As I said in the last post, I love Gyor, Hungary. We were invited with open arms into such a wonderful and fun community as we got the opportunity to teach English to middle and high school students at a Lutheran school. Our team was split into teaching groups, so I, along with three of my teammates, was assigned to teach a class of 7th graders and 10th graders for 4 days.
I loved my students. We were given pretty detailed lesson plans that included games and discussions. The main goal was just to practice English so we talked about travel, language barriers, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I think I learned almost as much from these students as we taught them. We learned about Hungarian Christmas traditions and shared some of ours. We shared stories from our trip, and they asked questions, but we also got to hear about trips they have taken in the past. I was jealous to learn that many of the students knew around 3 to 5 languages when I only knew one and the word hello in about ten.
We only taught two periods of class each day so my teaching group and I would go out in between class periods to the market for groceries, thrift stores, or a coffee shop. We led after school programs for music, drama, art, games, and dance for any students who wanted to come and join one of our groups. I was part of music where we shared our favorite songs and sang worship and Christmas songs. We had our own classes afterward in the late afternoon where we learned the history of the land. Days were busy but they were fun and rewarding.
We were at the school over their Christmas concert, so we got to watch the students perform. My tenth graders and the tenth grade class also had a bazaar in the courtyard surrounding the concert as a fundraiser for their mission trip. I love supporting missions and buying Christmas trinkets, plus my students were the ones selling things, so I bought a lot. I just kept handing small ornaments to one of the students, not bothering to add prices. I told her to tell me what I owed at the end.
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is not celebrated anywhere else in the world, and sadly we did not get a week off of school work for it, but we did get the day off and had a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with the family that we have created in our team. This was my fifth Thanksgiving in a row away from home, so being away wasn’t too hard for me, but this was the first time without my family so it was a bit strange not having them around. We, however, were so incredibly blessed and had so much to be thankful for that day.
We had dinner at a restaurant that hosted ATW II for their Thanksgiving dinner nine years ago. This connection and the hosts hospitality gave me a homey feeling and made for a wonderful holiday. They made us traditional Thanksgiving food like turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. We sat at two long tables with our team and other guests and friends. Some had come out from the U.S. to visit on their Thanksgiving break or from their homes in other European countries. It may not have been home and the people weren’t my immediate family, but in a way it was still family. Plus I got to FaceTime my family after dinner and say hi.
Host Dinner
We had one more exciting dinner where families from the school opened up their homes to pairs of students for homemade dinners. My family included two sisters who were an English teacher and a German teacher, along with their kids. The mother who spoke English led much of the discussion until she had to leave for another commitment so it was then up to the seventh grade girls to step out of their comfort zones a little bit more. They did a wonderful job even though they were not very confident as they were still learning a lot of English.
They made us traditional food like goulash and an assortment of desserts to sample. Being in a home was comforting, and they took us around the Christmas markets a bit more and showed us their town from a citizen’s perspective. I had learned to navigate pretty well on my own, but it was nice having locals lead me the smartest way through the streets and show us their favorite spots.
