Seppin Around

The Wretched Blogger Blogs

2011-10-26T14:19:00.001+02:00

So, I finally have reminded myself and have the free minute to sit down and try to turn out a blog post. It's WAY overdue.

I don't think there's every really a good place to start. Instead of giving you some sort of weaksauce week-by-week analysis, I think I'll just go for giving you some of the highlights.

I feel like I never have time to write blogposts-- this is a positive aspect of my life. Considering how much time I have wasted on the internet in the past, it's a really nice, relaxing, even liberating feeling to have a life interesting enough to live outside of the confines of the worldwide web. I live my life day-by-day, knowing that at any given moment, any, if not all of my plans may change. Here in Slovakia, planning seems to be an afterthought, and the only way a plan-zealous American can survive seems to be to adapt accordingly. The process by which substitutions are completed in this school, for example, can vastly alter your plans for having a lunch break. Having the flexibility to say "oh well," shrug, and laugh it off is the only way you don't take yourself or this job so seriously that you wind up actually getting upset and experiencing some form of resentment. And if I've learned anything about educating often-lukewarm teenagers by this point in the year, it's that the emotions you experience are inevitably reflected and taken advantage of by the classes you teach. If you have a poor attitude, it's nearly impossible for the students to drum up a positive learning space.

All this aside, EGT is a really great school, and in many ways, I find myself envious of the environment these students have as high schoolers. The students themselves are, more often than not, cooperative on most days (quiz days and Monday mornings being exceptions). Being that there are fewer than 300 students, you don't seem to see "clicks" like in US schools, and it appears that they seem to accept each other universally. I'm sure there are the inevitable intermittent conflicts between and among pockets of students, but it certainly hasn't been carried out in the hallways of the school in any case. Without a doubt, the cohesion of the student body arises from the fact that Tisovec, a village of app. 4,000, has very little to do, and is situated in the middle of a valley that takes an hour to leave in any direction. This being the case, the students have no external activities, no hangouts, nothing but each other, and whatever they can come up with to entertain themselves. The town is more or less a "fishbowl," and should students decide to venture into a pub in town (which isn't recommended anyway, as the pubs are mostly filled with unbathed, chain-smoking drunks), the news would undoubtedly return to the school director. Thus, most of the students come up with their own activities, and on the whole, most students seem athletically and scholastically engaged. The student community is arguably the best aspect of EGT.
As far as my classes are concerned, they go well on most days. It's amazing how a teacher can overestimate yet simultaneously underestimate any student, or even class, for that matter. You can be surprised by the seemingly weakest students, and disappointed by the seemingly strongest. You can presume from the nodding of heads that a class understands the material, but experience total and utter shock when the majority of them fail the quiz. There are days where you feel like you are on fire, that the lecture you're giving is captivating and that the students are absolutely focused. There are days where it's like pulling teeth to get students to participate, and it feels less like education and more like babysitting. Every day is unique, and every day is a challenge.

Back to School, Back to School

2011-09-10T16:12:00.003+02:00

I survived the first week of school without so much as a scratch. Considering the apparent chaos of arranging students, classes, class teachers, filling out class books, figuring out which room to teach in and the such, I'd say all things went pretty well. There were moments where it seemed no one really knew what exactly was going on, but everything seems settled (for now).

The school year actually began last Sunday with a church service to welcome the ~300 students and their families. This was mostly a chance to introduce ourselves as the faculty, for students to catch up after the summer and to "mingle" among the crowd.

The next day was mostly dedicated to orienting the incoming 1st year students; teachers placed students into their "home classes" (1A1, 1A2, 1B1, 1B2) based on levels of English proficiency, where the students are from, and a few other variables. This was done in order to ensure a good mixture among the student body. Meanwhile, the rest of the students (2nd-5th years) spent the day with their class teachers (kind of like homeroom teachers); I'm not sure what they did, honestly.

Tuesday, I spent most of the day trying to finalize syllabi (are you ever really done?) and figuring out what exactly I would teach and when. Again, the students spent the day with class teachers-- not sure what they did.

Wednesday, I actually had my first two classes, with my 5th year English Composition students, mostly just going over the "orientation and introduction." Thursday and Friday, I did the same with my 3rd year Upper Intermediate (UI) and 2nd year Intermediate (1 class is UI , the other I) classes.

The week was not particularly taxing as far as the teaching load was concerned. However, there was an abundance of shuffling papers and scurrying teachers trying to obtain signatures from each other, printing out syllabi, discussing which students should be where, etc. The whole week was a motion blur image of running up and down 5 flights of stairs between classrooms and offices, students crowding the previously empty hallways. The building EGT is located in was originally an army field hospital, and there is no elevator. This means that my office and classrooms are all the way up on the 5th floor (4th by Slovak/ European count), whereas the staff room is on the 1st floor. Needless to say, after this year, my legs will be absolutely ripped.

The majority of my students seem cooperative and as dedicated as high school teenagers can be. The 5th year students' levels of English proficiency is quite impressive, and they seemed receptive to the jokes I made-- always a plus. I meet with two groups of 5th years once a week each, primarily to prepare them for the written portion of their graduation exam, the "Maturita." We will be discussing how to properly compose everything from formal letters to descriptive essays to discursive arguements.
I meet with two groups of 3rd year students five times a week each. The course is an upper-intermediate course that features more intensive grammar studies, advanced reading and analytical skills.
The last two groups of my students are 2 different levels of second year students: one upper-intermediate, the other intermediate. They will be working on more of the foundational skills of English grammar structure, spoken and written abilities, and intermediate comprehension and analysis.

All classes begin the "real schedule" (as opposed to the "provisional first-week schedule") this Monday. This weekend, I plan on getting a lot of sleep. After Monday, I'm not sure I'll be afforded the luxury!

My Room

2011-09-06T19:04:00.004+02:00

These are some random photos of my apartment and the town of Tisovec.

Not a Short One

2011-08-24T07:48:00.004+02:00

A rather smooth transition marked my arrival back into the rhythm of life of East-Central Europe. I arrived into Budapest on the morning of Thursday, Aug. 18th, greeted by my former RGDTS coordinator, Dick Otterness. Over the course of the weekend, Dick and I had a nice chance to catch up and discuss current events, structural and organizational changes within RGDTS, ELCA affiliations in Hungary, as well as our own personal undertakings and developments. Budapest afforded me some continuity with my experiences last year, and enough time on my own to personally recover from travel as well as the space to briefly recapture what it means to live in this part of the world. Although altogether linguistically different, Hungary's culture often shares commonalities and trends with the culture of Slovakia; however, on both sides of the border, acknowledging these similarities is tantamount to heresy. Saturday marked my last day in Budapest, and coincidentally, marked the celebration of Hungary's St. Stephen's day-- the foundation of the Hungarian nation in the year 1000. In the afternoon, seemingly millions of people filled the streets surrounding the Danube, and amassed along the famous "chain bridge" were people enjoying the spectacles of the pleasant, sunny afternoon. An airshow was held, displaying historical aircraft flying directly above the crowded mass on the bridge. Later in the evening, a fireworks display was held above the river, the crowd gazing on as the lights shimmered against the background of the Citadel and the castle.

On Sunday, I took a brief train to Bratislava to gather with the 11 other teachers preparing for this year. I was met at the trainstation by our regional representative, Arden Haug, who took me to the Theological Faculty at Comenuis Univerity, where our orientation was held. The week was filled with an intensive, packed schedule; discussing topics of life and culture in Central Europe, Slovak language training, the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Gymnaziums in Slovakia and, perhaps most importantly, how to teach the level of students with whom we will be dealing.

The primary role of these Lutheran bilingual schools is the preparation of students for entrance into the university system. Students attending these schools in Bratislava, Liptovsky Mikulaš, Košice, Tisovec, as well as one in Cieszyn, Poland are subjected to a rigorous and demanding 5 year program, in which they study univeristy prep courses not only in Slovak, but also in English. First year students may take up to 20 hours of English instruction. By the time they enter into their successive years, students are able not only to communicate in the English language, but also proficiently study subjects in English with a cognitive, academic approach. Most of these schools and their curriculums resulted from the direct efforts of American Lutheran missionaries who arrived in Slovakia in the early 1990s, after the fall of communism. Claudia Nelson, our program facilitator and orientation leader, was one of the first teachers to arrive in Slovakia at that time. She explained some of the difficulties in re-establishing a model of education "buried" under the imprint of communist control. She explained the importance and relevance of establishing these schools in post-communist Slovakia. EGT and similar schools represent a historical re-establishment of education which stresses moral and ethical training from a Christian background. This was not permitted during the communist regime. I am excited and honored to be invited by EGT to teach students of such a high standard.

Rick Steves on Travel

2011-07-27T05:09:00.003+02:00

From the ELCA Website:

"In this engaging soliloquy, Rick lays out his personal philosophy -- and theology -- about the nature of faithful travel."

http://archive.elca.org/communication/ricksteves/faithfultravel.html

Away We Go (Again)!

2011-07-18T22:28:00.003+02:00

For those of you who don't know, and I suspect the majority do not, I have accepted a contract through the ELCA to teach in Slovakia, starting September 2011. The contract runs for 10 months and places me in Tisovec, where I will teach at the Evangelicke Gymnazium (it's like a private high school). Subjects taught will include: English writing, literature, culture and institutions in English-speaking nations, history, etc. I've already got a lot of ideas on how I'd like to teach some things, and how to inject some of my personality into the classroom but I'm waiting for formal instruction as to the can-do's of the year.

I'll be leaving for Europe on August 16th, and our in-country orientation in Bratislava begins Aug. 21st. The first day of classes will begin Sept. 4 (I believe). I don't have a physical address for my apartment for mailing, but I'm sure if you send it to the school's address, they will be happy to pass it on to me. That address:

Evangelicke Gymnazium Tisovec

Jesenskeho 836

98061 Tisovec, Slovakia

If you'd like to learn more about the school, you can visit the website: http://www.egt.sk/egt1/mainEng.php?lan=ang&page=home.php&tpl=oznamy&data=oznamy

So, yes. This means I'll probably be trying to revive some life into this blog. Does it mean I'll get any better at that? Maybe.

2011-05-30T10:35:00.004+02:00

A writer's insomnia is both his blessing and curse. His life will be expected to resume at it's regularly scheduled time, and his biological clock will soon enough repay him for his momentary musings. However, his best ally in the creative process is a fleeting manic moment of unrest and unencumbered free flow. As the surrounding world is sound asleep, he delves into a burgeoning, wild unconscious-made-concious. Tapping away at a keyboard with reckless disregard to revision, he unleashes a stream of consciousness that erupts from the friction of tossed bedsheets and hot pillows. Here, the inner critic is subdued: perhaps the only aspect of his existence, which isn't set ablaze in the frantic midnight hours. No deadlines, no expectation, no directions but his own. His ambush onto the blank spaces of the white of pages goes off with military speed and precision. This is his moment; his time to rage, to laugh, to cry, to fear and to rejoice in the cacophonous firing cannons of synapses. He writes to escape the past, and venture into the uncertainty of future. As he battles fatigue and interruption, shell-shocked thoughts begin to ricochet and strike against his mind. Flashes of memories and fantasies collide against each other, blinding his sense of direction. He begins to question. What? Where? Why? The bright light of dawn melts upward outside of his window, bathing the horizon in heat, unsettling the birds to their choruses-- this, he knows, signals the end of the fight. A new day awaits, filled with those very commitments of which he feels no affect in the waxing twilight hours. Exhaustion soon overtakes him. Energy diminishes. As he nears the last trickle of energized thoughts, he hits a wall, where he's left with the dilemma of attempting a few hours of unfulfilling sleep, or powering through to the next day. Regardless of choice, the outcome remains a red-eyed, unenthusiastic afternoon at work, where the fruits of his late night expedition go unspoken. However, the victories attained remain among his most memorable, cherished experiences.

A Brief Summary of Facts

2011-05-02T22:58:00.002+02:00

Yes, I'm home. Been home since the end of July last year, in fact. I'm a ridiculously horrible blogger as regards timeliness and updating things in a relevant manner. With this admission in mind, let's move on to a basic summary of things that have happened since I've returned:

I spent the first 4 months home unemployed. The gravity of the economic downturn really hit hard, and I realized that the market for a graduate of German Language and Literature wasn't awesome.

This period of unemployment eventually led me to taking jobs in restaurants as a server for a few months. That wasn't awesome either, but I needed the money. Inconsistency of schedule and actual income led to taking a job at a Brooks Brothers factory outlet, where I work now. It's not always ideal, but the thoughtless repetition of folding clothes and the ability to relate with clients and coworkers make it an easy place to collect thoughts for future plans.

I've discovered that moving to a new place where you don't necessarily have an abundance of ties is a really difficult transition. Meeting new people is difficult; meeting the "right" people is harder.

They finally caught Osama bin Laden.

I actually miss Slovakia a lot at times. Despite my realist writing style and sometimes pessimistic voice, it was actually a beautiful experience. Eye-opening at times, frustrating at others, and more often than not confusing, there was still a sense of a life that didn't revolve around the mindless consumerist apparatus that comes to highlight Western culture.

I've taken up running, mostly to stay in shape, but it also clears my mind. I ran my first 5k this past week and hope to run more of them. Eventually, I'd like to run longer distance races.

