Veselé Vianoce

Just a quick Merry Christmas and Veselé Vianoce from Lučenec!

I had a wonderful day getting to know the Slovak traditions for Christmas holidays here yesterday with my host family and spent most of my day in Cinobaňa today.

Here is a typical Slovak Christmas menu (or at least what we had for dinner last night):

A Krumkake type bread with garlic and honey
Cabbage soup with sausage
Carp with a creamy potato salad

...and Christmas Stollen for breakfast!

And Christmas wouldn't be complete without a church service (or two... or three) I went to a Lutheran church service yesterday afternoon, a Catholic mass at 10:30pm and Baptist church this morning!

Finally, here's a lovely screen shot of my first Christmas via Skype with my family!

Winter is Upon Us!

I had the privilege to travel to Budapest and reunite with our other YAGM volunteers for Thanksgiving and, what a wonderful time it was! We went to a famous bath house and a fun Christmas market, we climbed up Gellert Hill for a fabulous view of Budapest at night, we cooked all day Friday to provide a fantastic dinner for ten people (followed by Holden Evening Vespers) and we woke up to freezing weather and a fresh blanket of snow over everything on Saturday morning.

All our time was spent among friends, whether we were reminiscing on our finer Thanksgiving memories, discussing our work or contemplating the stark differences between life in the US and life in Central Europe. It was a much needed time of reflection, rest, and renewal.

After a wonderful Thanksgiving meeting in Budapest, I returned to Lučenec on the first day of Advent to find winter in full swing. The streets were covered in snow, Christmas decorations were popping up here and there and many plans for Mikulaš (St. Nick’s Day) and Christmas programs were being made.

Right now I am helping prepare for a program in Cinobaňa that consists of two Christmas songs and two Roma dances. It has been fun to be a part of the planning and I was asked to play the piano for one of the pieces (My mother would be proud)! Don’t worry… I only need one finger to play the song, but still - I am learning the whole thing by ear and, when performance day comes around, 20 or so small kiddos will be depending on that one-finger song!


Above:The view of Budapest from Gellert Hill at night. Above right: A tree newly covered in snow in a local park.

A Day in the Life...

I figured that I would share what my schedule looks like right now, since I haven't really given a concrete idea of my work thus far!

Monday-Pondelok
8 - 9/10am Staff Meeting & Devotion time
Lesson planning
2:30pm English conversation/help
4pm -6pm Kid's group in Cinobana
7pm Volleyball! (If I can make it on time...)

Tuesday-Utorok
8am -10am Mother's Club and set up
10-11am Beginner English class
11am-12pm/1pm Mother's Club and clean up
2-4pm Slovak/English lesson in Cinobana
4-8pm Discussion/Bible Study in Cinobana

Wednesday-Streda
8am - 12/1pm Mother's Club
10-11am Playgroup with the mother's club (including English for the kiddos - aged 3 and under)
4-7pm Discussion/BS group in Vel'ka Nad Iplom

Thursday-štvrtok
8am -10am Mother's Club and set up
10-11am Advanced English class
11am-12pm/1pm Mother's Club and clean up
3pm Classroom set-up in Cinobana
4:15 - 5:45pm English class in Cinobana

Friday-Piatok
Morning free to lesson plan, blog!, write emails, etc etc etc (there is always something that needs to be done!)
5-6pm Dorast' (youth group for 12-15 yr olds)
6-10pm Open Gate (youth group/hang out time for teenagers) I'm usually here for part of this, but go home for dinner.

Saturday-Sobota
FREE! :)

Sunday-Nedel'a
9am Church... sometimes I'm back by 11am, and sometimes I'm not home until late in the afternoon. It changes week to week!

A lot of my "free" time ends up being taken by playing with the kids at my host-house or traveling to and from villages via bus. If I actually find some alone time, my newest hobbies are studying Slovak, running, reading, trying to keep up with the news, and Skyping (hint hint). AND - watching "Farmár Hl'adá ženu" - Slovakia's reality show on Friday nights about farmers trying to find wives! I don't understand much of what they say, but it's pretty darn funny anyways!


