Culture Shock

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Language is a very very small form of culture shock. When going to a place like Hungary, one might expect the language to be different. Most people speak a bit of English, so communicating in Hunglish in shops and restaurants is easy to do. I'm still trying to pick up on Hungarian, but wow is it a hard language. While those short conversations are easy to communicate, it becomes a bit of a problem when you try to talk about your job, contract, and housing and no one can seem to understand you.

Culture shock is expected, but it is still quite shocking. In these past two days, all at once, I have felt shocked, overwhelmed, and stressed. It has made me realize just how foreign this country is to me.

That's the preface. Here's the story. On Monday, everyone continued to have orientation while those of us in the Foundation went to our own orientation. There are seven of us. Kate, Haley, and Alicia are in the Krudy school; Tiffany and Daniel are teaching kindergarten in Pomasz; and Hilary and I are teaching in Budakeszi. We went to Krudy to meet with the whole Foundation. The woman who runs the foundation does not speak very good English, so her introduction was difficult to understand. After the introduction, Hilary and I met the teacher coordinator at Budakeszi. Her name is Dora, and it is also her first year with the foundation. Her English is very good, and she is sweet, fun, and incredibly supportive. The rest of the day was filled with workshops led by a man from Bermuda who speaks English as his native language. It was a lot of fun. At the end, everyone except for Hilary and me got their schedules for their classes. Hilary and I did not receive our schedules because our boss at Budakeszi just had knee surgery, so she won't be mobile until Monday, which is the first day of school. Erika put herself in charge of the Budakeszi school for the time being, but she is the overseer of the whole program, so she does not know the details about the school.

First day. Done. Easy. Great. Hilary and I prepared to go to Budakeszi the next day and spend the day meeting our cooperating teachers and planning.

Here's the thing about Hungarians. Some people believe they are rude, but they are just direct. Therefore, if you want something done, you say exactly what it is. There is no "How are you?" "Oh I'm fine..." They interpret that as "I'm fine!" If you have a problem, you have to say what it is because they don't pick up on sulking. Maybe means yes. Perhaps means yes. No with a smile means yes.

Also, nothing ever happens until the last minute. And even then it sometimes doesn't happen. More on that later. Hungarians are so used to drastic changes on a dime that they live that way and don't plan for ANYTHING. This is probably the most shocking part to me, and my next story will show you exactly why.

Day 2. Tuesday. Hilary and I meet Dora at the square near our hostel at 9am. We get on the metro and take it to some stop. When we got off the metro, Dora was on the phone with Erika for a while, and we waited about 10 minutes for Erika to pick us up in her car. We drove through the city and into Budakeszi, which is an adorable little town 2 miles west of Budapest in the hills. The air smells cleaner, and it almost feels like the mountains. But not really. When we walked into the school, two people had been there for 2 hours because no one had told them that the planning times had changed the day before. They were cranky. We went into a classroom where we were handed our (tentative) schedules.

1st grade English...5 hours per week

1st grade Drawing...2 hours per week

1st grade Music...2 hours per week

2nd grade Music...1 hour per week

1st grade Craft...1 hour per week

1st grade PE...4 hours per week

1st grade Tutorial...5 hours per week

2nd grade Tutorial...3 hours per week.

Tutorial is essentially small group time in the afternoon where I can divide the students into groups and do catch up work or work with students who might need more support.

My only complaint about my schedule was that I seemed to be teaching tutorial to 2nd graders even though I would not know what to teach them since I'm not with them the rest of the day. Erika realized that made sense and went to work changing the schedule. In her interview with Susann (the woman in charge who had knee surgery), Hilary made a plan to work with the Foundation only if she could teach science in grades 4, 5, and/or 6. In her schedule, however, she was also teaching grade 3 and teaching no science. Therefore, Erika had to revamp the entire schedule. We sat in the classroom for about an hour while Erika talked with another teacher in Hungarian. After an hour Erika put me in a closet with some school supplies, gave me two small textbooks, and told me to look at them. After going through them twice, I was looking for something else to read in the closet, and Dora walked in. Dora and I went back to the classroom and sat for about 15 more minutes while Erika and the other teacher spoke in Hungarian. Hilary was still there.

