Greetings from Csallóközaranyos (Zlatná na Ostrove) (SK)! As I write
this little blurb am I just starting to realize how much I am going to
miss all of the people who have so kindly taken me in these past few
weeks. Csallóközaranyos, or Aranyos as it is commonly called by the
people here, is a quaint little village of about three thousand
people. I teach about fourty of them in four one hour classes a day.
The little kids, who are all boys, are between the ages of nine to
tweleve, and they are absolutely adorable. They seem to have an
endless amount of energy and are constantly drawing me pictures or
making me crafts so that I can decorate my dorm room--they decided
that my dorm room lacked decoration after seeing photos. My second
class, however, is composed of only girls between the ages of fifteen
and nineteen. This class includes a beautiful model who just qualified
for an international modeling tournament in Budapest next month. My
final two classes are in the evening and those are composed of people
between twenty to forty years olds. Overall, I was incredibly
impressed with the level of English in this village. All of my
students had a very solid foundation in English. My host sister even
went to England to study and work for about three months! I've had an
absolutely amazing experience here and will be sad to leave. Though, I
can't wait to see you all this weekend. Take care!
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
I now love Jae Chang more than you
Village: I know it says on the spreadsheet that I'm currently in Abasar, but Abasar has recently split up into two villages: Abasar, and Pálosvörösmart. There are about 650 people in Pálosvörösmart and the village has public transportation. My host sisters and I take the bus out to Gyongyos or Eger to go shopping or just walk around and eat about two or three times a week.
Classes: I have 4 one hour classes from monday to friday: my first class is comprised of 5-7 year olds who speak no english whatsoever, so we make origami and i teach them the english words for the paper creations. my second class is with students from the ages of 8-11, who speak little english but know enough so that i can teach them a good amount of vocabulary and some conversational english. my third class (my favorite) is with high school students who are pretty much fluent- so we just talk about America, and they love learning idioms. we watched about half of seaon 8 of Friends because my host sister has the series from seaon 1 to 10 in Hungarian and English.. so I played seaon 8 on English audio and put on English subtitles and i made worksheets that highlighted certain phrases they would not understand ("top-notch", "mother may I!") One of the students mother attended the class one day and we watched an episode where one of the characters talked about a diaphragm.. and the mother asked me to explain what it was. I handed her a dictionary. =) Anyway, my last class, is a night class in which i have students who are in their mid twenties, and they are at the same level as the high school students so they like to practice speaking English (mostly about America and the show House (?)) People in my village seem to be obsessed with American shows such as Friends, House, Grey's Anatomy, Third Watch, etc, etc..and they've rubbed off on me and I am now very much into these shows as well.
Host Family& Free time: There are 4 daughters in my host family at the ages of 15, 17, 19 and 22 who are all rather fluent in English. On weekends, my host family takes me to nearby villages where they hold festivals, or to museums, castles, and whereever else they think I might enjoy. They're simply amazing and have made my stay in Pálosvörösmart so enjoyable- it'll be very hard to say goodbye to them. My host family has 2 dogs, 2 parrots, 2 cats, 3 adorable kittens and 1 guinea pig. My host mother loves to cook (and is AMAZING at it) and I thank her very much for it..well, not so much for the extra pounds but..i'll deal with that later.
anyway- i am loving it here in Pálosvörösmart and I hope next year's volunteers will get a chance to experience the incredible time that i'm having here. see you all soon.
Classes: I have 4 one hour classes from monday to friday: my first class is comprised of 5-7 year olds who speak no english whatsoever, so we make origami and i teach them the english words for the paper creations. my second class is with students from the ages of 8-11, who speak little english but know enough so that i can teach them a good amount of vocabulary and some conversational english. my third class (my favorite) is with high school students who are pretty much fluent- so we just talk about America, and they love learning idioms. we watched about half of seaon 8 of Friends because my host sister has the series from seaon 1 to 10 in Hungarian and English.. so I played seaon 8 on English audio and put on English subtitles and i made worksheets that highlighted certain phrases they would not understand ("top-notch", "mother may I!") One of the students mother attended the class one day and we watched an episode where one of the characters talked about a diaphragm.. and the mother asked me to explain what it was. I handed her a dictionary. =) Anyway, my last class, is a night class in which i have students who are in their mid twenties, and they are at the same level as the high school students so they like to practice speaking English (mostly about America and the show House (?)) People in my village seem to be obsessed with American shows such as Friends, House, Grey's Anatomy, Third Watch, etc, etc..and they've rubbed off on me and I am now very much into these shows as well.