Central North Carolina is kind of a boring place for a single guy in his mid-twenties who grew up outside of Atlanta. Yeah, there are venues and decent places for recreation, but it seems kinda boring. And I lived in a village in rural Slovakia.

More things have happened but I'm not sure they're interesting to read about.

Hurry Up and Wait

2010-07-23T14:47:00.003+02:00

The last few days are upon me, and it's obvious. My funds are completely tapped. I have little to no food left in the refrigerator, and I've resorted to those desperate measures one finds themselves esorting to when they're trying to use up the last bit of everything: hard-boiled egg sandwiches, shaving with a bar of soap, wearing my glasses because I ran out of contact solution. It's kind of comically ironic that this year of humility will end on this note of absolute destitution. Nevertheless, I'm getting by and the hours keep ticking away until I leave on Tuesday.

By now, many of the YAGMs are back home, and pictures are emerging all over the "Facebook world" of sad goodbyes and happy welcomes. Pictures of exciting rediscoveries of fast food places and drinking water fountains. It's strange to see these pictures of the world I'm about to go back to, but also relieving in a strange way.

My bags are for the most part packed, my bike torn apart and boxed up, my room empty of the photos and adornments on the walls, which made it distinguishable as "my room." I'm floating on to next week, and looking forward to meeting my family in Raleigh, looking forward to settling back into "my life," that's been waiting, on hold. Besides, there are Bulls' games to attend, tacos to be eaten and hot weather to enjoy (here, it's been in the mid-80's and everyone seems to think they're going to melt). I look forward to talking to people back at the church, meeting with my friends back in Georgia, and yes, strangely, even meandering through the aisles of the most wretched place on Earth: Wal-Mart (once a redneck, always a redneck).

Still, this notion of leaving has yet to meet accompaniment by tears or any sense of sadness. Don't get me wrong, I'll probably be a little nostalgic at the end, but for now, I'm excited about what awaits me; mainly, I'm pumped about not having to live on scraps.

I Say Goodbye, but We Say Hello.

2010-07-16T17:05:00.003+02:00

Returning from our final seminar in Sarajevo, I'm caught up in a few of the emotions at leaving my home-away-from home in Slovakia in about a week and a half. There is so much to think about in knowing that in just a few weeks, I'll be on the other side of this year, thinking and feeling completely different emotions from now.

On the one hand, I am filled with the excitement that leaving for home brings. To be back in my native culture, to avoid some of the more annoying day-to-day frustrations of being an expat/ volunteer in another country and another culture. I look forward to sleeping in my own bed, showering in my own shower, and setting a schedule that makes sense to me and to others I encounter. I am excited to see family and friends and to try to convey to them my year to the best that I can. I look forward to catching up on a year of being gone, with the shock of changes at home and finally, recognizing what changes have taken place in me during the course of the 11 and half months I've been away.

On the other hand, I feel a certain sadness, or strange emotion that I cannot even tangibly describe to many people at the notion of leaving a place where I have laughed, cried, felt lost and come out on the other side finding myself completely at home. I feel disappointment in myself for not continually pushing myself to accomplish more than I could, and at times I question what I have accomplished. Perhaps certain relationships deserved more attention and others less, perhaps I should have done more. It's hard to know exactly how much you're giving and whether you're giving in the capacity that is truly needed. I feel anxiety in the notion of potentially unfinished business. Still, I recognize that this year is not merely about what I can do for others, but also about what others have to share with me in a sense of "unison of experience." It's also important to not be too terribly critical on yourself.

Over the course of the year, I've learned what it means to be a volunteer-- well, let me rephrase that and say that I've learned that no one really seems to know what it means to be a volunteer, or how to host one for that matter. For that reason, the expectations can either be set too low or too high. I fought hard to make things make sense to me, and I know a lot of my fellow YAGMs and fellow volunteers have felt at times the same sense in not knowing exactly if and where their duties really help in the bigger or smaller pictures.

It's also hard to gauge the significance of this experience in terms of my future life, and the future lives of those I thought to serve. Perhaps they have taught me more than I could have ever taught them. One of the difficulties of volunteering is just this paradox of wanting to help, wanting to give, but in the end, taking more away from your service than you gave; at least with regards to learning about another culture, your culture and yourself, and how those all fit together to bring you where you are. In any case, and without being merely critical, I am immensely grateful for this opportunity I have been given. In many ways, I feel as if more time here would be more fruitful, but then I'm reminded of what my father always taught me about being in a place for any given amount of time; "it's always hard at first, and right when you get used to it and start to enjoy it, it's time to go."

There are immense emotions with leaving, and each of these emotions are tied with memories of how this year has run its course: arriving in Bratislava for language lessons, riding the train to Slavkov and being welcomed by Vlado and Stano, surviving the winter through the help of friends, listening to Pet'o speak of the historical racism he and other Roma have encountered in seeking employment, feeling as if I had finally become a part of this community, late night conversations with other volunteers about our experiences and seeing progress with Julo's negativity issues (which, I'd like to claim at least some responsibility for, for closure's sake). It's been a wild ride, and even to this point, it seems like the end is still far out of sight, but I know quickly approaching. With less than two weeks left, I'm desperately trying to squeeze the last bit of experience, emotion and passion out of being with these people, knowing the probability of seeing them again is low.

However, I often feel that the biggest part of this experience has yet to happen; namely, sharing the experience, and becoming a part of the dialogue of working against racism, volunteering, service to others and "mission." The work I, and that my fellow volunteers have done here seems to be but a preamble to the significance of what we have come to do. In our own unique ways, in our own styles, and from different places, we each found ourselves being called to serve, and after coming to lose and later find ourselves in our hosting cultures, searching for meaning and significance, the journey does not end with our arrival home. To me, going home will be the end of a small chapter of our direct service, but the indirect effect of sharing our experiences will be of perhaps greater significance than that, which we had hoped to accomplish while here. We continue our lives at home, bringing our stories, our memories, our own meanings from this year with us, and begin to apply them in ways we cannot yet fathom. The ripples of this year will be profound, despite our unconsciousness of them. Perhaps in leaving, we will serve both our home and host communities a greater amount of good than we could in playing in a Roma band, or caring for Roma children, or digging trenches for waterlines with marginalized Roma youth. Perhaps in the sharing of our experiences with others, we will bring more understanding, more justice and more peace to not only the communities in which we have served, but also to the world in which we live (if I can say so without sounding self-important, or naive...).

So, I leave this year, this community with mixed emotions, unaware of where life will place me, and unaware of the exact meaning of this year, and where it will all fit in. There are still many questions that are unanswered, and perhaps will stay unanswered. I know that I will constantly be questioning this experience and the effects (and affects, psychologically speaking) within it. Yet, I also leave with at least a small sense of inner peace, knowing that, despite sometimes feeling underutilized and without impact, this year has brought me somewhere, and that I have accomplished some good, and that I will continue to strive to accomplish that good, and to share what I will take with me. In that regard, this "year" has only just begun.

Lots of Catching Up to Do

2010-06-10T18:11:00.005+02:00

Honestly, I'm a pretty mediocre if not poor blogger.

I started this year with the intentions of updating the blog constantly, and I guess between living and struggling and enjoying my time here, I missed out on the fact that writing to my audience and to the people back home is a pretty important aspect of the journey itself. I forget that there are people who read about my experiences, at home and even closer to where I am; those from home wondering how I am, other volunteers who look for the literal companionship of blogging and new recruits seeking to gain a sense of what they're in for, as they prepare to begin their own journeys.

The last month and a half have been filled with so much rain, that flooding has ruined several train tracks throughout Eastern Slovakia. For the reason of rain, I have not gone to work as often, and doing nothing, as I've noticed here, quickly leads to a depressive mindset, and hence, the lack of writing.

Reaching back two weeks ago, I met up with my Aunt and Uncle as they were visiting family in Poland. I took a 2hr bus ride out to Zakopane and overnight-ed at their hotel there. We went out for a couple of Polish meals and wandered through the city, and on Saturday, we went out to a lake. Unfortunately, it started pouring again. It was nice to shortly visit them, to meet Waldimar, Ron's Polish cousin, and to experience a bit more of Poland. I even got some new clothes, because everything in Poland is cheaper, and my aunt Lynn is an awesome godmother. Still haven't been to Krakow, but the urge is growing rapidly.

Come to think of it, I don't think I ever even mentioned my parents when they came out here... Yep, that's how bad of a blogger I am. So, back in... cough... cough... March, my folks decided to come out for two weeks, first coming in to Budapest, traveling up to visit my site in the Big Slavkov for a week, and then taking a week of holiday in Balatonfüred, Hungary. Their arrival coincided with the end of our RGDTS seminar in Hungary; I left a night early to go find their hotel in Budapest. After looking around for probably an hour, asking in the absolute minimum of Hungarian language that I know, I finally found their hotel. When I walked into the reception, it was your average looking American hotel (maybe a bit nicer), but the culture shock was immediate. I felt as if I had entered into a palace compared to where I have been working and living in the past months. I went up to my parents room, and smelled myself (after having not showered for a few days), and decided it was best to go ahead and bathe. Working here this year has really shown me to be incredibly humble at so many moments, while probably being very offensive to others' olfactory senses. Their visit was really an amazing time, despite our struggles in understanding Hungarian and why nothing was open in Balatonfüred and why, if it is supposed to be a tourist town, no one there seemed to speak any English, German or Slovak.

That ought to catch us up to this past week (despite me leaving out other random things), and our last seminar with ECSSR (I think I wrote that write). On Monday, I left for our seminar, which was in Svit, which is really only about 5 miles from Poprad, so I decided to go on the bike path. All told, it was only about a 10-12 mile ride from Slavkov to Svit, but the ride was great, and I was just so glad to be able to go by bike. Beautiful weather, completely sunny; even got a nice sunburn, which I thought to be non-existent in Slovakia. The seminar itself was a nice gathering, we spoke of our thoughts and feelings on the issue of going home in a few short months. It's mindboggling to me to think that in 9 weeks, I'll be getting on a plane. I'm on the one hand incredibly excited, but still so invested in my work here and still so intent on living here in this moment, that I try not to get carried away. I know in leaving I will feel a certain emotion to a certain extent, but as my colleague working in Budapest, Matt said, "it will be time." At the seminar, we went to Lomnický peak, which is the second highest peak in the Tatra mountain range, where there is an observatory. Going to Lomnický peak was on my list of to-do's before I even left for Slovakia, so being able to mentally mark off that one is incredibly satisfying... I'm still so pumped about it. Came back today on the same bike path... Awesomeness ensued.

Today, I've been cleaning up my room, and sort of beginning to go through my things and get rid of some of the excess stuff I brought (still probably a conservative amount for many people). The nice thing about being a guy at this placement is that you can give away clothes and know that they will get worn by someone. It reminds me of when my mom would ask me to go through my things to get rid of those items which I hadn't worn in a long time. We'd gather them all up and give them away to charity. The main difference between that and this, is that I actually get to see the people that these clothes and things go to, to know that they are needed and being put to use by those who need them. In contrast to buying new things for yourself, being able to put those items that you once bought for yourself into someone else's hands and know that it means so much for that person is such an overwhelmingly good feeling. Sure, there's maybe some selfish feeling of being charitable in the act itself, but I think the overriding emotion is that you're actually continuing a cycle of charity that is how the world ought to function; without the expectation of any sort of profit for yourself, but merely in the knowing that you're giving back what's been given to you.

A Tale from the Hnilec Hills, or, How I Learned to Cook Pants

2010-05-25T11:13:00.007+02:00

At the beginning of last week, I was approached by Stano and asked if I'd like to go along with a few of the guys and a few of the staff members on a week-long project in Hnilec, Slovakia. The details of the work involved kind of passed me by as tried to gather the important details; the method I've used for learning Slovak passes up most details and attempts to understand the important things: what, where, when, how, etc. So, inevitably, I miss a lot of things; nevertheless, I wasn't too worried about it. The big thing that really caught my attention was that we'd be sleeping there and not coming back to Slavkov during the week.
Now, I typically would have jumped at the chance to get away under the auspices of "vacation" or "R&R," but when I know that I'm going to be working long days of physical, manual labor, the idea of not coming back at night isn't really all that appealing, especially considering the main detractor, that of sleeping on the floor in sleeping bags. Still, I coughed up the courage and decided it would be a good idea for me to go with the guys, and that experiences like this don't come around too often.
So Tuesday morning, at 6:00am we headed out: Pan Jozef Hladek (a sixty-something-year-old retired soldier who works with us at "Dom"), Momsy and Vlado (two of the work-team staffers), Miro, Rišo and Jerry (three of our clients). Oh, and myself. The road down to Hnilec (a small village about 50km south of us) was raining, and winding through the hills to the point where I had to finally roll down the window, lest I become ill. We get there around 8:30am, and start to work, scraping off the old plaster on the walls with spatulas. It's tedious, little work, and after several hours, it makes your arms feel like rubber; just up and down and scrape-scraping, being careful not to breathe in the dust, because it makes everything it touches feel like sandpaper. We break for lunch, which, to everyone's surprise was a really good, warm meal cooked by Pan Hladek. Don't ask me the name of the dish, nor the recipe, since I was too hungry to notice or care, but seriously, no one knew he could cook anything, much more make it taste as good as everything he made. After lunch, back to work until about 6pm. At that point, we ate another home-run dinner by Chef P.H. Cook-your-face-off, and then it was about time to go to bed. On the floor. In sleeping bags. Yeah, it wasn't great. The room smelled pretty bad from seven smelly working dudes, and there was all the dust floating around in the air from the old plaster... and about three of the seven people who were there snored so loud I could barely sleep.
This pattern pretty much continued throughout the week, working about 12-14 hours a day, sleeping little, eating less and less as the week went on, since we ran out of food about by Thursday. Friday I think though, was about the worst.
So, the whole week, it rained, until Friday, where the weather, in my anthropomorphised vision of it, decided to just play tricks on us, throwing really nice sunny half-hours between really crappy, drenching-rain half hours. Friday's task was to pour a concrete foundation for a new deck on the house. So, Momsy, Jerry, Rišo and I are all working outside, mixing concrete and hauling it uphill to the backyard in wheelbarrows, and it's this on-again-off-again rain that really just starts getting to you. It's warm, so you take off your jacket, but then it starts raining, so you run inside the house and warm up and put on your jacket, and then you go back outside and it stopped raining so you take it back off, but then it starts raining again so... Ahh, screw it, I'll just get wet.
By the end of the day, I had mud up to my thighs, and slept like a log, regardless of bear-snoring neighbors.
It was an interesting week, and despite the weather, we ended up having a little fun from time to time, and I had a good time getting to know Jerry a little better (as he was the one with me, out in the rain, digging the trench for the deck on Wednesday). But I learned a valuable lesson: regardless of how soaked in rain and mud your pants become, never set them on top of a wood-fire stove, or they will catch on fire...