After that time we went back to the closet, and I met my cooperating teacher! Her name is Rea, she speaks very little English, and she has been teaching for 20 years. She is really into incorporating drama, dancing, and songs into her teaching, so I think we will get along very well. We also had similar ideas for how we wanted to set up the classroom. Each subject is 45 minutes. There is a 10 minute break/transition time in between each class, so we don't have to incorporate transition times into our lessons as much. Essentially, what will happen is that Rea and I will choose a concept to teach in a certain class period. We will switch off so that I do an activity for about 7-8 minutes in English with the kids, and then Rea does an activity in Hungarian. This way, the students learn the concept by doing different things in different languages. Dora translated for us, so the conversation took a while. I also couldn't see the classroom because it's currently being painted. Rea assured me that we have parents coming in to decorate our classroom who will also put up English decorations.

By the time Rea left, we had decided to research drama activities for the first day (the kids all know each other already) and reconvene on Friday to plan our first week with the help of Dora to translate. My only frustration with that planning session was that I realized that I have no access to any sort of curriculum currently because they are still working on translating it into English. This first week will pretty much just be me winging it.

After that planning session, the art teacher came in. Her name is Rita, and her English is wicked good. Dora left to find out about the curriculum, and by the time she got back, Rita and I had our whole first week planned. I won't tell you what the plans are because I'd rather you know what actually happens when we teach. What Rita and I have decided to do is split the class period into two parts. One of us will teach one art activity, and the other will teach a second activity that builds on the first activity to create a final piece for the class. Our theme this first week is fall and back to school. So excited!!

After the planning session, I went back into the classroom to find Hilary still sitting there. It had been about 3 1/2 hours of the teachers rescheduling. Now I am no longer teaching second grade, I am teaching 1st grade science, and then I'm teaching another class which I don't know yet. It might be 5th grade history. Hungarian history. So that will be really fun and interesting.

Hilary, Dora, and I sat in the classroom for another half hour while Erika and the teachers talked. Erika seemed much more focused on decorations for the classroom than the curriculum, which was frustrating. Finally, we left. We took a bus and two metros home. By the time we got back to our stop, we were so stressed that we went our separate ways to decompress. I sat and had a gelato and then went back to the hostel where I took a nap because I felt that it was the only thing in my life I had control over.

Side note: at this point, Peter (in charge of housing for the Foundation) had not found an apartment for me and I was staying in the hostel indefinitely.

When I woke up from my nap, it was time for the farewell dinner. We all got all fancy, took two metros, and walked to the Bagolyvar Restaurant. I had chosen the meat menu earlier in the week, so my dinner was pea soup, chicken paprikas (pronounced paprikash), and some delicious sponge cake rum dessert. We had a blast. At dinner, I got my Hungarian SIM card, and it worked in my phone, so now I have a phone!!!!

After dinner we all drank wine on the terrace (yes, more wine), played King's Cup and Never Have I Ever. Then we went out. My friend Alicia and I got back to the hostel at 5 am.

This morning was nuts. Everyone had to leave except for Alicia, Daniel, Tiffany, and me. Everyone was frantically packing, and I was half sleeping. When I finally got up, we all hung out on the terrace for a while. At 1, everyone's new mommies and daddies picked them up to take them to their new homes. Those of us in the Foundation were left behind. A few hours later, we decided to call Peter, who was supposed to pick up Hilary, Kate, and Haley. Turns out Peter had no idea that he was supposed to pick them up, and Hilary's apartment isn't ready yet. Then we asked him when he would pick us up to go to the immigration office tomorrow. He said "No way is that happening." At this point, I called Hajni and told her what Peter said about the immigration office. She said "No way is THAT happening." So she called Peter and made him provide transportation.

So here's the deal as of this morning. Haley has a flat and Kate is staying with her for who knows how long. Hilary has a flat, but it's still currently an office. Alicia, Tiffany, Daniel, and I don't have flats. Peter seemed to think that Alicia would be living with her aunt even though her aunt only has one tiny bed. This is the part where everyone freaked out because of the lack of organization. Hajni later informed me that in the process of finding apartments, contracts are written and then apartments are given away. It pretty much goes with the whole lack of planning thing.

I took a walk because of all of the stress I was around. I walked to the giant marketplace and bought myself a purse. Then I tried gorgonzola gelato and bought raspberry mint gelato. Delicious. I walked around into a bunch of stores and FINALLY found a little notebook in the most random stuff store ever. When I got back to the hostel, all of the girls had decided to leave and stay in Haley's apartment or with Alicia's aunt. Peter was 30 minutes late picking them up.

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[Baba]

Wow - not easy -keep the faith

[Uncle David]

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