Host Family& Free time: There are 4 daughters in my host family at the ages of 15, 17, 19 and 22 who are all rather fluent in English. On weekends, my host family takes me to nearby villages where they hold festivals, or to museums, castles, and whereever else they think I might enjoy. They're simply amazing and have made my stay in Pálosvörösmart so enjoyable- it'll be very hard to say goodbye to them. My host family has 2 dogs, 2 parrots, 2 cats, 3 adorable kittens and 1 guinea pig. My host mother loves to cook (and is AMAZING at it) and I thank her very much for it..well, not so much for the extra pounds but..i'll deal with that later.
anyway- i am loving it here in Pálosvörösmart and I hope next year's volunteers will get a chance to experience the incredible time that i'm having here. see you all soon.
Elizabeth Myer says What Up
Hello from Nyarasd, SK! It has been a really exciting 3 weeks, and I cannot believe how fast it has gone by. Nyarasd is small village, —about 3,000 inhabitants—but what they lack in size, they compensate for in generosity, kindness, and warmth. My students are all wonderful. I teach 5 one-hour classes, which was difficult at first, but now feels natural. Most of my students do not speak any English, but they are all very enthusiastic and responsive. In the evening, I teach an adult class, and they are tons of fun. They also shower me with gifts and baked goods, and constantly invite me on trips and over for dinner.
My host family is also amazing. They do not speak any English at all, but they have three daughters that speak very well. They are all adults, and they live abroad, but one of them is visiting this week from Prague, and another was here last week from Austria, so I have pretty much always had a translator! My host family has a huge house with a pool and tons of animals...3 dogs and a cat that has three 4 wk old kittens! Plus they have chickens and rabbits, turkeys, etc. I havent even seen their whole backyard—its massive! I also have my own house...no kidding! It’s an enormous room with a kitchen and bathroom, and it is bigger than the apartment I shared with a roommate last year!
Anyway, Nyarasd is wonderful...Slovakia is wonderful...
Also, everyone here calls me Bözsika…which I think is cute, but Zofi tells me is actually dreadful.
My host family is also amazing. They do not speak any English at all, but they have three daughters that speak very well. They are all adults, and they live abroad, but one of them is visiting this week from Prague, and another was here last week from Austria, so I have pretty much always had a translator! My host family has a huge house with a pool and tons of animals...3 dogs and a cat that has three 4 wk old kittens! Plus they have chickens and rabbits, turkeys, etc. I havent even seen their whole backyard—its massive! I also have my own house...no kidding! It’s an enormous room with a kitchen and bathroom, and it is bigger than the apartment I shared with a roommate last year!
Anyway, Nyarasd is wonderful...Slovakia is wonderful...
Also, everyone here calls me Bözsika…which I think is cute, but Zofi tells me is actually dreadful.
Friday, July 13, 2007
Teaching IDEA
I cant believe I forgot to mention - a really popular method for saying goodbye to your villages is staging a performance on your last day. Teach the little kids songs and have them present their artwork to friends and family. The village loves it and its a great culmination of all your hard work.
Heres an example from China:
But feel free to put a little more umph into it..
Heres an example from China:
But feel free to put a little more umph into it..
Sylvan Hoover follows directions, then goes above and beyond
Deter, SK
How, could you assign me to this place? They've put me up in this huge apartment w/ a living room, kitchen, my own bathroom, and the odd interior room which has only a single ceiling light but is otherwise empty. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to want to leave. Maybe I'll just become one of 'those volunteers' and settle down with a nice slovak girl ;-)
I am having a wonderful time. The people are amazingly friendly, the scenery is spectacular, and I really couldn't be more pleased about where I was placed.