Working for the Weekend?

2010-04-27T11:07:00.003+02:00

This week, I've been assigned to assist in checking out a new firm that will potentially provide work to our clients at the house. The project is sanding and staining a 2 story home in the nearby town of Stará Lesná, and the project was assigned to myself and one of the clients, Júlo. My main job is to make sure that it's work that our guys can handle, that the pay is fair, conditions livable, etc. so I mostly oversee Júlo to make sure that he can take care of himself during work. Júlo, who is 20 years old and comes from the town of Hostovice (not too far from the Polish and Ukraine borders), has fought with various health issues his whole life. Julo was born with slight handicaps in his right arm and right leg, his liver does not properly function, and he is severely hard of hearing (you pretty much have to yell at him). This set aside, Júlo has been one of the easiest clients to work with during this year, as he is generally very sociable and polite. However, due to his handicaps and health issues, the house has a difficult time finding work that is suitable for Júlo, and usually he winds up spending most afternoons at the house cleaning or complaining about not being able to leave and not having any money. So, this week is a test-run to see how Júlo actually handles certain jobs, and to see how this new partner (House4You, a Slovak housing construction firm) handles Júlo: so far so good. We're working with a guy from the firm named Milan, who's been really patient with Júlo, and doesn't seem to mind screaming at the top of his lungs to explain things. In addition to merely overseeing Júlo's performance, a part of my duty is to actually work there as well, so it's not like I'm just sitting on my butt the entire time. It's not terribly difficult work, but we do work a full day, sometimes working from 8AM to 6PM, and it is a lot of working on wobbly scaffolding high up in the air, so it's not necessarily for those who don't enjoy heights or wobbly scaffolding. The first day brought winds that knocked over Milan's entire bucket of stain on top of me and all over the wall, so we had to work really fast to fix our mistakes, but since then, the weather has just been beautiful. Júlo seems to be doing really well at the work site, but I feel like I have to remind him that work isn't necessarily all about the money (the job only pays €1.75/hr), because if left to his own devices, I think he'd work out there 24/7, as he's trying to save up for a laptop (it borders on obsession). It's interesting and kind of weird to hear in my own voice the echoed words of my parents who taught me financial responsibility and the value of hard work for the sake of itself, as I attempt to teach Júlo that there is inherent value in finishing a day of work and being happy with that in of itself. Nevertheless, I feel a little strange and perhaps a little hypocritical trying to explain all of this when I, myself, cannot complain about financial situations as I'm on a monthly stipend. In the eyes of many of our clients, I'm just a rich American who could afford to take a year off to go to Slovakia, no matter how hard I try to explain that it's the Church who are supporting me and enabling my experiences here, and that my life here is pretty far from that of a rich person's. I'm not starving, but like many of them, I go without meals every now and then, and I don't always have the money to go out and do everything I'd like to do. But then, I suppose it all boils down to whether or not you define "rich" as "lots of money," which I don't.

(Slightly Disappointing) Post-Easter Update

2010-04-14T15:22:00.004+02:00

This past weekend, meeting up with other young adult volunteers from the Reformed Church in America, the Lutheran Church of Missouri Synod and the German "Diakonisches Jahr im Ausland" ("Diaconal Year Abroad"), as well as reading blogs of other YAGMs and volunteers, I had a chance to hear stories about the Easter traditions in Slovakia and Hungary. Stories abounded about churches packed so full that only standing room was left, traditions of men within the village treating the women with a spray of perfume or the less-polite version of dumping a bucket of cold water on them. However, my experience was far less interesting, if not bordering on the line of disappointing.
I woke up on Sunday morning, ready to go to church service. I invited some of the boys to come along but they all said it would be long and boring and cold in the church, so I went instead with my neighbor/ housemate, Igor. He and I took seats on the upper balcony and waited for services to begin. I waited to see the late-crowd show up, but instead, the service began with a maximum of 15 people in attendance. Now, perhaps this is due to the coldness of the church; I'm not kidding when I say it had to be about 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) colder inside than it was outside. Nevertheless, for me, who is used to attending Easter Sunday services that rival only Christmas services in terms of church attendance, it was extremely odd to see very few people from a village of nearly 1,150 show up on perhaps the biggest-to-second-biggest day of the church year, especially considering the church-turnout for villages much smaller sounded to be packed-out. The service itself was only a one hour service, so I'm not sure why everyone I talked to seemed to explain that Easter day services are the longest in the year, and that's a reason not to go.

My experience here was far less interesting and exciting than those stories from other volunteers, as I witnessed almost no Slovak traditions carried out, other than to visit Monika's grandparents on Monday evening. I even half-thought about dumping a bucket of water on her, just to get the feeling of tradition, but I passed when I realized it was cold and rainy on Monday.

I don't quite know why this Easter was so nonchalant, perhaps my expectations were too high, perhaps there are church-politics involved that I am unaware of; I'm sure I could come up with hypothetical reasons all day. Maybe I was just in the wrong places at the wrong times... Nevertheless, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the Easter that was presented to me in Veľký Slavkov-- for all I could see, it was just another day. From what I hear, this is not indicative of the Easter throughout Slovakia and/or Hungary, and it all just seems a little weird to me. Maybe that's just life in this place; as a good friend of our family says, "Normal is just a setting on a washing machine."

2010-04-05T11:50:00.002+02:00

A chilly, rainy Monday gives me a chance to stay inside and catch up on emails, writing and keeping up with the social networking sites we've all come to know and love/hate. It's the first real rain I think I've seen in Velky Slavkov since about October, and despite the instant urge to curse the gray skies, I'm somehow pacified by the dripping-and-dropping against the tin roof outside of my window.

The "vacationesque" quality of leaving for our RGTDS seminar, followed by two weeks of hosting and traveling with my parents is now gone and facing the reality of resuming my "work" comes at the end of Easter weekend. I was certainly glad to have the time off for myself, but it inevitably feels as if leaving and coming back is more difficult than just staying put and being among the community. It's as if every time that I return to the house, I have to re-orient myself to the mannerisms and behaviors of the clients. Däško will ask me for my phone number for the fifteenth time, a few of the boys will persistently ask if I will let them into the office to check their emails or watch YouTube (they know I'm the only one who usually lets them), and some will show enthusiasm to see me before turning a 180 and not speaking a word to me for days. It's routine, and I know to expect it every time I go away. By now, I've learned to be patient enough to ride it out and get to that core of mutual experience that makes living here not only possible, but that gives my year meaning and purpose that only months ago I thought was inconceivable. One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome for any volunteer must be this barrier of creating and maintaining relationships so loosely defined by mere presence that one minute you have it and the next it disappears into the fog of what feels like absurdity. There is no one to blame, and really, if you circumspect the concept of blame long enough, you realize it is a rather pointless distraction for what really needs to happen. Instead, it's best to trod along and keep in mind that in another few days, the circumstances will change and what are ups for certain relationships will be downs for others and vice-versa. Just as it took months to find the place to get to, to carve and refine the ways of being that allow me to live among the community, it takes a few days to really settle back in.

With less than four months left of my service, the idea of leaving this place still seems quite foreign. There is a persistent impression that I am only now getting to know the clients after working on understanding the barriers of language, culture and mentalities; that only now am I finding my role and adapting to the needs of others while maintaining my own. My parents' visit and the subsequent time away from the house, however, reveals that catch-22, which I find myself in: living across two continents, but fully on neither. On the one hand, I have my home, friends and family, with whom I relate to and intimately know and love, but with whom maintaining contact and interaction is, to say the least, difficult. On the other hand, I have a home here, which shares day-to-day experience, bonding and the hope that tomorrow will be a better day, but with individuals with whom I cannot truly relate to and with whom intimacy is a scarce, if nonexistent commodity. For me, all of this throws into question whether all of our relationships are merely situational. If that from which we are borne is what gives us so much of who we are, are then our relationships merely forged upon that which we experience in the day-to-day? Are the commonalities among friendships brought on, not by our commonalities before meeting, but by those given through experience together? I digress from the philosophical inquiry, dare I lose most of my readers. Nevertheless, the disjunction between my life here and my life at home becomes all the more apparent as the thought of my return home looms on the horizon, and my mind seems plagued with the question of how to vindicate the disparity.

So, I buckle down and return to work.

Truckin'

2010-03-03T07:48:00.002+01:00

Been a while since I've updated, and that's mostly because things at the house and in life in general have been shifting around. Change is one of those things that happens whether you expect it or not. The past few months without Stano here were rough, but showed me that I need to find my own autonomy in creating projects and programs for myself and for the clients. It has also shown me that I need to integrate a little better within the society at large. Picking up a night of service at the house has been a helpful change; it gives me a chance to talk to the guys outside of work, and get to be a counsel of sorts for anything they want to talk about. A couple of the clients have come to me just to talk about life, about their personal places and why they're at the house, and I really appreciate their willingness to share even if I have little to no advice to give. Last night, Julo and Miro and I sat around and talked about continental shift and why earthquakes happen. At least I know my college education won't go to waste as fast as I thought it would. Just being there and doing nothing can make a big difference with these guys, and I feel I'm starting to get the hang of how it all works, even though I'm at about the halfway point in service.
So, despite my lack of educational background in the field, I've been thrust into the realm of social psychology and social work in general. I think the first several months have been coming to terms with the issues, learning what needs to be done, how to communicate, etc-- adjustments that needed to be made to survive with my mental sanity in tact. I felt like a lot of my time was spent meandering about the house trying to figure out what is going on here. Now, I feel like I can start to work with the clients on things that matter, and try to find ways for them to find themselves without them knowing I'm doing so, and in many ways, I think the advice I'll be giving will be good for me to reiterate to myself.
My recent thought here lately is to try to play a sort of guidance counseling role here, since I see that gap that is missing here. I am trying to think back to all of my psych courses (Human Growth and Development and Erikson's stages in particular) to try to work with the guys in developing stronger identity-structures and to hopefully at least show them some tools of how they can build and revise their life structures-- this isn't going to be easy, and I think it's best to not tackle it head-on, but to get them thinking is the first step. I think this is the best lesson I can provide them, although I'm not an expert in the field. The problem, as I see it, is that they've been given "fish" their whole lives and never been taught "to fish." They need much more than to simply learn how to work, or how to manage money; they also need to cultivate a sense of self-worth from which to build their autonomy.
After their months away finishing their studies, Eva and Stano have come back to the house, which is a sigh of relief for me, since I wasn't really sure who to look to, or even what to ask. They might only play a placebo-esque roll to how I feel at the house, but I'm glad to have them back on staff to answer questions and to give a sense of direction to the whole organization.
Aside from work at the house, I've also decided to pitch in a hand (literally) at a youth group in Poprad who are starting a softball team, and meet on Mondays for free-time activities (I play a lot of foosball or "Kicker" as we called it in Germany). It might not be a direct correlative to my work in Slavkov, but it's another community to engage in, and, as I've begun to see, those are essential to living successfully-- anywhere.
Finally, the weather around here lately has been amazing; clear skies and in the high 30's to 40's. I was surprised to see that the Tatras were still there after months of overcast skies, when it looks like they just up and disappeared. Longer days and warmer temperatures facilitate more productive and creative thought than the "I'd rather stay in bed" drone of winter. Spring is the growth of new life-- the resurrection of the body after months of cold, sedentary winter. If I imagine hell, I imagine it to be cold, gray, boring, and dead. Nicer weather means more time spent outside, better flow of endorphins and thus a better overall outlook to finding solutions to problems at the house and letting go of the ones I can't fix. All-in-all, it's exciting to finally feel like I've hit a stride that might maintain, to see something besides infinite-white and gray everywhere I look and to find peace with being. After feeling locked down by the cold (we Southerners don't handle this kind of cold too well... and I know it's been a rough winter back home too!), it's nice to be able to pull my head out of the ground and to look forward and behind. To create, to plan, while simultaneously reflecting on what's come about from my struggles and difficulties.
In the words of the Grateful Dead:
Sometimes the lights all shinin' on me;
Other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long, strange trip its been.

