Hungarian society and politics in RO (and Slovakia too), and Hungarians are very, very proud of their Hungarian ethnic identity, and it really hurts/disappoints them when foreigners refer to them as Romanian. They don't mind living in Romania, but they do want others to recognize that they have a different cultural identity. It's good for LE volunteers to know and remember that ahead of time."

I have invited Zsofi to continue contributing to our blog; she is wise and knowledgeable in ways I am simple and dumb. Keep those questions coming.

Village Placements

At last, I have village placements for you all. Sorry this has taken so long.

A quick preface: I tried as best as I could to accommodate all your preferences, but with 8 of you requesting to work at the camp, it was tough. Some of you, you will notice, have the luxury of dividing your time between Croatia and Romania while others have the privileged of experiences two different villages in Romania (note the positive connotation of luxury and privilege). Those who will spend two sessions in Romania need not despair; I assure you your experiences will not be redundant and will in fact allow you to deepen your understanding of Romanian culture.

In the past, we haven't been able to give volunteers information about their villages so early. So on the one hand, you all have a head start. Nevertheless, I regret that I can't provide you with more information about your villages/families at this point. Kinga has generously collected basic information about many of the host families (she's still trying to get info about the rest). Those of you assigned to a host family for which we have information, I will email it to you. The rest of you-be patient. Hopefully, we'll be able to collect some more info in the coming weeks.

I think it'd be nice to send the families some info about us as well. By Tuesday the 27, email me a brief introduction about yourself, which we'll translate and send to your families. Keep them brief, though, so we don't overload our translators.

I welcome you all to post questions or concerns here. We have many people on this blog eager to address them. You can also always email me directly. Hope you're all well. More info to come in the upcoming weeks.

• Volunteer Name
• First session village (Croatia/Romania)/second session village (Croatia/Romania)
  
• Amanda
• Koprivnica-Youth Center (C)/Bjelovar (C)
• Besty
• Cozmeni (R)/Bjelovar (C)
  
• Blaine
  
• Şişterea (R)/Curtuişeni (R)
  
• Brian
• Sindomninic (R)/Koprivnica-Youth Center (C)
• Caitlin
• Koprivnica-Sunny Village Camp (C)/Cubulcut (R)
• Christian
• Koprivnica-Sunny Village Camp (C)/Oradea (R)
• Jee Hyun
• Szalárd (R)/Cheşereu (R)
• Lily
• Marghita (R)/Cherechiu (R)
• Martha
• Brodski Drenovac (C)/Sânnicolau de Munte (R)
• Vanessa
• Tarcea (R)/Ottomani (R)
  

Introducing Jeehyun

Hello everybody,

My name is Kinga, and I’m the country coordinator in Romania.

I had the chance (few weeks ago) to chat with Jeehyun Choi, who’s from Seoul, Korea, but lived in Minnesota in the past 6 years and feels really comfortable there. She’s a first year student at the Brown Univeristy in Providence, Rhode Island, studying Comparative Literature, focusing on literatures in English, Korean and German.

Jeehyun decided to join this program because she learned English as a second language by herself, and she knows how important is for a student to have somebody fluent that he/she can speak to. So she hopes she will be able to help kids to learn English in an easier way. Her other reason is that she is really interested about living in a different culture and lifestyle, plus this will be her first time in Europe.

Jeehyun seems to be really excited about living with another family for a 3 week period, and equally excited and nervous about teaching kids. I don’t think she’ll have problems with teaching, because she already got experience in it.

She would like to teach in village in both session.

After I read your posts and chatted with Jeehyun I became more excited about our LE summer.

Meet you soon!

Introducing Kinga!! :)

Hi guys!! My name’s Jeehyun (sounds kind of like “gee, hon” :D ) and I’m the newest member in the C/R program. I read all the introductions from way back in April, and now I'm even more excited to meet all of you. Although it is quite late, I’m going to introduce our Romanian program director, Kinga, with whom I chatted on MSN a week ago.

