One Of Those Days...

Yesterday was one of those days. It just felt like everything was going wrong. It started out nice enough. I woke up refreshed (always a good thing on a Friday morning) and the sun was shining. When I got to school, the morning rush started. Copies to make, things to print and gathering everything I needed. Unfortunately, I couldn't teach in my classroom, as they were doing special testing in it. So, I was given one of the Rest Time rooms. A huge room, with no carpet, no furniture, no desks, no chairs, no white-boards. Now, I am flexible and adaptable, and having no desks didn't bother me, as I like to have my classes sit on the floor. The problem came when you put people in the room. There was nothing to absorb the sound, so it was like teaching in a cavern - even a whisper echoed across the room. None of my lessons went quite as I would have liked as it was impossible to keep the noise level bearable. My fourth lesson of the day is with 4th graders, and I have the head director's (think superintendent) daughter, the director's (think principal) son, the deputy director's (think vice-principal) son all in my class. So, when I got to my make shift classroom, there is the director with his wife. He asks if his wife can sit in on my class for a few minutes, as she is waiting for their other son to finish some testing. How can I say no. So, I say yes and in she comes. The lesson is fine, just incredibly noisy. I actually think that the kids are having fun. My only other problem with this room is that it has no clock and of course, yesterday was the one day I forgot my watch. So, I had brought my cell phone to class and was using it as my watch. My least favorite thing about Friday's is that my 4th lesson ends at 11:55 and my 5th lesson starts at 11:55. So, I have to be in two places at once. Usually, it is not that big of a deal, because I can just let the 4th graders walk to their classroom which is on the same hallway as my classroom. But since we are in a different room, I have to go with them. And I had asked my 5th graders to meet in the computer lab since we are working on a computer project. So, as I am trying to herd my 4th graders back to their room and race up the stairs to the computer lab, who do I find corraling my 5th graders? The head director. Great. Just great. He doesn't say anything, but I feel bad. The only good thing is that my 5th graders are good for my lesson and I feel like we accomplished something. Near the end of the lesson, one of my 5th graders stops me and asks, "Are we going to have lunch together?" She has invited me to have lunch with her and her friends every Friday. Now, I am feeling a little better. I buy my lunch in the cafeteria everyday, as it is very cheap, filling, warm and usually good. There are always 2 choices, a vegetarian and a meat. I saw that the vegetarian was a kind of potato paste with a hard boiled egg on top (not my favorite) while the meat option was rice with little pieces of meat in a sauce. So, I had the meat. As I was taking it to my table, I looked more closely at it and realized that it was kind of a funny color. Almost all the meat we have in the cafeteria is pork and this definitely was not pork. When I looked at it more closely, I noticed the texture looked strange. So, I decided just to eat my soup and the rice. My girls and I had a nice chat. They noticed that I wasn't eating my meat and told me that neither of them liked this meat either. They said it was black or purple meat and started pointing to their stomachs. "Liver?" I asked. "Yes!" they said. Yuck! So, I left lunch still a little hungry, but glad to have avoided the liver.

One of those days...

I went to my office and straightened up, getting ready for the next day. I checked my email and found out that some friends of ours in Hungary may have to leave the country 2 months early because of problems with their visas and plane tickets. So, I just was feeling really down. And like I hadn't done my best teaching. And wondering why I was coming back for another year. So, I packed up my things and decided to head home. But on the way, I stopped by the secretaries office (up 3 flights of stairs) to ask her something and ended up staying for 20 minutes or so. I went downstairs to sign out and ran into one of the rest time teachers who was brining a group of kids inside. I had wanted to ask her something, so I stopped and talked to her for a moment. Two of my third graders saw me and grabbed my hands, and started talking to me about čaj (tea). Then Andreka, the rest time teacher, said, "We welcome you to tea with us." My girls wanted me to come and have tea with them. So, of course I did. We talked in a strange mixture of Slovak and English. They wanted to sit by me and share their tea. One little girl, Maťa, even gave me some special tea to take home with me. And all of a sudden I knew why I was staying. This was why. I am building relationships, and with younger students, who don't have a lot of English, it takes more time. I am their teacher, and yet, much of the time, I don't understand what they are saying, and communicating with them is hard work. And yet, here they were, asking me to come to tea and sharing their snacks with me. So, as I left school, I took the opportunity as I was walking, to thank God for reminding me why I had come, why I was staying and for opening doors for me. Please, please, join me in praying that God will continue to open doors for me to build relationships with my students and share who I am and what I believe in with my students.
I serve an amazing God who promises that He will do abundantly more than we can ask. Now, all I have to do is ask....
(Ephesians 3:20 - Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us).

Eastern Slovakia Trip

An Amazing Adventure
November 1st-3rd was my school’s Fall Break and we decided to take advantage of the time and go to East Slovakia. Karin, Jen (our friend who lives in Budapest) and I made plans to travel to Kosice, Presov, Levoca and Bardejov. Kosice is the second largest city in Slovakia and is a six hour train ride from Bratislava. We arrived in Kosice around 8 at night and after wandering around in the dark for a about an hour, we finally found our way to our hostel which turned out to be only a five minute walk from where we had gotten off the bus. Oh, the joys of being illiterate.