Testing for Progress

2010-02-05T14:41:00.004+01:00

Mid-January to Early February have been trying months for everyone involved here at the house. To begin with, several of the sponsors and the employing associates (the people we work construction for), for whatever reason, did not pay for the work we did in December. This means we've been living on a highly reduced income. We've had to tighten our belts, literally; lunch for the past few days have seen some quite interesting and inventive concoctions of potatoes (the ones we harvested in September), and even the clients have less money for their own personal groceries. The policy of meals at the house is that the house will provide a common breakfast and lunch, but that the clients will provide their own dinners-- this is to promote the idea of personal autonomy, and self-sufficiency, which is something that almost none of the clients who come from the children homes know about. Since the clients have less money for groceries, Julo and Marek (clients I seem to get along with the most) and I make dinner together here at Mlyn about twice a week, each of us providing something to the meal. For everyone involved, it works out well-- the guys get dinner and a movie (we hook up my computer to the projector downstairs), and I get dinner and a chance to bond with the clients away from the sometimes-sterile feeling of the house.

Second, Stano and Eva returned to school to complete their Magister degrees (somewhat equivalent of the Master's) and won't be back here full-time until the beginning of March. Technically, the house still functions, and there are enough staff members to keep it that way, but for me, I'm finding it difficult without their management and, probably more importantly, their counsel. Not quite the sinking ship quality, but there seems to be a certain air of regularity missing, or at least the sense of normality that it took me over 4 months to finally get. This segues nicely into the third obstacle: namely, winter.

As a result of the cold weather and lack of funds, coming up with free-time activities and programs for the guys has been quite difficult. It's hard to get them to want to go outside to play sports, no one has any money to go to the climbing wall or AquaCity, and for the guys, the idea of learning English was something they altogether abandoned after the first few weeks. Especially with Stano and Eva gone, I have felt more and more like I have less and less to do here. I can tangibly feel resentment from the clients building up, many of whom mistake my lack of direction as a form of laziness (I hear these things, because they think I don't know Slovak). The boys often lack the social graces of which we are accustomed, such as politeness, or at least not speaking ill, and it makes it very difficult to want to engage in their company, and at that point, it just seems to roll into a cycle of negativity. This is where the fault-line of this work rests: learning to love unconditionally, even when it means dealing with those who do not reciprocate.

Speaking to the staff, they explain that most of these boys are psychologically damaged from their upbringing in the Soviet-Era orphanages. These orphanages were huge, housed hundreds of children at a time, and were not particularly guided by any successful philosophy of raising children into autonomous, self-standing citizens. Apparently, there was an overemphasis on providing and a lack of emphasis on teaching responsibility, social skills or even standard skills for living. Eva cited examples, "They do not know how to cook, how to clean their dishes when they are finished. They do not know how to wash their clothes. Everything was run by the orphanages; a worker would bring them meals, and take their dishes from them. When their clothes were dirty, they just threw them in baskets, like you would throw garbage in a trashcan. Someone would just take the old things out and bring the new ones in."

It is difficult to really understand how deep the problems of our clients go, and further to not only recognize, but also attempt to reconcile them. You expect a twenty-four-year-old man to adhere to the behavior of peers his age, but when you see him as the seven-year-old that he behaves as and lives as, you see a startling and sad reality. It's so easy to forget that these are not merely young men who need jobs and shelters, but boys who do not know the building blocks for life on their own. This is work that takes an exhausting toll on everyone working here. It is also especially important that I recognize my naïveties as a new-comer and as a volunteer, and that I do not allow myself to get carried away in anxiety and stress. In the words of Pali, "It will drive you insane."

Today, Eva and I had a meeting and had a re-evaluation of my progress and my "plan." I probably need those a lot more than most people here, but I can live with admitting I need that reassurance. So the revised plan as of now will see more involvement on my part as a staff figure; I will have evening service twice in the week with the boys-- this means I will stay in the house overnight to supervise and check that everything is OK, create programming, watch films with the boys, etc. I think this will help establish more rapport, and perhaps even more "authority" (when I say authority, it's not so much in the sense that I will have the power to tell them what to do, as much as having meaning and sense stand behind what I do, and the programming I come up with) with the guys and will create more responsibilities for me at the house, which until now has been somewhat lacking. I have noticed, from experience alone, that simply being on-hand for the guys helps ease the tensions, and I think sharing more of their responsibilities, and sharing the responsibilities of the staff will help integrate me as more of a "member of the crew" as opposed to the "outsider-visiting" role that has been lingering since I've arrived. Still, I find it funny that only now are we settling these issues; most of the other YAGMs are "counting down" to our end-dates, whereas I'm still trying to figure out where exactly I fit in. Of course, most of the other YAGMS, from what I can ascertain, have very different positions with more solid structures and defined job descriptions. This organization simply works on a different wavelength, and therefore doesn't lend itself to such neat categorical thinking. We're working with people, working "on" people; this sort of work demands patience and flexibility, and I've certainly had to expand my stocks of both.

All things told, I'm optimistic for the "new start"-- from an outsider's perspective, it would seem frustrating to have to continually fight for the ground you're standing on, and that working in this facility sees constant advances and recessions. From my experiential point of view, it seems to merely be the way things work, and sort of a microcosm of how life works in general. Ups and downs; the present moment continually recedes and we stand in a moment juxtaposed between what has been and what will be. As soon as we recognize where we are, it has already changed. Working with these young men is no different, and despite what seem like setbacks, life goes on, and perhaps merely being a constant, steady hand with whom to work and live and be is really all they need-- like everyone else.

A Venture to the East

2010-01-18T17:17:00.005+01:00

Often the instinct is to call Slovakia an Eastern European nation. This was a topic of conversation discussed at our DIP event, our adviser at RGDTS, Dick, maintaining that there exist tangible differences among those nations in the Central European region and those of the East. I myself often lumped the two into the one convenient label of "Eastern" in conversation with friends in preparation for departure. This weekend, Dick provided an opportunity to travel with him to Uzhhorod, Ukraine (Ужгород, УКРАЇНА) to visit with one of our RGDTS volunteers stationed there. Crossing the border met with armed military guards, paperwork and a feeling of intensity. Ukraine is, as of now, not a nation within the European Union; for this reason, the border is not open, and pass checks are frequently long and rigorous. Immediately, I felt the "tangible difference" of which Dick spoke. Passing through the low lying clouds and fog, we crossed the border after perhaps an hour or so wait at pass control. Dick stopped the car on just the other side of the border to make a phone call, and I stepped outside to look around. A huge statue left by the communists in memorial of the resistance against the fascists overlooks the border, on both sides surrounded by lines and lines of barbed wire fences. I found Uzhhorod to be a very interesting town; beautiful, despite the apparent years of neglect, unattended wear and tear, uneven streets and blocks of impoverished Roma. All signs were written in Cyrillic; it took me a minute to read and understand them (I have learned Cyrillic since being here in Slovakia-- although Slovakia uses the Latin, and not the Cyrillic alphabet, I felt it would be a worth-while thing to learn in this region). Ukraine looked more fitting of what one would imagine of Eastern Europe. By contrast, the Roma settlements in Slovakia seem more rural and compact, whereas the neighborhoods of Uzhhorod seemed to have no definite beginning nor end, sprawling throughout the city. I gathered a sense of a much more impoverished community than what I experience here daily, and a more concrete distinction between the Roma and "Gadje" or white communities. Again, by contrast, the villages of Slovakia appear more integrated with Slovak society than those in Ukraine. Arriving on Saturday, we met with Yancy, an EVS/ RGDTS volunteer stationed in Uzhhorod. We went to the Roma Museum (perhaps the only in the world), where we learned more history of the Roma in Europe, the migration, their persecution throughout the ages-- including the Holocaust-- and cultural customs of Roma in various regions. Afterwards, we ate a fantastic dinner of grilled pork chops at Шаха ("Shacha"), then met with some Peace Corps Volunteers stationed throughout Ukraine. Gathering with others in similar service is always a welcomed circumstance; as a lone volunteer at my site, it's great to be able to exchange stories, experiences and ideas and merely to enjoy the company of people who understand. We slept overnight at a nice hotel owned and operated by a Roma family. Leaving the next morning, we stopped into one of the offices operated by RGDTS, which hopes to become a center for the Roma in the area. I watched as a few young Roma children were playing with bottles thrown out of passing trains; a concrete wave of grasping the exact level of poverty and status of these people hit me hard. Clearly there's much work standing ahead in the successful integration, tolerance and compassion for Roma in Europe, as well as working towards diminishing the poverty of these people.

Keep in mind that these are simple, first-glance observations, and that my brief glimpse of life in Ukraine is too naive to establish a meaningful judgment of the entire nation. However, I could see that by contrast of the surface observations alone, Dick would seem right in his belief that there is a distinction to be made between Central and Eastern Europe. Despite what might catch some as awkward or shocking details, I sincerely enjoyed the day and change I spent in Uzhhorod. I look forward to going again!

Post-Holday Update

2010-01-04T13:26:00.006+01:00

Backtrack to Christmas:

Dom Na Polceste had a Christmas celebration on the 23rd for the boys and for everyone involved with the organization; we held it here, at Mlyn (the old inn where I live). We got together and sang songs, talked about the importance of the holiday, and at the end exchanged gifts provided from Iwan and Miranda. I think everyone got about the same things: tshirts, grooming products and a picture of everyone involved with the organization:

I found that Stano's message to the boys was strangely reminiscent of what I had previously posted on my blog; John 3:16-- although in all fairness, it's a pretty popular Christmas passage. It felt like a side Christmas I had never experienced, and will probably never experience before: all these guys away from their families, some of whom have no families to turn to, but gathering in the excitement of a holiday that was well-needed for all of us. The guys have had a break since about the 23rd that will last until about the 11th of January.

I spent the holiday with my site coordinator's family, the Gurkas. They live in a little village called Vojnany about an hour away from Slavkov, and little is an overstatement: maybe 30 houses altogether in the village. This; however, was a nice getaway, and I sincerely enjoyed my time there. I spent about four days with them, the day before Christmas, to the day after. What I found so comforting and quaint about the experience was to see this huge family enjoying their Christmas as they've likely always done. I've never experienced a family this closely associated (our family is scattered throughout the US): Stano and his family live in a shared, 3 story house with Eva's (Stano's wife) brother's family and Eva's mother and father. The kids were constantly running up and down the stairs to visit their cousins and the whole family showed up at one point to gather in Babka and Otec's floor (the grandmother and grandfather). I wasn't expecting a gift, as the hospitality on it's own was a present enough for me, but Stano and Eva even got me a nice shower set with a body spray that I actually really like. It was honestly just exciting to see the girls (Kristin; 7, I think, and Sarah; 5) tearing open their presents and acting like we used to when we were kids.

For New Years Eve, I rode the all-too-long train to Budapest and met up with the volunteers stationed in Hungary: Emilie, Jeff, Trazy, Matt, Simon, and Timothy. We waited until the final countdown, which we spent watching the fireworks display over the Danube, standing beside the Parliament of Hungary. It was weird to be in another country for New Year's and felt pretty weird actually. I've never liked New Year's Eve, to be honest, ever since Mom told me that there was never going to be another 1992. I know most people are excited about the prospects of a New Year, but I always feel the flip-side of that emotion; namely, remorse for not having accomplished more, and knowing that time is eroding beneath my feet. It usually sucks to be pessimist. It was nice to see all the other volunteers for the weekend, and we all had a good time, but in many ways, I felt a sense of... shame?-- can you call it that? I somehow feel guilty or shameful that I'm not spending these holidays with the guys at the placement. It seems like that would be a general emotion shared by people in this line of work; trying to figure out the line to draw between their lives and yours. I feel guilty when I try to create a social life for myself to get away, but I feel burdened and lonely when I don't. I often feel like a president watching his approval rating declining and rising. It's difficult to know how far out there to put yourself, while trying to maintain your own overall well-being and happiness and being this far from home seems only to complicate the matters. This is not a complaint, merely an observation; you have to find that balance, and after having been here for about 4 months, I'm starting to learn where to take my liberties and when it's better to gain that all-necessary face-time with the guys.

Now I'm back in Slavkov, and I found as I was riding back all day yesterday, that I was just excited to get back home, for everything that it's worth. It's nice to travel, to see others, to see new things, but it's also nice to have a sense of a home-base, a room and a bed that's your own, a group of friends, make-shift-family and co-workers that you relate to on a daily, personal level. For as much as I often write the difficulties of this work, I don't think I'd honestly have it any other way. I entered the YAGM year for a challenge, and although that often looks different than I had expected, and I'm searching for that edge that is growing, I'm satisfied with the growth. This work has taught me character values of myself that no amount of scholastic education could have provided, no 5-9 office gig could have shown me. Plus, I don't have to work for tips, and that's just pretty awesome.