A view of Lučenec from one of my favorite running paths. Above, right: "My bench" - where I like to read in the town park. Photo taken in late October, right before all the leaves fell

My First Visitor!

This morning I said goodbye to my brother after he had the chance to visit me on his fall break from school. It was great to have him here - I got to show him Lucenec and most of the places I go, hang out, and work. We had a good time and it was nice to have a familiar face around for a bit.

In recent weeks, I have also taken on some new English classes. I am now officially teaching three classes and have one more potential class headed my way (4-5 year olds! Right now, I am only teaching adults). Teaching here has been an interesting experience because the levels of English knowledge vary greatly within each class.

Since I have no teaching experience or training, whatsoever, it was beneficial to have my brother (teacher, by profession!) here to give me some good hints and tips about how to teach. Granted, we are teaching in very different situations, but I am taking his advice to heart.

According to Eric, there are three basic parts to teaching a lesson:

1. teach them something.
2. do something together.
3. have them do something independently.

Genius! So simple, and yet I never would have thought of it...

If anyone else has teaching insights, don't hesitate to send them my way! :)



Here's the only shot I managed to get of the two of us while Eric was here. I always forget to take people pictures. But, it's proof of my first visitor, nonetheless!

Lesson Learned

Little by little I am learning my way around Lučenec, by traveling with others and venturing out on my own. On Wednesday, I usually work in a village called Vel'ka Nad Iplom, about 10km south of Lučenec. This Wednesday, I took the bus by myself for the first time and accidentally missed my stop. Instead, I got off in Trenč, a tiny village on the Hungarian border. I asked the busdriver in my stumbling Slovak "Did I miss Vel'ka?" "Yes", he replies. "Will another bus come?" "Yes", he replies again. "Wait on the other side of the street". So that I did. It was about 4pm and the next bus was scheduled to come at 4:30pm.

When five o clock rolled around and there was no bus in sight, I asked an old woman walking by if she knew how often the bus came... She had no idea, but was a sweet woman and talked about the weather with me. (She noted that it was particularly cold that day - something I knew very well by that point, standing under the tin shack of a bus stop) As another person walked by, they started up a conversation in Hungarian, presumably about me since, I heard "Vel'ka Nad Iplom" multiple times. In southern Slovakia, there are many towns where the majority of the population speaks Hungarian as well as Slovak (or sometimes only Hungarian). She turned back to me, said "Prepač moja, nevieme", and slowly kept on walking. They didn't know.

I wandered back over to the bus schedule to find that the next bus wouldn't come until 6:30pm. I decided, then, to call a friend to come pick me up instead of waiting another hour and a half. I pulled out my phone to realize that it wouldn't work because I was so close to the Hungarian border. I tried anyways and failed. Looking around me, I decided that I could either wait outside til 6:30 or I could try to find a phone. Since the 4:30 bus never came, I was a bit skeptical about this 6:30 bus and decided to hunt down a phone.

Now, when you stand at the bus stop in Trenč, you are in almost the exact center of the town. I know this, because it consists of one main road, and the bus stop is about halfway down that road. From the stop, you can see both ends of the town on either side of you... probably a 5 minute walk from one to the other. So, where to find a phone? Besides houses, it appeared that Trenč consists of 1 school, 1 church, 1 small grocery store, and 1 bar. Everything was closed, except the bar. I poked my head into a tiny, smoke-filled bar and waited in line to see if there was a phone available. The bartender let me use his phone, but my friend didn't pick up. I left a message and waited outside a bit longer. As it got too cold and windy to stand outside, I headed back to the bar and asked the bartender if I could sit inside and wait. He happily let me sit and we chatted for a while before a group of people came in and he returned to work. I studied Slovak as my hands thawed out and the man next to me played on the lone slot machine for the next hour or so.

Needless to say, it was an interesting experience and I don't think I will ever let myself miss the stop for Vel'ka again. The bus did finally arrive (closer to 6:50, but at least it came!) and I went straight home. All in all, the conversations I had and the smiles I got from people who I chatted with made my three-hour adventure in Trenč a little warmer on that cold, October day.

Some Photos...