About 500 people:
My host, the mayor, has held the position since the end of the Cold War. Bullhorn's are located around the village that provideannouncements twice a day and traditional hungarian music in the afternoon. The village lies at the end of a 3km dead-end road, so traffic is light.The village is a bit isolated, and public transit is really not an option. But, there are regular trips to a larger town about 45 minutes away in peoples' cars, so if I need something from the town I can normally find someone who's leaving soon and bum a ride.I now haunt city hall. I live in city hall. I teach in city hall. I eat in city hall. There is a small apartment in city hall where I sleep. There is a preschool in the building, w/ the most quiet kids I've ever not heard (I'm told their teacher is very strict), and so I eat from their kitchen. Meals are filling. Major ag here is pork, so for the first 3 days B,L,&D was all pork. Then mysteriously that stopped, and now everything is fried. For dinner this evening I had fried bacon ball (like meat balls but made pretty much entirely of bacon) and breaded fried cheese balls. Other meals have included jelly doughnuts for lunch, and these incredible jelly filled dumplings covered in chocolate, also for lunch. The village has gotten EU funds for improvements, so the facilities are very nice.
Students: 71 students in total of which 59 of them are at the absolute starter level, 10 are high school students (so they can understand simple phrases), and 2 students have taken university-level English and are at a developed conversation level. Those 2 students account for 100% of the village that I hold conversations in English with. The students are very enthusiatic. The adults seem to be the most excited, and that is the class I have an Englishspeakerpresent.
The classes: I have 6-7 one hour classes per day. The first four run from 9-13, and consist of all the non-adult classes. I have one high-school class, one 'kid' class - ages 7-10, with maybe 20 word english vocabs, and two youth classes. The youth classes are split because half of them come by bus from neighboring villages, while the other half are local (and the third half already speaks fluent english). They have maybe 40 word English vocabularies, and the girls are obsessedwith Tokio Hotel, which I had never heard of till I got here (personally, not my thing). Sometimes I hold an extra class in the afternoon relating to less useful material, i.e. 4th of july, PB&J, smoothies. My hosts are very accommodating, so class materials are ample.
Out & about: Around the village there is great hiking. They are trying to promote the area as a hunting destination. Evenings here are very lax. The pub closes early, and most folks go to sleeprelatively early and wake early. Weekends are filled w/ visiting festivals in neighboring villages, and camping/graduation/bonfire parties organized by recent university graduates from surrounding villages. Folks who've been to my classes, and now know basic greeting conversations, have taught others, so when I walk about town I always have a number of conversations that all play out in identical manners. Ittruly is a exciting to be conversing w/ folks in English who a couples weeks ago knew barely an English phrase.
Deter is incredible. You must send future volunteers.
How, could you assign me to this place? They've put me up in this huge apartment w/ a living room, kitchen, my own bathroom, and the odd interior room which has only a single ceiling light but is otherwise empty. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to want to leave. Maybe I'll just become one of 'those volunteers' and settle down with a nice slovak girl ;-)
I am having a wonderful time. The people are amazingly friendly, the scenery is spectacular, and I really couldn't be more pleased about where I was placed.
About 500 people:
My host, the mayor, has held the position since the end of the Cold War. Bullhorn's are located around the village that provideannouncements twice a day and traditional hungarian music in the afternoon. The village lies at the end of a 3km dead-end road, so traffic is light.The village is a bit isolated, and public transit is really not an option. But, there are regular trips to a larger town about 45 minutes away in peoples' cars, so if I need something from the town I can normally find someone who's leaving soon and bum a ride.I now haunt city hall. I live in city hall. I teach in city hall. I eat in city hall. There is a small apartment in city hall where I sleep. There is a preschool in the building, w/ the most quiet kids I've ever not heard (I'm told their teacher is very strict), and so I eat from their kitchen. Meals are filling. Major ag here is pork, so for the first 3 days B,L,&D was all pork. Then mysteriously that stopped, and now everything is fried. For dinner this evening I had fried bacon ball (like meat balls but made pretty much entirely of bacon) and breaded fried cheese balls. Other meals have included jelly doughnuts for lunch, and these incredible jelly filled dumplings covered in chocolate, also for lunch. The village has gotten EU funds for improvements, so the facilities are very nice.
Students: 71 students in total of which 59 of them are at the absolute starter level, 10 are high school students (so they can understand simple phrases), and 2 students have taken university-level English and are at a developed conversation level. Those 2 students account for 100% of the village that I hold conversations in English with. The students are very enthusiatic. The adults seem to be the most excited, and that is the class I have an Englishspeakerpresent.