Trail to Enlightenment or Just a Thought?

2009-12-22T18:34:00.002+01:00

I'm beginning to notice a relationship that exists between expectations and language. Often someone here will tell me about something that is going to happen, and regardless of whether I may or may not be able to understand all the words correctly, I can't really formulate an idea of what the experience will look like. Despite knowing the vocabulary of the sentence, the structure of Slovak to me is still foreign in such a way that I can't properly imagine the intentions. For instance, my neighbor Igor explained something about fish and fountain and that he'd be doing it for the next few days. It wasn't until I saw that he was selling carp from the fountain in Poprad for Christmas that I actually understood what was going on; not really knowing what it would be, when I saw it, I was actually quite surprised and filled with a zeal that I can't really describe--- I actually wanted to help him scoop out the ice from the fountain, even though it was about negative four outside.

"The Dao that can be known is not Dao."-- Laozi.

Considering that our central mission as YAGMs is to forge and foster relationships, I feel this passage from the Chinese philosopher offers exponentially helpful advice in doing so. Imagine if we were to simply forget the expectations through the words, descriptors and titles and just let what may come come to pass. Learning to except life and the people in it with purely ignorant eyes, as if to receive education on a subject you know absolutely nothing about seems to be an amazingly peaceful approach and the rewards seem overall more enduring and exciting. I think in some ways, this year is teaching me a greater appreciation for not-knowing, and how to explore without reservations or expectations.

"You can't be let down if you don't expect the world"-- 311.

Winter Has Struck in Velky Slavkov

2009-12-17T16:02:00.002+01:00

Photos from Budapest

2009-12-17T15:42:00.004+01:00

Oh, the Holiday Season!

2009-12-15T16:53:00.004+01:00

Four months into my year as a Young Adult in Global Mission and I am beginning to feel the effects of homesickness. All self-preservation aside, I believe I'm hitting a certain slump; I question the meaning and purpose of my presence here daily, although I don't think it's unusual to do so at this time of year. Being far from home, from friends, from all sense of familiarity during the holidays is somewhat counter-intuitive. It seems every Christmas song is filled with lyrics that point out the blatantly obvious fact that Christmas is about being home, and thus ensue feelings of guilt, of loneliness and of "being out-of-place." The holidays for many are about a certain sentimentality, of nostalgia; scents and sounds of holidays past, and reliving the traditions of old. Christmas films portray gatherings of friends and families, of setting differences aside for the importance of the season.

Four months ago, I boarded a plane heading for a small town in the rural mountainside of Slovakia. Each of those four months has seen its own ups and downs, and through it all, the quaintness and the excitement of the journey has worn off. When reality sets in, you're face-to-face with yourself and with God. In four months, I have seen clients here at the house come and go. I have made friends, have held back tears, and have patiently bit my tongue a few times when I've felt like telling someone what I really think. I've seen potential that is oppressed, and I've seen young men that wear facades of toughness to cover insecurities and emotional damages. I've been sick, I've been tired and I've been lonely. It is amazing how you can be surrounded by people and yet feel so alone. Nevertheless, you encounter moments where something happens, and after the double-take, you can't shake the feeling that it's a subtle answer to a prayer. Every day is a new challenge in this field of work; be it adjusting to life in a new country, maintaining practically no social life, or learning a completely new and difficult language. I often question my strengths and capacities to deal with it all. Sometimes, I feel as if all I have is my faith; faith for a better day, faith for better friendships, faith for answered prayers, and faith for something new to come on the horizon.

Well, isn't that what Christmas is all about? Of course, the season is a wonderful time to share with our families, to give and to receive, to laugh and love. Nevertheless, the "reason for the season" isn't simply to gather with those we love. It is a celebration of God's promise to mankind. In Christ, God sends his embodied love for us; the answer to our prayers, the "something better on the horizon." The significance of the holiday season isn't merely the time for ourselves and for our families, not just the mistletoe and the stockings. It is a season about giving, but in the holiday rush, we often forget the gift that is Christ. Christmas is a revolutionary act of our God: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life,"(John 3:16). In Christ, we receive the promise of eternal life, the promise of reunion with our God. We have the promise of a better tomorrow, every day.

Each of us deals with difficulties every day of our lives: struggling with new environments, paying off debt, finding meaningful work (and meaning that works!), raising children in a confusing modern world, enduring battles with cancer, losing that extra 5lbs, getting deserved attention, losing loved ones, questioning our role in the world, even questioning our faith. As Lutherans, we maintain that we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone. Therefore, we should leave our troubles to faith, and let the grace of God fill our lives.

So, this holiday, despite missing my family and friends tremendously, despite any feelings of weakness or sadness, I remind myself that I still have the greatest gift of all, and it's the gift that's universally and unconditionally given to all of us by our Creator: the promise of life through Christ.

A Brief Rundown of Current Events:

For Thanksgiving, the six of us YAGMs met in Budapest for a wonderful time together. It was nice to celebrate in their company, and to even have some of the more familiar traditions of turkey, company, thankfulness and laughter. I am still very grateful to the Otterness' for opening their hearts and homes to the six of us, and for sharing the holiday with us.

I'm still unaware of the exact plans during Christmas; I know the clients will be having a Christmas day meal, but I think that's the extent of it. Not unlike most things I've encountered so far this year, I don't have any concrete plans, and those might not come until the day before, if then. I'm "winging it."

My current intention for New Year's Eve is to travel to Budapest to join with the fellow YAGMs there, and a few of the volunteers from the Reformed Church of America and the European Voluntary Service organizations.

Answered Prayers & Current Affairs

2009-11-21T20:17:00.005+01:00

Lately my schedule has been tugging me down; I spend nearly all my waking hours at the center with the guys. I calculated it, and if this were a regular "job," I'd be clocking in somewhere between about 85-105 hours a week. Keep in mind however, that this is no regular job. In fact, I often feel it's not a job at all, rather a constant stream of fellowship.

One of the major difficulties in adjusting to being here is the seeming lack of planning and coordination and efficiency. I don't hold anyone personally accountable for this, as it's not a matter of fault as much as it is a collective cultural way of being that's neither really wrong nor right. It simply is. Slovakia, and perhaps many, if not all of the former Eastern Bloc countries, is not particularly known for it's organization and efficiency in many regards. Much of this probably results from the wash of former Communist rule, but I'm not really pointing fingers, merely discussing my observations. It's quite an adjustment from the normal American "can-do attitude," which was perhaps only progressed in me by living in Germany, where there seems to be an obsessive approach to getting things done, living with organization, punctuality and structure as core values. Therefore, not having a set regimen to follow every week has been a shock to overcome. This, I believe, is a matter-of-time issue, and something that I feel is normal.

Often, my only "job" is to merely be at the house, to spend time with the guys, to give them someone external to talk to and know that the world cares about them. It's not a job, but it is. It's difficult, because I sense from some of the clients a sense of resentment, that I do not have to work the manual labor, that I often don't come to work until 8AM, where I work in the office. To them, perhaps it appears that I'm doing nothing, and, to be honest, sometimes there really is nothing to do. If I were to leave the house every day to work in the same labor tasks as them, I would be reducing the amount of work they could do, which is, in turn, their source of income, and the very reason they are clients at the house in the first place. It is not a situation, which is easily remedied, and-- let's face it, no one likes to be resented, so it makes the work of simply being, of maintaining a positive and creative attitude harder. Thankfully, an answered prayer came in the form of Iwan's wife, Miranda (Iwan is the owner of the VebaBox construction site, a social entrepreneur and just a cool guy in general; they are both from Holland). Miranda has begun volunteering at the house after she spent a few years being a stay-at-home mom to their children; I'm sure moving here was a big adjustment for them as well! I am so grateful for both Miranda and Iwan, as Miranda has offered to help in planning some activities for the guys. I have also been fortunate to have a few in-depth conversations with them, as they both speak English and German. Granted that my Slovak is slowly improving, it's not quite at the level of having meaningful discussions on politics, social action, philosophy or religion. For those of you who know me well, you have to know that this has been killing me... So, needless to say, I'm quite grateful to have them here.

I think; however, that the most severe aspect of this work is, in fact, the very reason I chose to come to Slovakia, namely, that of the difficulties that Roma face here. Having come to know these young men over the past few months, I have come to see much potential that is oppressed merely due to false conclusions and racist generalizations about Roma. To me, this all seems very reminiscent of America's own inner conflicts with the Civil Rights Movement, however, at the time, there seem to be few Martin Luther King Jr.s here to speak up. Before my deployment, I heard of stories of equally-if-not-more-qualified Roma being passed over in employment. You don't quite fully grasp the magnitude of these stories until you see how they affect real people with real names and real faces. I see young men here who are fully capable of leading productive roles in society, who could contribute so much to the betterment of the European culture, but because of hundreds of years of rumors and prejudice (literally meaning "prior judgment"), they are forced into substandard living conditions or left to the mercy and grace of organizations like Dom na Polceste. If it weren't for this organization and others like it, many of these talented, optimistic and capable men would be left to lives that you (if you're reading this right now, and you are) probably could never imagine. And even at that, organizations like this one are only capable of providing temporary solutions to a much larger situation that will only be overcome with understanding and cooperation. Sadly, the government's solution to this problem is doling out money, which simply doesn't cut it. What's needed to address these issues is a social revolution (not socialist), education, outreach programs and finally the dissolution of ignorance and intolerance. It might not come overnight, but I pray for the sake of the Roma that change does come soon. If not, I fear that some of these young men that I have come to know, that I rely on day-to-day, may become simply another Roma statistic.

This artwork is by one of the clients, Štefan. See what I mean by talent?

2009-11-21T20:13:00.001+01:00

Rev. Robert Smith talks about the missionary and relief work that many people have done to build peace.

Trashbags o' Fun

2009-11-17T12:19:00.004+01:00

Yesterday, we got a clothing drop-off from some charity organizations that periodically donate to our and organizations like ours (in case you're wondering where your clothes to Goodwill go....). About 5 large-sized trashbags full of clothes-- mostly women's clothing, but some that the boys could use; after we had a community meeting, the guys ransacked the bags and picked out what they wanted. I was happy just seeing them having fun picking through the clothes and playing with the women's clothes. Janoš in particular was quite enthralled with putting on various blouses and women's pants and dancing in them... He's actually one of the older guys here! Suddenly I was invited by Jerry and a few of the other guys to pick out some things for myself. At first I was hesitant, thinking "these clothes aren't really here for me," but then I realized that accepting these clothes was less of an act of taking something I did or did not need, but more of a bonding act, something that the guys wanted me to share with them. It's not as if I felt above taking donated, secondhand clothes-- I love thrift stores. But I had to contemplate choosing between taking clothes that weren't meant to be donated to me (I'm actually pretty set on clothing) and sharing in their experience.... So I picked out a green and black sweater-- the likes of Bill Cosby-- and put it on; was too small, so I gave it to Julo who actually seemed to want it more than me. I realized that these kids want me to become a part of their community, to share in the things they do everyday. The things themselves didn't mean much, but the act of taking an interest in what they do seemed to make a difference to them. After all, they didn't seem to care that the clothes were donated-- they need them. So even though I didn't actually find any thing in those trashbags, I'm glad to have found something in sharing with them.

Just a few pictures

2009-11-07T12:58:00.004+01:00

Downs and Ups

2009-11-07T11:24:00.003+01:00

Entering into the third month of my stay, I've taken a moment or two to introspect and reflect on what has come about thus far. I think it's easy to say at this point that much of the glamor of my journey has either worn off or at least faded away to leave me with a few vital realizations and crude truths. There seems to come a point in which you break down and find out that what at first looked like a shining opportunity to travel, meet new people and live in a new cultural environment is actually something much more challenging and trying. There's a great divide between traveling and living in a new Community; a place that unites and binds its people together around a common goal. Beginning this year, I had a "traveling mentality;" I still can't quite put my finger on it all, but there was a sense of independence, of seeing new things from new angles and perspectives, of trying new foods and speaking a new language. On this outside, it all seems splendid, and if it were so simple, it would fly by within the blink of an eye, then you'd be home trying to figure out the next plot of Earth to explore. This however, contradicts with the reality of the Community after you suddenly find yourself in situations and conflicts you couldn't dream of, and when you look back at your naivety, you can't help but laugh at yourself out of pity. There's something about the experience of working in this intimate environment, something that robs you of your autonomy and leaves you in the dark-- cold, hungry and naked. Toes get stepped on, and voices are muffled as days go by-- not out of maliciousness, but merely out of ignorance and your own strive for self preservation. At the very brink of your collapse, however, you realize that your salvation isn't going to come from your own ingenuity, from a construction of your cunningness, nor even a climatic resolution. No, the real deus-ex-machina are the very people you engage with day-to-day, and finally realizing that you are, indeed, wholly dependent upon them, upon the spirit that unites us all as a Community. It is this letting-go, this throwing your hands up in the air and saying "I submit" which is the crucial step in living day-to-day. It's been a hard process to get to this release, but it's like being able to exhale after having held your breath for a long time.