Kinga lives in Oradea, Romania, a city close to the Hungary/Romania border. She is 22 (her birthday is the first day of Orientation!), and finished University last year. Currently, she divides her time working at a dubbing studio and volunteering. In her volunteer work, she takes care of homeless children and families and organizes activities for them. For instance, she’ll be taking 50 kids to a festival in Budapest in May, which all seems just amazing to me. All I can say is that she’s doing some life-changing stuff. Aside from volunteering during her spare time, she takes frequent trips, learns French, and, according to her, makes her 10 year old sister angry. She gave me some great advice too. I’ll just share them right here:
1. “First of all the most important is the communication: if you have any problem, tell it to your family. If they cannot understand what's wrong, call me or send me an e-mail.”
2. “Don’t be afraid to ask: understand that we are here to help you and not to be some dictators or something like that.” :D

Kinga seems awesome and I can’t wait to see her (and all of you ) in June.

Excellent Work/A New Addition

Hey gang,

Two quick things:

1. Excellent work getting all your forms in. You make my job a lot easier. I take back the slacker accusation.
   
2. Unfortunately, Stephanie is unable to join our team this summer. We are sad to see her go. Fortunately, however, we have an awesome new addition, Jeehyun Choi. In the next week or so, she and Kinga Popa, our Romania country coordinator, will be posting introductions of the other on the blog. Stay tuned.
   

Travel plans??

Hi all!

Just wondering what people's ideas/hopes were of different countries, places they'd like to visit?

With you all travelling such long distances I am guessing many of you would be wanting to see more of Europe after the programme??

So which places would you like to visit?

Also if anyone who's been through europe any recommendations of places to go?

Recommendations from my own experiences i'd have to say that Prague is an awesome place to visit as is Amsterdam. Although my travels through mainland europe have been quite limited ending up going to the usual holiday spots e.g. Greek and spanish islands.

Places id really like to visit at somepoint would include Italy and other general regions of mainland Europe. Ive also heard that an up and coming place to visit is Krakow in Poland how true this is i dont know.

To the say the truth ive never really thought too much about travelling throughout europe as previously ive always looked further a field. So thats why im interested in hearing what other peoples ideas are??? ..... as i wouldnt want to miss out on this opportunity to see more of Europe!


Thanks

Christian

3 Quick Things

1. Thank you all for being so on the ball with the intros. They were fun to read.
   
2. Keep working on Volunteer Packet 2. We need those forms by April 15th. You should be emailing me three things
1. Travel, Medical, Emergency form
2. Personal Info form
3. Photocopy of your passport
3. Everyone's watching our blog with bated breath to see how long it takes for us to burn out. Lets spite them and keep this going. What this requires, though, is for you all to go to town with this forum. As authors of this website, you have the ability not only to make post but also to change the layout of the blog. We can put up slide shows, links, polls. Lets make this happen and quash the squeals of the naysayers.
   

Welcome

Welcome again. I'm so excited to have you all on board. I'm hoping we can use this blog in the next few months both to handle some of logistics we'll have to handle as well as to get to know each other a little bit before we meet in Budapest. I welcome you all to make posts about whatever you want-to solicit packing advice, to coordinate travel plans for after the program, to share strategies for how to quell your parents anxieties. If we find we enjoy this blog, we might even continue using it throughout the summer to keep each other and our families up to date on our abroad experiences.

To break this blog in, here's what I think we should do. Rather than introduce ourselves on the blog, lets introduce each other. I have paired you all off with another C/R volunteer. In the next week or so, set up a time to chat with your partner. After your chat, you can each write a post introducing that person. Here's what you'll want to investigate.

1. The basics-Name, school, major, hometown, etc.
   
2. Why did you partner decide to do this program?
3. What is your partner most excited about and worried about with regards to the program?
4. Of the village-stay, camp, and youth center options, how would your partner prefer to spend each session? (I will be using your answers here to place you. Know that we won't be able to meet everyone's wishes.)

I acknowledge that this activity is a bit childish and corny in design, but I see it as a useful way of doing introductions. Just be appreciative that I'm not including any "If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive, who would it be?" questions. I will email you all your pairings now. Stay excited!

Flights

Post your information about flights here. Good fares, good websites. Hopefully, several of you can hop on the same flights.