The classes: I have 6-7 one hour classes per day. The first four run from 9-13, and consist of all the non-adult classes. I have one high-school class, one 'kid' class - ages 7-10, with maybe 20 word english vocabs, and two youth classes. The youth classes are split because half of them come by bus from neighboring villages, while the other half are local (and the third half already speaks fluent english). They have maybe 40 word English vocabularies, and the girls are obsessedwith Tokio Hotel, which I had never heard of till I got here (personally, not my thing). Sometimes I hold an extra class in the afternoon relating to less useful material, i.e. 4th of july, PB&J, smoothies. My hosts are very accommodating, so class materials are ample.
Out & about: Around the village there is great hiking. They are trying to promote the area as a hunting destination. Evenings here are very lax. The pub closes early, and most folks go to sleeprelatively early and wake early. Weekends are filled w/ visiting festivals in neighboring villages, and camping/graduation/bonfire parties organized by recent university graduates from surrounding villages. Folks who've been to my classes, and now know basic greeting conversations, have taught others, so when I walk about town I always have a number of conversations that all play out in identical manners. Ittruly is a exciting to be conversing w/ folks in English who a couples weeks ago knew barely an English phrase.
Deter is incredible. You must send future volunteers.
Big Whats UP from Matt Patterson in Madar
Madar is a village of 1040 people. I have between 25-30 students from 6-18 years old, which I have broken up into two classes. I also have 7 adult students in a night class. All of the kids seem happy with the classes, and I have had few discipline issues. All of my students are absolute beginners, but they are learning quickly. My host family is amazing. My mother speaks no english, but has so much energy it is incredible. My father can read english and is working on his speaking. My older brother is basically fluent in English, and the younger is just starting.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Midpoint Break in Komárno, Slovakia – Arrivals and Departures
(posted by Zsofi Budai)
Continuing with the LE tradition, CEVP will hold midpoint break in Komárno, Slovakia, this year. Please read the following few lines to learn some important info about arrivals and departures.
First, you should know that the Hungarian name for the city (which is mostly ethnically Hungarian) is Komárom, and Komárno is the Slovak name. This is not to be confused with the Hungarian city called Komárom that is actually across the Danube (the border between Slovakia and Hungary). Hungarians in Slovakia refer to both cities as Komárom, but if they mention the name they are most likely talking about Komárno (SK).
If you are currently teaching in SLOVAKIA, your host family will drive you to the hostel in Komárno on Friday, July 20, between 4:00 and 6:00 PM (they should have already arranged this with Imre).
If you are currently teaching in HUNGARY, you should take a train to midpoint break. Your host family will help you figure out which one to take (and you can always look it up on www.elvira.hu) – they already know about midpoint break, but you should remind them in advance anyway. You should plan to arrive on Friday, July 20, in the late afternoon or evening. The tricky part is that the train you take should go to Komárom (HU), NOT Komárno (SK), since the latter is way easier to reach from Hungary and also much less expensive to travel to. If you let us know in advance (i.e., a few days before you travel) when your train is to arrive there, someone will go and meet you at the station. That would most likely be Janelle, Balazs, Zsofi, or me (I know that none of you have met me, but you should know what I look like from the country background guides and my introductory blog post). The hostel is pretty easy to reach from there – we just need to walk across the bridge into Slovakia. However, the bridge is quite long and all, so it’s a fair amount of walking. I hope everyone heeded Janelle’s advice and packed lightly! Otherwise, it is possible to take a cab if absolutely necessary.
As for the hostel – it’s the same one we stayed in last year, and it is actually a HUGE step up from Martos (but I love Martos). It is called DANUBIUS, and it is located on the Dunarakpart (Dunajske nabrezie in Slovak). That just means it’s right by the river. If you’re coming over the bridge from Hungary, you’ll need to turn left once you get into Slovakia (but someone will be with you to help you navigate).
We have a bunch of activities planned for Friday night and Saturday (including dinner/lunch with the incredible Imre!). Balázs and Zsofi are both from Komárno, and they know the city inside and out.
On Sunday, you will all travel to your second session villages.
If you are going to teach in SLOVAKIA, your host family will pick you up at the hostel on Sunday morning around 11:00 or 12:00.
If you are going to teach in HUNGARY (this is always more complicated), you’ll need to walk (or take a cab, if you must) across the river to the train station in Komárom (HU) and go from there. We’ll have everything arranged with the host families by then so you know exactly where you’ll need to go when.
See you in Komárno!
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