Playway to English - The tale continues

Earlier this year, I posted an entry about Max, the main character from the Playway to English textbook that we use.  This year we have seen the next chapter in the Playway series.  Max is now apparently homeless, having long since been abandoned by his former friends, Linda and Benny.  The most recent "adventure" that Max had was when he was stuck in the rain.  He hates rain apparently so he went into a local shop and asked "One umbrella please", the shopkeeper said "Here you are." He replied "How much is it?" "Four pounds" "Oh? Ooh... umm... okay, here you are."

The voice actor is really starting to sound aged, and this in combination with the brokenness of Max's reply made it seem like it was Max's last four pounds.  This only makes the following events even more heart breaking.  It turns out that Max was unable to figure out how to open the umbrella and threw it away in frustration - only of course to have a complete stranger appear, comment on how nice the umbrella was and open it easily.  The story concludes with Max miserably tramping off through the rain, perhaps looking for a dry place to sleep.

- Daniel

Day of National Mourning

So today as I was leaving the house to walk across the road to work, I noticed that all of the students - including those from the class I was about to teach - were assembled in front of the school apparently waiting for some kind of ceremony to commence. I wish it wasn't so but these kinds of surprises are a regular part of life over here and it can get a little frustrating at times. This is especially true on occasions like today when I'd spent a lot of time prepping for a lesson only to have three quarters of the students whisked away to some other activity or find that the class has been cancelled altogether. AAAAARGH!!

Anyway, I'm trying to become more flexible about these things, so today I pretty quickly accepted that my lesson probably wasn't going to happen and joined the crowd of students and teachers waiting in front of the school. Soon the national anthem started to play (yay, another opportunity to show off my awesome Hungarian national anthem singing skills) followed by a bunch of speeches, then a parade of upper level students carrying thirteen black and white portraits. At this point I started to recall some Hungarian history and correctly concluded that the officious-looking gentlemen depicted in the portraits were the 13 Martyrs of Arad.

On 6 October 1849, thirteen Hungarian generals were executed in the town of Arad. This unlawful event came about after Hungary surrendered to Austrian (Habsburg) rule after a brief but ultimately unsuccessful period of independence. In Hungary, the 13 generals are exalted as martyrs in the fight for freedom and 6 October is commemorated as the country's Day of National Mourning.

Overall it seems like a pretty depressing thing to dwell on, but I'm kind of getting used to Hungary's insistence on focusing on the sad and tragic events of its past, rather than celebrating its successes and achievements. I'm also getting used to accepting that sometimes Hungarians do things and they don't know why. Like today, for example. After the sombre ceremony remembering the thirteen generals, the kids all went back inside, put on their running shoes, then set off on a run around the town. When we asked our fellow teachers why this was happening, we were told that it had something to do with the events of 6 October 1849 but nobody was able to explain exactly how the execution of a bunch of dudes 160 years ago translated into a tradition of running. It was weird.

But, you know, I'm flexible so I just rolled with it and enjoyed another student-free class.

- Amanda

Hungarian-style Potato Fritters

Over the time that we've been here, we've learnt a few new recipes.  The potato fritters are a recipe that Amanda recognizes from when her grandparents used to make them so we were excited to give them a go.  We were at a BBQ with my music teacher a week or so ago and they were making the fritters so we asked for the instructions.  They were very vague with instructions like: add a bit of this and a smudge more of that etc, but upon trying it we realized that you can't go too wrong.

Firstly you have to peel the potatoes.  We were told that we'd need half a dozen or so, but it seems that must be catering for the Hungarian appetite as I think we could have gotten away with two.

Next you grate them.  They were not specific as to whether you grate them finely or not, but they seemed to do a little of both.  It seems like this step would take ages, but it's actually really fast - even if you're doing half a dozen.  I think it only took us maybe 5 or 10 minutes to do the lot.

The third step is to add flour and garlic.  Garlic is to taste so, of course, Amanda and I added a lot.  It still wasn't particularly overpowering however, so it could have almost done with more.  The flour is really in order to soak up all the juice from the potatoes and turn the whole batch into a paste.  Again, our friends were not very specific as to quantities so I won't be either.

Lastly it's as simple as putting into a pan of hot oil.  You need a decent amount of oil but we don't need to go overboard.  The technique that we learned was patience bordering on neglect.  If you think they are done then leave them another 5 minutes or so then turn them.  They don't really need to be turned very often.  We probably made ours a little large, the thinner they are the more crunchy they are, but I like the soft innards so... I suppose it's to taste.

The result is a garlicy, crisp-but-chewy potato cake that, in my opinion tastes pretty bloody awesome.

- Daniel

Where there's smoke, there's a fireman

Daniel and I discovered yesterday afternoon that there weren't going to be any classes at school today. Instead, the kids would all participate in a Sports Day. Awesome!

For the first part of the day, the kids were divided into nine teams. Each team rotated around nine different activities manned by the teachers. Depending on how well the team performed each task, they were allocated points on a scorecard and the team with the most points at the end of nine rounds was declared the winner. Most of the activities were fun physical challenges, but at least one activity involved the kids answering questions about Hungarian history.

After the team challenge had finished, the kids were visited by the local fire department. About half a dozen firemen were on hand to talk to the kids about their job and to show them their firefighting equipment. The kids were able to don special masks, wind up an old (but still very loud) siren, climb the ladder on to the roof of the fire truck and even handle the Jaws of Life. 

While I thought the firemen were very patient with the kids overall, I was disappointed that at least one of them thought it was appropriate to talk to the students while he was puffing on a cigarette. I guess the anti smoking message still has a long way to go in Hungary. 

