My "areobiks" class

As you would expect, I have been doing a lot of walking here. In fact I am down to a weight that I have not seen since high school (and it looked much better then)! But as the weather is due to change, I needed to find an option for keeping up my cardio vascular fitness and upper body strength. So I started asking around and was invited by a Hungarian friend of a friend to go with her to her" areobiks" class which was held in a community center.

As we walked into a large building with dim lighting I was surprised to see it buzzing with activity including several tables of older men in the corner playing chess.

The class was setting up in kind of a multi-purpose room with very tall ceilings with the heating vents exposed and running every direction. There was a stage and folding chairs pulled to the side and women in various stages of undress partially veiled by a particition. The floor was ancient parchet with flimsy rugs haphazardly placed in the center of the room. My host took me up to introduce me to the instructor who was fully dressed and setting up the music. Then they began to chatter and Koti turned to me and said that the instructor would like to trade me classes in return for English lessons. I was hesitant since I had never taught an adult and got the impression that Llona was a total beginner. But since I was on the spot, I agreed.

At that point Llona started to strip off her top and change into her workout gear right there in front of the class. Whoa, I had heard that the Hungarians had a different cultural take on nudity and here was a woman of about 45 with the usual lumps and bumps of our age stripping to her underwear in front of a group of women (and one guy). (Jack and I had experienced one of the pubic baths in the city a few weeks prior and I had the impression from that experience that there isn't the super body conscientiousness that we have in the states, quite refreshing).

So I took a spot in the second row where I could see the teacher because of course, all of her instructions were in Hungarian. She proceeded to lead a low impact workout with lots of reps on the floor work. I left thinking it was not going to be a serious workout for me and was quite surprised when I woke up the next morning with my gluts screaming at me. I guess if you do enough leg lifts you do work the muscle even without using weights.

That Friday, I returned to the center to start our english lessons. Turns out she is not a true beginning speaker. She spent 6 months a few years ago in the UK as an nanny, but and wants to improve her meager vocabulary. She is so sincere and wants so badly to learn. It is quite a different experience for me than working with the kids. At the end of the lesson she always kisses me on both cheeks and says, "Tank you Katie". Yes, we are working on pronounciation of the th sound as it does not exist in their language. We giggle alot because she just can't seem to make her mouth form the sound. But then she will turn it on me and ask me to say a Hungarian word that has a sound that is kind of like dg in edge. There is no way I can produce it correctly, so we are even.

I have been back several times to the class and the music is just awful. Llona is sincere but kind of turns into a drill sergent when she is leading the class . The last time I went she had on some awful Hungarian rap music. The class must have complained because there was a lot of discussion with her as we were doing our thing. Pretty soon she dug into her purse and pulled out some keys which she handed to the lone male in the class. I was clueless as to what was going on at this point wondering if maybe she left her water bottle in her car or something. He returned with a flurish holding a CD which she popped into the player and out blasted this awful folk music all accordians and Hungarian singing. Uhgg! After a couple of songs where she was trying her best to make the moves match the music she comes over to me bends down and says "Hungarian Gypsy King music" and smiles.

It was a very long class!

The teaching experience

Well, as most of you know, I have decades of experience teaching in Portland. I came over here feeling like it would be a cake walk for me. It has been humbling.

Let me start by talking about the interesting traditions that we have observed at our school. We attended the "Opening Ceremonies" on the evening of the 31st of August. This is a big deal! Lots of parents, grandparents, were there. For all formal ceremonies the kids wear black skirt or pants with a white shirt and scarf or tie with a logo on it. I have not been able to determine if the logo is related to the town that we live in, or if each school has a different one. The incoming kindergardeners were seated in the front row of the festivities which consisted of lots of speeches and the singing of the national anthem (which I have been told is full of breast beating related to their history ). Then at the end of the ceremony some upper grade students stepped up to the rows of kinders with baskets in their hands and started showering the little ones with confetti. It is a rite of passage and quite sweet.

For the first week, Jack and I shadowed the native teachers who are responsible for teaching the grammar related to english while we are to teach about conversational english and American culture. About the 2nd day, I said to Jack, "Boy these kids talk out so much I am really going to have to teach them what I expect". The native teachers tend to be quite strict and stern, so the talking really did not fit with those expectations. I assumed that it was just a matter of the kids not having been taught to take turns speaking and not to have side conversations during the lesson. Well, it turns out that this is a cultural issue. In the Hungarian language the emphasis is always on the first syllable of a word, the first word of a sentence, and everyone rushes in to make their point all at once. This makes giving a lesson quite difficult because the kids talk all the time. Sometimes I can tell that they are explaining something that I have said to each other, but other times it is obvious that their conversation really has nothing to do with my immediate lesson. I have had to have many conversations with them about one voice at a time and how speaking is like a chess match where only one person can move a piece at a time. Jack has the same issue with his 7th and 8th graders although some maturity kicks in by then and they can control themselves a little better. Some days we come home to our humble flat and commizerate for 20-30 minutes about how many times we had to stop teaching because our voices were being drowned out.

When the principal observed me in a 5th grade class, they were perfect, so I know that they have the ability to listen to each other. However, she said to me that she was sure that my lesson was not going to keep them engaged for the full 45 minutes and how she was surprised when it did!