The staff held a meeting in which we discussed issues relevant to the world of social work, and it was nice to hear that I'm not the only one who experiences certain difficulties in reaching out to the boys; that it is normal to have to struggle to find patience and to stick with the work unconditionally. But in the end, you can't keep complaining and giving yourself facepalms at frustrations . You've gotta "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" and push forward for the good of the community. After all, what difference does it make what we accomplish in life, if we forgo forging these relationships? It's hard work. But I'm glad to do it if it means making friends who challenge and push the edges of my character and my soul, if it means encouraging the kind of growth that I may not even know that I need. It's easier to to continue to push what's needed away from you, and harder to accept the truth in sobriety. But the beauty part of grace is that no matter how lonely we feel, how insurmountable our troubles seem to us, there's always salvation.

Anyway- to follow up that bummer of a blog post, I figure I'd explain some of the new roles I play at the house. After all, it doesn't do much good to dwell in the past, and having goals and things to look forward helps us see past our feet (something we've been trying to teach the guys here at the house). In addition to teaching English courses twice a week, I'm going to begin teaching the guys how to make their own personal websites, helping them create resumés for when they leave here (even if it's just the skillsets they have). Stano said that on Monday we'd have a longer talk about some of the upcoming plans and projects he'd like to see done here, and on how they can use the skills and talents I have here. He said that he'd like that I can help the guys intellectually, whatever that means. I for one am just happy to be given more assignments and jobs to do. It may seem like I do a lot of potato picking (No, seriously, that was a one time thing!) and house building, but sadly, for the past few months I've spent a lot more time than I like sitting in the office, so I'm glad to be given more responsibility.

The guys found a kitten that was wandering around in the garage a few days back, and so now we have another pet at the house, Mizi. However, I'm not entirely sure that my recent sickness (conjunctivitis, sore throat) wasn't caused by the cat. Hard to say, but I'm glad they're doing a better job at keeping her fed than with Azor (but they're learning!) Oh, and the dog's doing well too.

What's There to Do?

2009-10-22T14:58:00.008+02:00

Been a while, I know; all apologies. It's hard sometimes to find the words to say what you want, and sometimes you hit moods where you literally have no idea what to say. Watching and waiting.

In this update, I figured I'd take the time to give you a glimpse of what I do at, and outside of work.

My work week spans Monday-Friday usually, but once a month I share a weekend service with Vladko Kovac. Weekend service consists of (attempting) coming up with things for the guys to do, but in all honesty, there's not a big difference between the weekends when I have service and the ones when I don't. It's not exactly like I have an abundance of friends outside of work here; most of my friends here are the guys I work with day-in and day-out.

The work we do at Dom Na Polceste consists of various construction contracts around the local area. We have maybe 3 contracts for private homes, Pauli works building VEBABOXES (insulated, climate controlled boxes for shipping things like chemicals, organs, etc.), and a few of the guys work construction for firms who have contributed to the organization. It's clearly not a for-profit organization, and you can tell this because of the true love that the management has for the boys here. The religious element to the organization seems to really shine through our director, Pastor Stano Gurka, who treats all of the guys almost like they're his children, and tries to encourage their faith. I often get the feeling that this house is very much Stano's passion in life; helping these guys get on track for living on their own. The work here is HARD; whether it's the physical demands of construction or trying to teach the boys financial responsibility and the value of earning money, this organization has a grit to it that demands a lot from everyone here.

Here's a more experiential example of the work we do: wake up at 6AM for breakfast, then by 7, everyone's loaded up in the cars, usually cramming more guys in them than is probably safe. Around 7:30, we pull into the Gerlachov construction site; a house being built for a couple in a nearby town. We work through a rather large flurry of snow, Jerry building a fire underneath some scaffolding in order to warm our hands up. 12:30 we break for lunch, which is a nice half-hour of warmth inside the restaurant. After lunch, you wish you hadn't eaten, because now it feels even colder outside. Go back to work, trying to hold and hammer nails through stiff, gloved fingers. Climb down the ladder onto soil that has turned into pure, slippery mud that clings to your shoes and makes you feel like you're wearing a second pair. Dig a meter-deep trench for natural gas lines and fill it back up once the lines have been laid-- oops, filled too much in, take half of it back out. 5PM go home.

"So, if you work so hard, there has to be some way to wind down, right?" Well, thankfully, the surrounding area has some great places to recover from the aches and pains you get while at work during the week (literally, I think I've scraped up something every week I've been here... guess I'm a klutz).

It seems like every other day that one of the guys will ask me "Ideme na Salaš?" (Are we going to Salaš?) Salaš is the biggest (well, pretty much the only) restaurant in Veľký Slavkov, and the food there is always pretty good. It's about the only thing in Veľký Slavkov besides a few small trading post-style grocers and the church. I literally ate there 4 times in a row last week.

On the weekends, the guys like to go to a resort in Poprad called Aqua City. Aqua City has a water park, fitness center, thermal pools, a sauna, and more. It's nice to go there, because Slovakia is a landlocked nation, and I'm a big fan of swimming. The water is always relaxing to get into, and it seems to wash all the cares and worries away.

Finally, on my list of "Favorite Things to Do," we have the K2 Climbing tower at the OC MAX mall in Poprad. The wall is about 40 foot high and is pretty much self-service, which I really like. It's all lead climbing (you climb up and anchor in as you go), and it's a nice laid back atmosphere with few rules. The coolest thing about the wall is that there is a bar built right into it, so that if you're climbing up one side of it, you can look into the bar, or, oppositely, the people inside can watch the climbers go up. Reminds me of how much I miss climbing back at school.I'd like to upload some more of the photos I've taken here lately, but the internet hasn't wanted to cooperate for a few weeks, so, as they say: Patience is a virtue!

Slovak Food

2009-10-09T12:36:00.002+02:00

Here's a recipe for my favorite dish here in Slovakia, called:

Bryndzove Halušky

Ingredients:

2-3 Potatoes
Flour 4-5 tbsp
Salt
1 egg

Instructions:

Peel potatoes and finely shred them.
Add egg and flour. Make a dough that is not too tough but not to watery. You may use more or less flour or add a little bit of water if it is too tough.
Add 1 tsp of salt.
Boil water w 2 tbsp of salt. use teaspoon to drop a little bit of the dough into the boiling water. Be sure the water is always boiling.
When halusky are done they will float on top of the water, Pick them out with a strainer.
Because I didn't find bryndza here in the US, (it is cheese from sheep), I used 1 package of Feta Cheese and 3/4 of a pack of cream cheese, and 3-4 tbsp of milk.
Heat everything together. Mix all the time. When it starts to boil, remove from the heat.
Cut up little pieces of bacon and fry them. Serve halusky with the cheese sauce on top and sprinkle with the bacon pieces.

(taken from http://www.slovakia.org/society-recipes.htm#halusky)

Project Pristine Puppy

2009-10-07T11:00:00.004+02:00

Here at the house, we have an old dog named Azor. Now, according to some of the guys living here, this dog is supposed to be a mean, vicious dog. However, after spending a little time with him, I cannot even imagine why someone would say that. The dog lives what I imagine to be a pretty miserable life on an 8 foot chain connected to his doghouse in the backyard of the property. Now, while trying to avoid accusations and criticisms, I would like to suggest that perhaps the reason the dog might have ever been supposed to be a mean dog would be that he lives a tremendously boring life, and that perhaps some of the guys are less-than-delicate-or-friendly to the dog. Basically, when I got here, the dog looked pretty rough, and I finally resolved myself to take care of him (it's not that much work to spend an hour a day walking a dog, or brushing him, or giving him clean water or food. When I asked my advisor at RGDTS, Dick, about the matter, he informed me that it is not uncommon to see animals treated as such in this part of the world.

Now again, I'm not here to criticize, but I think there might be a valuable lesson for the guys to learn here with the dog; if they can learn to take care of Azor, maybe they can understand a little more about taking responsibility for others and, thus, in turn learn more about responsibility in general (how can you understand financial responsibility if you don't understand responsibility itself?). Also, it's my personal conviction that when God calls us to love and to care for each other, He's not merely talking about other people, but also living creatures as well. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'm endorsing veganism immediately, but I do think that animals should be treated humanely in any case.

So, I bought a brush, and will be trying to get the guys to catch on about taking care of the dog. Maybe if I set an example, it might just be followed. Maybe not, and things will continue on the way they were, even after I'm gone. But I figure at least Azor will have a slightly better year, as long as I'm here.

Potatoes, Potatoes, Oh and Guess What? More Potatoes.

2009-09-24T12:36:00.007+02:00

Yesterday was what Stano would refer to as the stuff of "Slovak Folklore;" potato harvesting.

The day actually began with me going to the foreign police in Poprad to apply for my temporary residence permit, which actually makes much of the bureaucratic red-tape back home look like cake-walks. It's quite a lot of paperwork, and the police officer in charge of issuing the permits in Poprad seems to have nothing better to do than to fine-print check every minute line on the page-- I digress, it's just part of the process.

After being turned down and delayed again, we drove out to Stano's family's farm to harvest the potatoes. It was hard work, and every time I felt like we were getting close to being finished, they came up with another patch of potatoes to dig up... We worked from about 9AM to 7:30PM, and between picking up potato after back-breaking potato and throwing 100+lb. sacks of potatoes, I was well worn out by the end of the day. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but thinking about how my Great Grandfather Roy Schmidt, a potato farmer, would probably be watching the whole ordeal with a big grin and a sense of pride on his face, were he there to see it all. That thought was more or less what kept me pushing on throughout the day; I figure if potato farming is in the blood, then I should probably "hop to it." I do have to say though, that with the amount of potatoes that Slovaks eat, what we farmed might last about a few months (exaggeration).

I feel extremely fortunate to get to work with the guys from the center and to get to bond with them through our labor together. I've noticed that we've even come to some mutual understandings, arrived at a system of communication that is part Slovak, part English, part pantomime and part something else that I can't put a finger on-- it just seems to work. Sure, the conversations aren't as deep as "is the act of production an expression of scientific advancement or artistic creation?" but we make due with talking about pop culture, teasing each other and cracking sophomoric jokes (flatulence will always be funny to 20-somethings despite any language barrier). It's typical "guy-stuff," but it's fun, and I think it helps everyone involved feel more like I am actually a part of the community, and not just a tourist.

Work Day 1

2009-09-22T13:07:00.003+02:00

After spending last week in bed with a cold, I finally got to go out to one of the work sites with the guys yesterday (sorry for the lack of photography, but I didn't think it prudent to whip out a camera in the middle of making and hoisting rebar beam cages).

The site we worked on is a house in Malý Slavkov. ---I imagine this as our rival town, even if it isn't. "Malý" in Slovak means "small," whereas "veľký" means "large;" the irony of this to me is that if there are only maybe 1100 people in Veľký Slavkov, what does that say about Malý Slavkov ??-- I'm not sure the purpose of the house, who will live there, etc. but I only know that it was a reconstruction job we were doing and that we were rebuilding a roof structure for a room or maybe building for the first time, I really don't know. The experience of working construction with a limited working knowledge of the language was at times a struggle, but a fun challenge. After my first day of working, I suddenly feel as if I can better empathize with the Mexican day laborers who used to sit outside of the small grocery store on the corner of Brumbelow and Lovvorn in Carrollton; waiting to go to work, and then finally going and barely understanding the tasks at hand, or what the instructions are, but coming to some functional understanding through charades and gestures.

Rewinding to this weekend: after my "Brian Wilson week" of lying in bed sick and watching every DVD that I brought with me, I worked up the energy to get in touch with Nick McRae. Nick is a friend and colleague of mine from UWG who is in Martin, Slovakia, teaching English under the Fulbright Program. He's a brilliantly talented and prize-winning writer, but set aside the brown-nosing, I'll just get the point: I called him up and on Saturday afternoon we met up in Martin. It was good to catch up with Nick; we chatted about all manner of things from the on-goings of other college buddies to how good the combination of grapefruit and Kofola would taste (hint: amazing). Nick introduced me to his British counterpart, Lorenz, and we had a nice weekend of conversations ranging from childhood memories to online video game reviews. It was great to rub elbows with native English speakers for a minute.

Káva Done Veľký Slavkov

2009-09-18T15:37:00.003+02:00

Confession: I love coffee.

No, really, that's an understatement. Here at the house, I probably down anywhere from about 4-6 cups a day, despite whatever doctors say. So, in the name of my passion and love of coffee, and in the avoidance of making sweeping generalizations about Slovakia, I'm simply going to describe my individual experience of how coffee is made here at Dom Na Polceste. I thought it was a little odd, curious at first, but it's grown on me, despite its barbaric appearance.

The method for making what I refer to as "Slavkáva" is pretty rigorous, so,
please, take careful notes.

First, you get a coffee mug and a spoon. You add to this 1-2 scoops of coffee grinds (and maybe some sugar, depending on how frisky you feel).

Then, boil water.

Finally, you pour this water into the mug, allowing it to mix with the grinds. Use the spoon to stir the coffee grinds around until they settle comfortably at the bottom of the mug.

Enjoy, and repeat as needed.

My New Home

2009-09-13T09:13:00.005+02:00

Overall, I have to say that my first few days here have been quite welcoming and warm. I got off of the train in Poprad to meet my boss Stano and one of the guys who volunteers at the center, Vladko. Vladko has been a really big help here, as he's one of the few people at the center who speaks English well enough to communicate important things. Stano drove us into Veľký Slavkov and took me to my house at Mlyn. After I had some time to eat lunch with Vladko and set a few of my things up, I was introduced to a few of the guys here at the center.