- Amanda

The Casualities of English

I had two major casualties today.  The first was in my Grade 4 science class where we have been learning about animals.  Last year we did a lot of work on the different animal groups, i.e. mammals, reptiles, bird etc.  So one of the ways that we differentiated one group from another was whether they were exothermic or endothermic.  This word was a little complicated however, so I simplified it to be "keep their temperature" or "doesn't keep their temperature".  I was able to do this because the kids in Grade 3 weren't really reading from the book very much.

This year however, they're doing a lot of comprehension tasks so they've had to run into the terms warm-blooded and cold-blooded.  I hate these terms and it was really through gritted teeth that I taught it to them.  We practiced many times what these terms really mean, so hopefully they won't get confused.  So, anyway, the first casualty was the truth.

The second casualty was unfortunately, a child.  I had just given the current Grade 3s an English test, so I decided to take them outside to play while I marked them.  I was kind of distracted by marking the tests, but I did notice that the kids were off in the other side of the yard throwing something into the air.  I thought it was a ball that they'd found somewhere.  No.  It turns out that they were throwing rocks into the air just so that they could look at them as they came down.  Unfortunately, one of the girls curiosity got the better of her and it came down on the back of her head.  There wasn't a lot of blood but there was enough.

All the kids were brought back inside to have the principal interrogate them as to what they were doing.  Each of the kids were given a chance to explain their case then there was some kind of punishment doled out.  I'm not sure what it was, but it was certainly a lot stronger than the traditional "black point" that we generally give as he had nearly all six of the kids who were involved crying.

I was pretty glad when the class ended.

- Daniel.

P.S. The photos are from Amanda's class where she got them to make pictures out of leaves.  Her day was a little more cruisey than mine.

Slow news day?

A few days ago I was leaving the house when I noticed a camera crew standing around on the footpath next door. At first I thought they were just taking a smoko, or waiting for some bigshot celebrity to turn up (yeah right!) but then I realised that the camera was already rolling...and that it seemed to be taking some wonderful footage of a powerpole being painted.

Hmmm. It seems that it was a very, very slow news day in Máriapócs.

Anyway, I didn't give it any further thought, but the very next day the camera crew was back taking yet more footage of the pole! So now I was pretty curious...I mean filming a pole being painted is one thing, but filming the application of a second coat on the same pole is just crazy. So after work, when the film crew had cleared off, I dragged Daniel and Iago out to look at the pole.

As you can see from the photo, it wasn't another coat of paint that had gotten everyone so excited on the second day, it was the appearance of three little M symbols. Apparently these markers are currently being painted on powerpoles all over northern Hungary and even into Romania. Their purpose is to assist pilgrims to make their way to Máriapócs for special religious events. It's a pretty massive project and it seems that the pole next to our house had the unique honour of being the first of many thousands to get the special markers.

I guess perhaps it wasn't such a slow news day afterall...

- Amanda

The Big One-O!

This week was almost as hard as the last.  The timetable seems to be shifting under our feet even as we're teaching according to it.  On Friday for example, the principal asked Amanda where I was as I was supposed to be teaching a class in 2A.  This was news to me and any timetable that we'd been given.  As far as we were aware this class had appeared out of nowhere.  The same thing happened to Amanda later that day, she had prepared for a three hour slog in homework club with the grade 3's and 4's only to have a teacher turn up and ask her why she was there.  Now this may seem like a good thing, but these lessons take aaages to prepare, Amanda had everything ready, she had the computer all hooked up to the new smart boards and was raring to go so she felt a bit frustrated and foolish when everyone was looking at her like she wasn't even supposed to be there.  Reeeally bloody frustrating.  Especially since we have yet another change to the timetable starting Monday and we are expecting yet another one in the works.  It just doesn't make any sense to keep changing it, or at least from our own, admittedly narrow, point of view.

The kids are slowly coming around to our way of thinking.  The Grade 1s are still terrors but the older ones are settling back in to English after 3 months of not having said a word.  I was in Grade 3 the other day and was trying to settle the kids down after snack break.  So I was using my calm but authoritative voice to tell everyone to put their multitude of sandwiches, biscuits, drinks and lollies away and to get out their English books.  Detti, one of our better students up the front, was a bit more reluctant to let go of her snack so I waggled my finger and told her more forcefully at which point the biscuits disappeared into her lap but not into her bag.  I was about to repeat my instruction when she said "Daniel, Look!" and pointed at the board.  I turned around to see what she was pointing to only to see her quickly pop another biscuit into her mouth and put the rest in her bag.  I was duped by an 8 year old using the oldest trick in the book.  Crap-knuckle.

Amanda had a good story this week too.  While I was going the strict route, she was trying positive reinforcement and offering stickers to those who finished their work quietly and well.  It has worked relatively well, and at least while the sticker supply flows, the kids productivity stays constant.  Anyway, it was due to this regime that she was having a good day on Tuesday with the grade 1s but it was a little depressing because all afternoon they were yelling "Matrica, matrica!" which basically means "Mathematics! Mathematics!".  Here she is playing games, singing songs, letting them play outside and all that they wanted to do was go inside and do maths!  It was only later that we found out that mathematics is actually matematika and that matrica actually just means stickers.  Oh well, that was a relief anyway.

The other major event this week was that it was Iago's tenth birthday!  That's right, on Thursday 15th of September our old doggus broke into the double figures.  He spent his birthday gracefully accepting his senior years as any old man would: by enjoying his birthday present.

- Daniel.