Laura, Amanda, and I at the Košice Peace Marathon. It's the oldest European marathon! We ran the "mini" marathon :)


At "Van 4 Life" in Lovinobaňa. A program that sets up safe attractions for kids (trampoline, blow-up castle, facepaint, etc) and then also offers a small library with Christian books that people can look through.


I got the chance to go hiking with my host family a few weeks ago and we hiked to the top of the hill where this photo was taken from, then to the village in the picture. It was a long day of walking, but very fun!

Baptism for the Baptists...

Yesterday we celebrated the baptism of five new members to the Baptist church that I am attending here in Slovakia. If I were to try to describe my day in words, I think it would take the entire day to write. Instead, I will give you my day in numbers. We start at 7:45am, when I get up, stretch, eat breakfast, and walk to church, which starts at 9am.

At church we had:

1 sanctuary with standing room only,
4 Bible readings,
7 prayers,
5 testimonies,
5 baptisms,
19 songs (or that I counted),
4 sermons (5, if you count the fact that one was in English and was translated into Slovak),
1 Communion,
1 set of announcements, and
3.5 hours squished between the oldest Slovak man and woman in Lučenec, neither of whom spoke a word of English.

After the service, we had:

1 hour wait in line for lunch,
2 bowls of soup,
4 pieces of white bread with meat (a typical Slovak meal),
3 floors of activities (games for kids, lunch, and desserts/drinks),
Too many desserts that I would be ashamed to put the number here,
4 or 5 long conversations in broken English and Slovak, and
1/2 hour helping clean up.

I got home around 4:45pm. And I was definitely not the last to leave. Fun, but exhausting... What a day!

The Roma in Europe

Check out this article from the NY Times... it is interesting and quite accurate from what I have seen so far.

Roma, on Move, Test Europe’s ‘Open Borders’
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/17/world/europe/17roma.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&hp

A New Beginning

This week has turned out to be an interesting introduction to Lučenec. Since I don't know exactly what I will be doing at the center, yet, my schedule is quite random. Today and Monday, I had almost the entire day free, while I spent 12 hours at the center or moving about on both Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday, we visited Cinobaňa and I had my first experience in a Roma community. Pavel (my supervisor), a local pastor, and myself met with about 20 or so Romani in Cinobaňa at four (so, naturally we started at five) and had a bible study and discussion. It is quite difficult for me to listen to Slovak, since the speech is very quick and my vocabulary is quite limited, but the conversation lasted for hours.

Wednesday was a holiday for Mary, the Patron Saint of Slovakia, so I went on a hike with a local youth group to Pol'ana, a skiing village nearby. (Left: Signs pointing toward various hiking routes, marked in hours, not distance.).We went to another gypsy village that night and experienced a similar discussion to Tuesday's, albeit with a smaller crowd.

I also helped out at the Klub mamičiek (mother's club) on Tuesday and Thursday, where women are invited to come to the center with their children (aged 3 or younger) and play or leave their kids to run errands. Throughout the year, I may end up being involved in the mother's club, teaching English, or just helping out, in addition to working with the Roma population.

Lučenec, at Last!

Just a quick hello to say that I am finally here and am currently at 3Pe, my new workplace and community center. Tomorrow, I will visit the nearby gypsy village Cinobaňa, where I may end up doing quite a bit of work. Today, I just got to see the center, meet some employees and then relax pretty much all day. Tonight, I am joining some others for a game of volleyball, tomorrow morning we are off to Cinobaňa, and Wednesday is a National Slovak holiday for Saint Mary, the patron saint of Slovakia. I think we will be going for an easy hike on Wednesday, so let's hope for some good weather!

Tomorrow is the Big Day!

Today is our last full day in Bratislava as the three of us here in Slovakia will depart for our respective communities tomorrow afternoon! Our time in the "Little Big City" has been fun, but I am excited to get to Lučenec and finally settle into my new home away from home! Today, we had a nice free day and I was able to get to a bookshop and buy a Spanish-Slovak dictionary and Harry Potter... in Slovak! I will consider it a test of my growth in Slovak language over the year.



For now, I leave you with a snapshot from our day trip to Vienna, Austria last weekend - a reflection of the St. Karl Borromäus Karlskirche in a nearby fountain.

