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.