Kosice to Presov
Our time in Kosice was somewhat disappointing as we were there on a holiday- which in Slovakia means that everything except for the churches and some restaurants are closed. So, we were not able to see much. By this point, I was not feeling good and was pretty sure I was coming down with a cold. And of course, since we had to lug all our stuff around, I had packed light and had not brought my Vitamin C, Airbourne or Kleenex. So, after having coffee and a snack at a café and lunch at a Chinese restaurant, we decided to continue our journey to Presov. We arrived at Presov, wondering how we would find our hotel. Karin had made the reservation at this particular hotel, and the man she had spoken with spoke almost no English.

Very Long Side Story
(Side-story here of how the reservation was made: Karin called and asked the man if he spoke English. He responded with no in Slovak. She then asked, “Reservation?” He said “Yes” in Slovak. So, she told him two days in Slovak and told him Wednesday/Thursday in Slovak. He responded with Yes in Slovak and then proceeded to say the days of the week in English, as if to confirm. “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday.” Karin said, “No, Wednesday, Thursday” and he again responded with, Yes, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday. After going back a few times, Karin heard him trying very hard to say the “th” sound, which does not exist in Slovak. So, hoping for the best, she thanked him and hung up. End of side-story.)

Man at the Hotel
After taking the long, long, LONG way around (the hotel had moved to a new location, we found out when we went to the old one), we called a taxi and found our way to the hotel. The man Karin had talked to came to the door and ushered us in. He was very pleasant and helpful, asking us which room we wanted and making sure we had everything we needed. This was all done with him speaking Slovak, us speaking English and LOTS of hand gesturing. When we explained (i.e. gestured) that we had not eaten, he drew us a map of how to get to old town where there would be restraints or the grocery store, both a ten minute walk. We decided on the grocery store and I decided to stay behind as I was really not feeling well. While we were talking about what to do, he came in and offered (gestured) that he would walk us there. During the walk there, Karin and Jen discovered that the man (we never quite got his name- Opps!) he spoke Hungarian (which Jen is beginning to learn) and understood some German (which Jen has a basic knowledge of). This made our conversations with him easier, but no less comical. Lots of “What did he say?” and “I don’t really know, but I think maybe…” After the trip to the grocery store, he offered us some of the chicken he was roasting and three pickles. And of course, Turkish coffee, blacker than black and thicker than mud. The next door he walked us to the bus station, helped us figure out which bus to take, and even spoke to the bus driver about us. Our guardian angel!

Spissky Hrad!
We went to the quant town of Levoca and wandered around until we were too cold, then took a bus up to Spis Castle(Spissky Hrad). I think this was the highlight of our trip. It was a long and daunting hike to the top (especially when you are sick.) Jen was a history major and she was practically running to the top while I was struggling to put one foot in front of the other. Karin was in the middle, wanting to share in Jen’s excitement, but not wanting to leave me in the dust either. When we got to the top, we found the gate closed and a picture of guard dogs and guns on the gate. Jen was frustrated and ready to climb the wall. We noticed someone inside though and they gestured that we could get inside if we walked around the castle. So, we went hiking again. (My face felt like it was frozen as the temp was nearing 0°C. When we finally got around to what we figured out was the main gate, it was open. We paid a nominal fee and were told to stay on the main path. We had the entire castle to ourselves. (We figure this was due to the freezing temperature and the biting wind.) Since there was no one there and the main path was not clearly marked, we explored every nook and cranny of the castle. We peeked in every room, poked our head through every window, climbed every staircase and took every path we could find. We had a glorious time and took tons of pictures. If you ever come to Slovakia, you must make time for Spis Castle. It is the largest castle in Slovakia and one of the largest castles in Eastern Europe. Well worth the hike, the cold, the wind and the cost.

Bardejov and Pastor Jan
Our last stop on our trip was Bardejov, a charming town that has been carefully restored and renovated to preserve the old town feeling. There we met up with a Lutheran pastor (a friend of a friend of a friend who spoke fluent English), who invited us into his home, shared with us the history of the town and took us on a tour of his town. It was absolutely gorgeous and made me feel as though I had stepped back in time. It was also my first snowfall and that added to the charm. The snow was brilliant white and still falling as we were walking by the old city wall, the town hall and the basilica. After our walk, we returned to his home, where his wife had made an amazing lunch for us. We had a great time of fellowship and enjoyed being able to converse and talk with Eastern Slovak people.

Almost home...
Our train ride home was another adventure with languages as we started out having a compartment to ourselves and slowly found it filled to the brim with elderly Slovaks. We again found ourselves communicating with hand gestures and German (thanks Jen!) and ended having a whole car full of Slovaks who were looking out for us, making sure we knew what we were passing, who was coming to check for tickets and just when we needed to get off.


Hmmm... Wherre to next?
We got home on Saturday evening and had Sunday as a day of rest and planning for the upcoming week. It took me most of the next week to recover, but it was well worth it. Eastern Slovakia is a beautiful place. The Tatra Mountains are glorious, the fall colors and the snow were brilliant and the people were genuinely friendly. I am looking forward to the next trip!

PS - If you would like to see pictures of our trip (and the amazing castle!) you can check out all my pictures of our Eastern Slovakia trip at:

East Slovakia Trip