Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! I set the alarm this morning for 6:30am. I decided to give myself a break from running and rest up for another day of building. Breakfast was scheduled at the normal 7:30am time. We had the usual: bread, ham, cheese, salami, corn flakes cereal, and yogurt. We headed out to the jobsite at 8:15am and proceeded as usual. This time, Shondor, a young, local Hungarian guy who was recently hired by Habitat for Humanity as Construction Manager for a different build site was going to act as our Construction Manager today (part of his 3-day intensive training course). Poor thing, he’s only 25 years old and he is still shy when it comes to speaking English, so he was little nervous. All in all, we pretty much had our same assignments from the previous day, so it wasn’t too painful for him.

Thankfully, the weather cooled off and the sun stayed beneath the clouds for most of the morning. At 10am when our break rolled around, the daily pastries were delivered and fed 16 starving volunteers. Since I wasn’t too big on the pastries from the previous days, I brought my own snacks that Court and I bought the day before at the local grocery store. After the break, we resumed our tasks until about 11:45a when the rain kicked in. Habitat for Humanity has strict rules that if it rains, work will cease. It was perfect timing since lunch was just around the corner.

We headed back to the hotel for another interesting lunch. The meal started off with a beef brothy soup (of course), the main entrée was a pasta dish with bacon, cheese, and sour cream, and the fruit “dessert” selection were apples. I noticed that the pasta had about a pound of Hungarian sour cream on it, so I requested mine without it (5 other team members did the same). I guess it got lost in translation because we were then served plain pasta (no bacon or cheese). They got the “minus-the-sour-cream” part right, so I didn’t bother with any follow-on special requests. I wasn’t too thrilled with today’s lunch, but it was better than nothing. Unfortunately, the rain kept coming, so the build was cancelled for the remainder of the day. This free time gave me the opportunity to update my blog, catch up on my emails, and goof off with the other team members.

Downstairs next door to the dining area there is a pool table and TV. I played a friendly game of pool with John Stewart (a fifty-something year old teacher from the Virginia/DC area). We played the best 2 out of 3 games, and I won the first and the third! I wasn’t sure if I could still play, but I guess growing up with a pool table in our house paid off. After that, I started to play Scrabble and sucked so badly that I moved on to the game at the other end of the table, Taboo. If you’ve never played Taboo before (I hadn’t), this is how it works. You’re given a card with a word on it. You have to describe that word, without using the list of forbidden descriptive words that are listed underneath the main word. The members on your team must guess the word within one minute’s time in order to score. Although we were just playing practice rounds, it became increasingly obvious that this game could be a lot of fun, particularly if drinking was involved.

Dinner was at our normal time of 6:30p. We had a fresh tomato salad to start, mustard-seasoned pork loin with French fries and fried onions on top. The Hungarians sure do like their fried food. I skipped the fries, but everything else was delicious. Although tonight was scheduled to be our “free” night, our Csurgo HFH Construction Manager, Peter, received a kitchen pass from his wife so we all decided to hang out with him at the local bar, aptly named “Casino Bar”. As you walk down the stairs, you’re led into a fairly small couple of rooms. Behind the swinging doors, the multiple casino games (video poker, slot machines, etc.) are waiting to take people’s money. The main bar, stocked with Hungarian beer and wine, as well as the Belgian beer Stella, sat about 5 people. There were only 4 locals in the bar when we arrived. By the end of the night when we left around 11p, there was a decent-sized crowd for its size. I drank a few glasses of Hungarian white wine, which tasted similar to a Gewürztraminer or Riesling. A couple of our teammates impressed the rest of us with some West Coast swing dance… which didn’t look familiar to me, but then again my knowledge of Ballroom Dancing is solely based on watching the weekly TV show “Dancing with the Stars.”

Csurgo is such a small little town. I really don’t know how anyone could live here because there literally is not that much to do. With the exception of the bowling alley/tennis court establishment and a few bars/pubs, there really isn’t a whole lot of extra-curricular outlets for inhabitants of this rural village. It seems to me that the town relies a lot on the Habitat for Humanity groups that travel in and out of Csurgo every two weeks, as their main source of income and probably entertainment as well!

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