There are around 25 guys who live, eat, and work here at Dom Na Polceste. The center is designed to house the guys for up to 4 years while they learn skills that they don't have when they come here; social and work skills, but mostly financial responsibility. Stano says that the children's homes here in Slovakia just sort of give the kids whatever they ask for, but that nothing is really theirs, it's all sort of communal; this being the case, a lot of these guys don't understand the idea of saving up their money. The majority of the guys here are Roma ("gypsies" for those who don't know--but I hesitate from using this, as it is, in my opinion, as derogatory a term as the "N" word"), and yet what I find so cool about the house is that no one seems to care what anyone looks like (or.. well, sometimes smells like), but everyone here is treated equally. Besides the language barrier, which most of the guys seem to understand and try to help me with, I feel generally quite accepted here. Yesterday, Vladko even asked me "Do you miss your family?" and I said, "Well, a little." He replied, "Well, we are your new family." It's starting to feel that way.

The house I'm staying at is an old (probably 60'seque) ski resort hotel that was turned into a guest house where a few families rent out year-round. The first night I was there, the Matas family fed me dinner and made me feel a little more at home. I feel like I've got some good "neighbors" in the house, even if it's sort of creepily empty like the hotel in the Shining (the kitchen in the basement especially....). Since there's no internet connection at Mlyn, and since everyone is usually gone or inside their own rooms, I usually spend all my time at the house ("starý dom" as the guys call it). I'm trying to learn Slovak as much as I can, and I'm sure I'm picking up more than I know.

Veľký Slavkov is small, and the High Tatra mountains loom in the background of everything you do. It's quiet and slow, but filled with a certain quality of life that I think we've lost at home. At night, there are only a few streetlights lit, a few houses from which hearty laughter emanates, and the sky is filled with more stars than you remember are there. I couldn't have asked for a more beautiful new place to call home.

Off to Velky Slavkov...

2009-09-09T23:14:00.002+02:00

Tonight is my last night in Bratislava. My language training and orientation are now finished and tomorrow I will travel on a 6 hour train to Poprad, where I will (hopefully) get picked up and taken to Velky Slavkov. My nerves are high, and the reality of everything is setting in. I'm very nervous about my first few weeks; how I will communicate, how I will feel, how I will live... But I know that if God has gotten me this far safely, the rest of the journey will go as planned as well. This is the culmination of months of planning and preparation: tomorrow is "Go Time." It's hitting pretty hard, too; tonight we met with Dick Otterness, and we talked about some of the difficulties in the Roma sites and suddenly I feel less prepared than I have up until now. I fear, but I know that fear and discomfort are clear and defining symbols of growth. I look back at the path that has taken me here with such humility, and I look ahead with uncertainty, but like Pastor Rust says, "you have a secret weapon in the power of prayer. You've got all of us praying for you, and God's got a bigger plan for you, just remember that." The emotions are overwhelming; not because I don't feel prepared, and not because I'm sad, but rather, because I simply cannot believe that I've been tasked to do what I am, and because I simply cannot comprehend what I am about to do. But this entire experience, up until now has been such a free-fall in faith, and, despite the challenge in the not-knowing, I feel confident that I will be guided to a safe place (even if it has its own set of challenges).

So, without further ado, I begin my journey! Next time you hear from me, I will be where I am meant to be.

Kofola: A Uniquely Slovak Experience

2009-09-05T17:01:00.002+02:00

If you ever find yourself in the great Republic of Slovakia and you have an insatiable thirst for a refreshing soft drink, you need look no further than to simply reach for a "KOFOLA."

Well, that's not necessarily true; some love it, others hate it. Kofola is a cola-based soda produced here in Slovakia (and in the Czech Republic, but since there's a sort of rivalry between the two countries, we don't mention them too proudly). The taste is something like a Pepsi-meets-licorice-meets-maybe-a-citrus-something?, and it's sold either in bottles, or if you're out in the town, you can get it from tap, almost like a beer (yes, it comes in kegs) where it's served in a mug. My small consensus seems to show that it's more popular than Coca-Cola or Pepsi (this being based on merely empirical observations of what people drink around Bratislava), and it's slowly growing on me. It's not as sugary as its American counterparts, not nearly as expensive as Coca-Cola or Pepsi and was apparently the result of communist research.

So, next time you're in Slovakia (or the Czech Republic...) pop open a bottle, or stop by a tap and grab yourself a piece of culture-- Kofola style!

Too much to post!

2009-08-31T16:40:00.006+02:00

Wow, what a few weeks.
So to begin with, we ended up raising all the necessary funds and then some. Thank you all so much!!

On August 19th began our Orientation in Chicago. A week full of teachings on theology, worship, a White Sox game (Buehrle played!), swing dancing in Grant Park, just a good week in general. It was great to see all the other YAGMs, to bounce our feelings off of each other and get to know each other better. Our final gathering on Wednesday was a beautiful and emotional ceremony, with all of the anticipations, excitement and nervousness finally collapsing on just about everyone, but in a good, moving way. Our hands were anointed to "go and do God's work," and I think I saw most of even the guys with a tear welling up in their eyes.

So, here I am in Bratislava. The flight went well, as most Lufthansa flights do(!), but it was quite long. I found it hard to sleep, just being so ready to get here and to start my year. We flew into Frankfurt first, then had a 2 hour connection into Vienna. From there, we took a 1 hour bus to Bratislava, ending our journey finally after a day's worth of travel at about 2PM on Thursday, after which I promptly crashed on the bed in the dorm room they gave us. Friday we took care of some business: cell phones for contacting other volunteers and leaders in the organization, bank accounts for our stipends, some small visa work. Since we know such little of the language, it's been difficult to go out and explore much, and I feel a little restrained, but mostly eager to learn more. It's a slightly isolating feeling knowing that you have so many things you want to express (even like "where's the bathroom") and just can't, for lack of the knowledge.

Saturday, we went to Vienna to go visit Lisa's stepmother. It was a nice trip, despite the rain. I hope to make it out there again; Vienna isn't a daytrip kinda city, way to much to see! It was a nice little foray back into a language I understood, which came as a welcomed comfort for the few hours until we were thrown back into Slovak language territory. We got to visit the Stephansdom, which was really beautiful, and walked around the city to see the Vienna Opera House (also amazing). Like I said, I hope to go again soon!

Bratislava is not a very big city, but it is still beautiful. The population, I think, is somewhere around 400,000, and size-wise, it's a relatively simple city to navigate.

Sunday and today haven't been too busy; we're just sort of waiting for the volunteers from Germany to arrive tonight, and then tomorrow we start our official language course. I hope it's a very intense course... seriously. We went to Bratislava International Church on Sunday (really quite cool to see people from all sorts of cultures and lands taking communion together), and then afterwards for a hike to a nearby mountain with Daniel, a guy within the organization. It was nice to get out and get some exercise and the view from the top was well worth it. There were actually ruins from an old castle on the top, so it was quite a cool experience. (I don't have any pictures, since my camera died right before we went!)

Everything has been going well, for the most part. I need to update more often! I hope everyone is well at home, and I will try again to update on Sunday (maybe if there's less to report, I can do a better job of doing it!)

The Final Countdown

2009-08-08T17:40:00.003+02:00

"Cowardice and time always find a reason for not hurrying, for saying, 'Not today, but tomorrow', whereas God in heaven and the eternal say: 'Do it today. Now is the day of salvation.' The eternal refrain of decision is: 'Today, today.'" -- Kierkegaard

The 52 of us YAGMs around the US are now preparing for our year in the world, and I know that I, for one, am having a difficult time describing the state of my mind. All of the funds have been raised, and we actually surpassed our goal by a good amount, which is amazing, and I cannot be grateful enough for all of the support we received; I'm glad to be able to help the other volunteers as well. Thank you again to all who have helped. This would not be possible without you.

Nevertheless, I'm not sure what to say, how to say it, and in the face of the challenges, I'm quite anxious and troubled. The constant drone of thoughts and emotions running in my mind have sort of driven me to a melancholy quietness My graduation ceremony was one of the many surreal experiences that made me feel as if I'm hurling toward an end I cannot see, but somehow I have faith that all will turn out well. Among the goodbyes, the “last this'es and that's,” and such, it's been difficult to keep my eye on the positives of this entire experience.

However, I am still quite excited to see how everything will work out, and to see where I will be in a year from now. I think this is the most difficult part though, it's the not-knowing that drives you mad. Reading the above passage from Kierkegaard, however, came as a welcome affirmation and a sigh of relief. I am ready to do.

Gearin' Up

2009-07-26T18:21:00.007+02:00

The last few days have been filled with getting everything ready for the upcoming year. Doctors, asking the church for support, filling out all the forms, buying a winter coat, etc. It's nice to be home to get these proverbial "ducks in a row." I'll be heading down to Carrollton tomorrow for about a week in order to say my goodbyes there, and to attend my graduation ceremony. I'm not really making a big deal out of my graduation; I don't feel like making all of my grandparents and family members trek all the way out to Carrollton, and I'd just as soon spend some quality time with them at home.

I figure I'd add a little more information about the mission, just to clarify a little bit of what I'll be doing for the year. This is just copied from an email I got from a former YAGM who served there last year, since I, myself, can't explain it this well!
Velky Slavkov is a fairly small village of about 1,000 people. It is very close to Poprad (about a 6 minute train ride) and also very close to the High Tatra Mountains, which are absolutely stunning. The placement where you will be is called Dom na polceste (http://www.domnapolceste.sk/?page=onas) which translates into The House of the Halfway. It houses about 30 guys ranging in age from about 18 to 30, the majority being Roma. Most of the guys grew up in children's homes in Slovakia and then end up here for various reasons. Some come straight from the children's home, because they are no longer allowed to live there after they turn 18 and need another place to stay. Some come after being homeless, or after being in treatment for drug or alcohol addictions. The directors of the center Stano and his wife Eva are probably the most hospitable people I have ever met and accept almost anyone in need to come live here. While many of the guys have or are still suffering from various addictions, it is not a rehab center and if anyone is caught with drugs or alcohol they will find them a more suitable place to be. The goal of the center is to provide a place for them to live, food, teach them work skills, and teach them how to live on their own, so that after some time the guys will be able to leave and live a life on their own. The center has various work sites that they send the guys to each day. A member of the center's work team will take maybe 4-6 guys to a site where they work all day- learn the skills and get paid so that they are then able to learn to save their money and spend it wisely. (This is a huge problem for these guys- they will get paid and waste all their money on cigarettes or an mp3 player and not worry about saving any of it). The center also provides activities and Bible studies for the guys, and that is where a volunteer is really needed! While I was there we had an English class twice a week and a Bible study once a week in the evenings.

Hopefully this will help to serve as a preview of the things to come. I'm looking forward to starting the year, to enter into this new dialogue with these people, to seek to understand the relational ontology among God and all of us in a profound, concrete way.

Home Again

2009-07-14T22:27:00.002+02:00

Well, I'm back, so in other words, the flight went fine. A long ride, but it's good to be back home. It took me a few days to get caught up on sleep and a few more to get used to being back in America, but I survived it all with no scars, so I'd say I'm doing well.

I'm especially glad to be at home to help out with the congregation and have a little more "face-time" with them, considering their amazing contributions in support of my YAGM trip to Slovakia. So far, we've been able to raise about $2000 in just the few weeks that I've had my letters out, so I'm extremely grateful to all who have shown their support! Thank you to all the members of Macedonia Lutheran Church and to the members of Living Word Lutheran Church for the support! (I guess Texas isn't so bad after all! :P)

One of the guys, Vlado, from the site at Dom Na Polceste sent me an email over facebook the other day, and we've had a little bit of a conversation building up. He's been letting me know a few things about the site, which is helpful, since I still feel like I'm going into the dark about it all. I'm really glad to have already started making a few connections in the village-- Thank God for the 21st Century! It's nice to have Vlado to talk to, since I feel like the closer I get, the more nervous I get. I'm anxious, but excited. It will just be pretty amazing to see where this year leads me, and to see the results of this experience.

These next few weeks are going to be a lot of running around trying to get everything situated and taken care of before I head out. Strangely, however, I don't feel too stressed out; somehow I know everything will work out fine.

Leavin' on a Jet Plane...

2009-07-09T13:30:00.001+02:00

So tonight I'm heading back home. I've still got a few more stories to tell about the last few days here, but I'm just cleaning everything up and getting ready to go. So, wish me a safe flight and I'll write more when I get home!

Amsterdam

2009-07-01T15:47:00.005+02:00

This past weekend was a fun time. We had some good friends of ours, Peter and Ethan, fly into Amsterdam for the weekend, so we popped on over there to go see "what's what."

