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!