On the plus side, there are students that I can tell are really gaining confidence in their english and I have been able to connect with some of the more reticient ones. And of course they do really sweet things sometimes that makes me think that I am making a difference. One day a group of 6th grade girls asked me if they could write on the whiteboard during the break. When I got back to the room they had turned it into a huge love note with "We love you Mrs. Holmes" written on it and hearts, flowers and kisses covering it.

So every day I go into school feeling challenged sometimes positively challenged and other times frustrated, but there is never a day when I am bored!

Our school

It has been brought to my attention that I have not written anything about the school where we are teaching so here goes...

Our school is named after a Hungarian poet. It will be 25 years old in 2010.

The school serves as a community hub. There is a pre-school section that has kids which look to be 3-5 years old. They get care from a full time nurse and are at the school from early morning through early evening if the parents need after school care. The school which houses grades 1-8 is physically connected to the pre-school area. The schools are very well staffed. There are 2 daytime janitors and several women who clean up after school. That is really good because the water pipes in the ceiling have a propensity for breaking, sending a river of water onto the floor and a huge commotion as the cleanup commences.

As you walk into the school, the first thing you see in the foyer is a huge candy machine and next to that is a stand that is open long hours where the kids and teachers can get baked goods, candy and other super healthy snacks. The woman who staffs it speaks no English, but understands when I request M&M's. Then there is a little room which is behind a plexiglass window where the man who dispenses the room key sits. He has other jobs as well, but I just have not figure out exactly what they are. My classes are held in different rooms throughout the day, so he enjoys it when I request a key and he can say the key number in English. He works long hours and in fact, has a small TV in the room with him. The other day I noticed him watching "Hell's Kitchen" I wonder how that translates?

Then you enter a large multipurpose room with a stage at one end. This is where they hold assemblies and other school functions. The cafeteria is just beyond that .

The school pays for us to eat the lunches which I did on one occasion which was enough for me. Just like in the U.S. the lunches are starchy and not very appealing to an adult (although many teachers eat the lunch including my husband.) The tables all have tablecloths on them and the main dish is served family style. They serve the kids strange kinds of noodles or other pasta most days. Jack has reported noodles with poppy seeds, and something similar to tapioca pudding with cinnamon on it. The cafeteria is staffed with about 6 ladies not counting the cook who all wear matching aprons and circulate around the room helping the kids.

Upstairs is set up so that you can look down onto the stage over banisters from three sides. The school day is set up into 45 min. classes followed by a 15 min. break, so the kids like to entertain themselves during the break by looking down at their friends walking or playing on the first floor.

Student art is quite beautifully displayed on the second floor. The teacher must be fabulous because the work she gets out of students in really amazing. The wall displays are changed quite frequently. Currently there is a photo essay of the events around the eviction of the communists. Last week they had a community showing of the photos which was open to the public. There are plants everywhere, in classes, in the halls, on the landings. I think they must have one person who's only job is caring for them. There is also someone who's only job seems to be to make photocopies for the office. I hope that the Xerox he uses is more up to date than the one in the teacher's room because it is painfully slow!

Next time I will talk about kids and the lessons.

Bureaucracy Part I and II

Let me start by saying that the Hungarian people are extremely rule bound and bureaucratic.

I have been here on a temporary visa which I got when I was still in the U.S. So one day last week a native teacher who speaks English told me that we had to go to the immigration office the next day and that someone would be covering my classes. Since we are 40 minutes outside of the city center, we would have to leave by 7AM.

The next day she came to pick me up and when I made a comment about the bureaucracy she said, "I know, if I could live somewhere else, I would." So we proceeded to take the streetcar, then subway and finally a bus to get to this office. It was a few minutes before opening time and there was already a line. As it turned out, this was the line just to get a number to get into another line! The line we needed happened to be in a different building. So a receptionist/guard met us and my collegue spoke to him. When he responded, we were directed to a table where we sat waiting for our number to be called. The interesting thing was that the numbers were out of order. So we had 39, but they were also displaying a series starting in the two hundreds and there didn't seem to be any chronological sense to it. Finally, our number came up and we approached a desk . Every government office you go into has rows of desks with plexiglass in between you and the official where the conversation cutouts are never positioned correctly. So I sat there like a total idiot while the Hungarians conversed only becoming conscious when requested to show some paper or my passport. Then, my collegue said "She wants to know why you didn't come in sooner to extend your passport, this one has expired." "Oh shit " I thought, they are going to kick me out!! It ended up that I had to dictate my reason to the other teacher and she hand wrote it out. Then, you guessed it, we had to go sit and wait while the government worker showed my letter to her superior. Finally, we were summanded back to the plexiglass place and there was more conversation . When the government worker got out her stamp and started punching it onto papers multiple times, I was feeling more confident. And after only 3 hours, I left with my visa which is valid until Aug. 2010!!

Now, this week, I was again informed that someone would be escorting me back to the government offices to get my medical card (they have socialized medicine here) and my tax ID number. This again involved an early morning start, lines, numbers, frowning, conversation and after about 30 min. my collegue informed me that the computerized system was not cooperating and that this worker says she is fed up and will not try any longer to get me a tax number! My collegue appealed to her that we have both taken the day away from children to take care of this business and I will not receive any pay until I get it taken care of. She resists. So my collegue appeals to the worker at the next desk who agrees to make another attempt at getting into the computerized system. An hour later and of course after many official stamps, I leave with a tax ID number.

They tell me that now I will have to return to the immigration office with proof that I now have a medical card. I can hardly wait!