Bratislava, Slovakia

Above: Just prior to leaving Balatonlelle, HU with our Hungarian counterparts and new friends from camp. Below: Staré Mesto (Old Town), Bratislava


We have now arrived in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. We have a few days of Slovak language course under our belts and are quickly assimilating to life in Slovakia. It has been a very interesting experience to get our resident permits, and I think I am starting to understand what it must feel like to be an immigrant to the USA, with trips to notaries, doctors, hospitals, and the police.

Right now, our days begin with Slovak lessons at 8am until 12pm, when we break for lunch. In the afternoon, we have a variety of activities to get our permits and meet others working in the area as well as some free time before dinner at 6pm. We (the three ELCA volunteers) are here with eight volunteers from Germany and it has been very fun to get to know them. We all will be staying in Bratislava through next week, when we will depart for our respective sites.

Lake Balaton, Hungary

Our first few days in Europe were spent in Lake Balaton, Hungary. It really is a beautiful lake and is slowly emptying of its last Hungarian tourists for the summer. We have had the chance to learn some Hungarian (Magyar), relax by the lake and get to know some people at the Roma camp where we are staying. We have particularly enjoyed playing gypsy music and dancing with our translator Jozsi, our friend Gyuri and his son Gyurika. (If you search for “Romano Glaszo” in youtube, you can see some videos of their performances!)




Also, here are three fun facts about the church services at the Reformatus Church in Lake Balaton:

1. The services last no longer than 30 minutes.
2. If there are 12 verses in the hymn of the day, you will sing ALL of them.
3. The backs of the pews actually lean forward to the point where it would be impossible to accidentally doze off or even relax during a service.
4. There are about six rows of pews, holding no more than four people each. The effect of this is that having 35 people in the congregation made me feel like I was attending a mega-church.

The Windy City

So, somehow my camera or computer (not sure which) decided to delete all my photos of Chicago save this one of downtown... hopefully I can get that figured out soon!


On a brighter note, I have been enjoying Chicago and getting to know everyone a little better. We are getting all sorts of information and ideas and whatnot to take with us on our year. We got the chance to explore a bit of the city too, including a Spanish speaking church service, salsa dancing, Millennium park and deep-dish pizza! For now, we are staying busy and preparing for Wednesday afternoon when we will head to Budapest... more to come when we arrive!

The I.N. Network

I have recently found out that I will be working at an organization called the I.N. Network and have been in contact with my supervisor. This network runs a community center in Lucenec called 3Pe, a "Center for Gypsies" in Cinobana, and the "Comenius Center" in Rackova dolina. I will be living and working primarily in Lucenec, but may also be traveling to Cinobana and Velka, two gypsy villages close to Lucenec. At these locations, the organization runs quite a few support programs... everything ranging from cooking clubs and alcoholics anonymous to dancing groups and mother's clubs. My work will mainly be revolving around the Gypsy Ministry, but my exact work will depend on how much of the Slovak language I can learn before I arrive!

The IN Network in Slovakia has a wonderful webpage, but unfortunately it is only in Slovak. If you are interested, visit http://www.innetwork.sk/vitajte/

Also, I learned that I will be staying with a host family that lives in downtown Lucenec. The family has three children (two boys, ages 11 and 8 and one girl, age 2) and "two nice dogs".

First steps...

Okay, so this is my first blog! Bear with me if I am technologically unsavvy, here.

My year in Slovakia will be spent working with the Roma population that lives in Lucenec. Most likely I will be spending time tutoring children at an after-school program of some sort. Unfortunately, many Roma children do not or have not received the same education as non-Roma children. Some students get placed in special education classes even if they don't need to be, just because they carry the Roma title. It is my hope that by serving in Slovakia, I will be able to make a difference in the educational lives of some Roma students and help them discover the beauty of learning! As I know more about my exact placement, I will be sure to update.

If you are interested in helping me fund my year in Slovakia, you can write a donation check to "Grace Lutheran Church" with "Liz Pfaff 2010-2011 YAGM" in the memo line.

Grace's address is 9625 NE 8th St., Bellevue, WA 98004. Any donation would help and be appreciated by myself and those I will be working with!