Anyway, Holland was pretty fun. The first night we were there it rained, but it was a nice cool rain; the next two days were hot and sticky. It's like being in Florida, minus the palms. We just kinda meandered throughout the city, but I think that was a good way to go about it. There was so much to see and the entire city layout was so confusing (very "unordentlich"). Holy crap was it a tourist trap! I think at every corner there were about 15 different languages being spoken. There were people from all over the world there, but I felt like the bulk of the tourists were weekenders from England (who I couldn't understand, since their English was very drunkenly spoken!). Let me say right now, that even though Dutch shares a few similarities with German, there is really no way that I understood about half of what was going on. Everyone there though seemed to speak impeccible English, which was cool. It was a good getaway from Germany. The canals were beautiful. We even got on a canal boat and took the tour. It was kinda fun being "touristy" for a bit of a change. I feel like so much of my time here has been spent being a student, living on a student budget, doing student things (aka not getting my laundry washed for 4 weeks because I don't have a laundry card...)

Amsterdam is "dam" expensive. 40EU for a hostel, and it ended up costing us more to get there than we had projected-- usually they offer a student discount (ticket= 18EU) but instead we had to pay the full price (29EU). I guess that's just what you expect in touristy areas. They charge what they can get. But it was a good trip nonetheless; really fun to see Ethan for the first time in Europe. He about peed his pants around every corner because he's really into bikes, and Amsterdam is a HUGE bike city-- they have right of way over pedestrians even.

We came back to OL on Sunday, kinda lounged around since we were worn out and then Ethan headed out Tuesday morning. Peter's gonna stay until the end of July I think.

It should be easy riding from here out. I don't plan on making any trips farther than about 25 miles from Oldenburg until I get home. Just really done spending unearned money. At least the weather has been amazing the past few days, and the forecast projects some nice sunny days for a little while. It even got up to about 85 today, which is pretty hot compared to what it was.

I'm ready to get my fundraising started, and I've even been trying to learn some Slovak. It's not close to German at all, but some of the words make sense. I was fortunate enough to pick up a travel book about Czech/ Slovak Repbulics that Maggie gave to me, which has quite a few phrases and good info in it. I'm pumped.

The Woes of the American College Traveler

2009-06-20T16:35:00.002+02:00

Well, it's been a quiet week out here in Lake Wobegone-- I mean Oldenburg. Not a whole lot of exciting things to talk about. The weather's been sort of dreary, I haven't gone anywhere outside of Oldenburg since we went to Berlin, and I'm out of money. It may be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven... but it's still pretty hard being a student in a country where the exchange rate makes money fly out of your pockets like butterflies. I don't mean to make this blog about my complaints, but this is the one stone in my shoe right about now. I think the thing I'm most upset about isn't so much the not-having of the money, but rather the inability of any sort of income of my own. It sort of hurts my pride. But oh well, maybe the positive lesson there is humility.

I digress... Life is good.

This upcoming weekend, our friends Ethan and Peter are planning on flying into Amsterdam; Charles and I are going to meet them there and spend a few days sightseeing and such. I'm ready for the change of scenery, and to share more pictures and stories.

My estimated time line for when I get home goes something like this:
- July 10: Fly back home to Mebane (7 hour bus ride, 10 hour plane to ATL, 2 hours up to NC-- can you say jetlag?!)

-Aug. 1: Graduation from UWG in Carrollton.

-Aug. 19: Fly to Chicago for 8 days of YAGM orientation.

-Aug. 27: Fly to Bratislava, Slovakia for 16 days of intensive language courses in Slovak. (I'm really excited about this!)

-Sept. 12: Travel out to Veľký Slavkov for the year!

Anyway, that's about it for now. I hope to hear from some of you all soon!

Lohne, Bremen and Berlin!

2009-06-08T18:38:00.005+02:00

Ok, so I haven't been very good with my updates lately-- sorry! It's been a pretty busy couple of weeks with a lot of intermittent travelling and a decent amount of overwhelmingly difficult reading (Thomas Mann is a good, but very difficult-to-read author for a non-native speaker, such as myself). Only taking two courses sounded easy at first, but I'm now certainly glad I didn't sign up for more. All this being said, I am very ready for graduation. Senior burnout, I guess, but I'm just ready to do something more than takin quizzes and writing papers. That's not to say my experience in college hasn't been great; just that I've spent a lot of years building the cup and I'm ready to fill it.
Nevertheless, things here have been well, and I'm glad to hear that things are well at home too. My Grandmother went in for surgery a few weeks ago, and I'm very excited to hear that her recovery has been remarkably good (keep it up!).

I just started a Flickr account for all my pictures, so you guys can see all of them there!

On Saturday (the 30th), Charles, Cliff and I went to a town called Lohne with our friend Thomas, who grew up there, for a Schützenfest (a shooting festival). Since the weekend was Pentecost (Pfingst), Thomas wanted to cut down a tree for his girlfriend, Sarah-- a traditional activity for the men in this area. Here's a video of the “highlights.” We had to go out into the countryside to find the tree, and what struck me as interesting was that I can really see why our families (the Helgesons and the Schmidts) moved out to Minnesota from the farmland here. It looks remarkably similar! After we finished with cutting down the tree, we planted it in Sarah's front yard and then went to go to the big tent in the city at night for a big concert and party they had there. Thomas' family was incredibly hospitable and I'm really grateful for a great weekend there!

On Monday (the 1st), Charles and I took a daytrip to Bremen just to see what there was. It's nice to get away from Oldenburg, even if it's just one or two trainstops away! Bremen was a much bigger city than Oldenburg, and there is a lot of beautiful architecture and interesting history there. We just kinda roamed the city without much of a goal in mind, but we got hungry and stopped in at a small cafe and ate some awesome Schnitzel and drank a good beer (Haake Beck Kräusen)! The city was really at its prettiest at the river port, where there were boats and riverside restaurants and Biergartens.

This past Friday, we took a trip to Berlin! I'm hoping this will be my most expensive trip, because it certainly cost a bit to get there, despite the fact that we got really good deals on the bus fare and hostel fees! First we rode the train out to Hamburg, where we caught a bus line that rides out to Berlin for only about 43 Euros roundtrip. We didn't get into Berlin until about midnight, where we checked into the Generator Hostel. We went out Friday night, but Berlin is a very big, and apparently dangerous city; some drunk kid threatened Cliff with a butterfly knife until his friend subdued him a bit. Berlin nightlife is apparently serious business, since we ended up staying out with some kids we met in Berlin until the sun came up! Saturday we got up and did the real “sightseeing,” but went to bed kind of early since we were out so late the night before. There were a lot of people at the typical sights, like the Brandenburger Tor, the Reichstag, and the Gedächtniskirche, and along with lots of tourists were a lot of beggars. One woman, apparently from Kosovo came up to me, and when I gave her just a few coins that I had in my pocket, looked at me with disgust for giving her so little, which was a little offputting for me... Sunday we went out to Potsdam, which I really enjoyed more than Berlin. Berlin was very cool, very modern and metro, but Potsdam was more of a culturally rich, laidback atmosphere, which I like just a little bit better. It didn't have that intense feeling of GO-GO-GO! Instead, Potsdam was, in comparison, much more quiet and relaxing. We went to go the the Schlosspark, with Castle Sanssouci, and the New Palace. It was pretty breathtaking. We got back on the bus, then the train and got back into Oldenburg at about 1:30 this morning, where we had to ride our bikes back to the dorm in the rain. =(

I got in a conversation the other day with a guy that lives in our dorms, and it really upset me. He's from Bulgaria, and we started talking about the Roma people. He started ranting about the "gypsies" basically saying something to the effect of "they don't deserve human rights," which really got me upset, considering my future placement in Slovakia. I tried, to apparently no avail, to argue that at the end of the day, we're all just people, and none of us is any less guilty than the other. There's no room for racial discrimination in the 21st century. There's no room to keep building walls against people because of what they are born into. We don't choose to be born black, white, Roma, poor, etc. and we certainly don't ask to suffer prejudices because of these completely random and arbitrary differences. I don't know if or when there will be a day when we can finally look past the things that we feel separate us as human beings and start to see that we are all one human race, but until that day comes, we're ultimately bringing the apocalypse upon ourselves. We're creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. But I end my rant. Life's good!

SITE PLACEMENT!

2009-05-20T11:41:00.006+02:00

Okay, well I was going to update with what I've been doing around here lately (I'll probably take this chance to do that as well), but all of that seems at the moment pretty trivial.

As some of you already know, I will be away from home for a year to take part in a mission through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Young Adults in Global Mission program. It was a decision that was reached after a lot of consideration, and after much soul-searching. When I went to the Discernment, Interview and Placement event, I first felt as if I had gotten myself in over my head, that there's no way I could do this. After that weekend, I felt incredibly humbled to be chosen to serve in the Slovakia-Hungary program. Those of us YAGMs going to Slovakia/Hungry will be working with the Roma-Gadje Dialogue Through Service Well, that's not where the story ends. The entire YAGM process required a lot of patience and prayer-- I sent my first application in back in February and I didn't find out I would be going to DIP until April, I found out I'd be somewhere in either Slovakia or Hungary in Apr., but didn't find out where I'd really be until today. It's frustrating having to wait, but it makes me realize in retrospect that there's a lot more going on in this process than someone just stamping "approved" on a bunch of pages; I understand that the everyone involved in this entire decision is intensively concerned, and are really just trying to listen to the voice of God to find out what's best.

Well, today that news finally came. I will be serving in Velky Slavkov, Slovakia. I don't have the exact details of my site placement just yet, but I can't relate how excited and humbled and honored I am right now. As soon as I read the email, I immediately wanted to call my parents, my grandparents and everyone I knew, but since the time difference is about 6 hours, I'll just have to wait until later this evening. So, the first person who got to find out about it was my roommate and best friend, Charles, who, when I ran into his room and told him, just kinda muttered "SLOWAKEI!" and rolled over and went back to sleep. But hey-- at least that's some sort of reinforcement!

Well, now that the important business is out of the way I can get to travel talk. This was a pretty long weekend! I haven't had my PIN number for my bank card since I've been here, so I ran out of cash about a week ago and have had to resort to collecting bottles to recycle them for just petty cash. It kind of made me feel like a bum, rolling a grocery cart full of empty bottles down the street, but I'm not really above that. In all reality, it's probably going to be a very similar feeling all of next year, and I'm okay with that; sometimes, I think we need to realize that status isn't everything and that throwing yourself into humility every now and again is a very good thing.

On Thursday, Charles and I met up with Susi and Ali (our German buddies) and drove to Mai Fest in Osnabrück, which is basically a huge party throughout the city with different bands on several stages scattered around the entire town. We didn't really do much touring of the city, but we got to see the university there, which was beautiful; it had an amazing garden behind the main castle. We stayed at Maike's house (a friend of Susi), but didn't get a whole lot of sleep the next morning, since Charles and I had to take the first train back to Oldenburg, but it was a good time.

On Saturday, Charles, Cliff, Elyse and I went out to go see Maggie, in Hannover. When we got into the train station, it was flooded with soccer hooligans and punk-rocker kids. They actually had the riot police come out, so we all just kind of kept a comfortable viewing distance. Leaving the train station, we saw a band who was playing "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty (is it sad that I know that song?) and there was this drunk guy attempting to play a harmonica in unison and dance (see video- it's funny!). We walked through the town and did some shopping at some cheap clothes stores (since I didn't bring enough underwear). We saw the Neu Rathaus, which was really big and beautiful; inside, the architecture was amazing. It was built in 1913, and was one of the few buildings in Hannover not to be destroyed completely (they had cool minatures of the entire city from the 1600s to the early 2oth Century, to after WW2, and modern day). The whole time we were there I was just imagining how I was standing in the same building, where years before, Nazis had been saluting each other. It was a creepy feeling. We went out for a while at night, but I apparently couldn't get into this one bar because the guy at the door asked me my birthday, which caught me off guard, and then wouldn't listen to Maggie trying to explain. It was a really upsetting experience, and made me feel like an outsider, despite the fact that I more or less blend in with most Germans until I open my mouth.

On Monday, Charles, Cliff and I went for a bike ride out to a nearby town called Bad Zwischenahn, about 17km away from Oldenburg. There's a really big lake there (you can actually see it on maps of Germany) where they catch a lot of eel; smoked eel is sort of a famed town specialty. The town was pretty small, but it was kind of refreshing after being in 2 large, crowded cities. We stopped at a small restaurant called "Jochen's Fischhus," where we were, by far, the youngest people (I don't think Bad Zwischenahn is a hotspot for youth), and ate some fresh fish, which was probably the first hot meal I had eaten in about a week (when you live off of recycling money, you pretty much can only afford bread, meat and cheese). It was probably the best fried fish I've ever had. We caught the train back since we were pretty tired.

Today I'm going on a picnic with Charles, Deike and Maggie, then after class I'm going to tag along to a non-denominational Bible group at the University. I'll keep you updated!

First Droppings

2009-05-12T18:53:00.000+02:00

Okay, so you made it to my blog, congratulations! Your life is about to change!
Well... that's inevitable, and in all reality, I have likely the least amount of control over that than anyone else. But hey, welcome to my blog.

I just opened this site up today, since I had some downtime and wanted to get the wheels turning as they say.
Just got to Oldenburg, Germany last Thursday, so I'll just get into it; this is actually a letter a wrote for everyone back home.

The first few days here have been pretty good; it took about a day to get back into the groove of only hearing German spoken everywhere. The first time you have to stop and think about how to order a sandwich is kinda confusing and the ladies behind the counter always catch you off guard. The food is a little different here, so it takes some adjusting; even the Coke doesn't taste exactly the same! I got settled in just fine; in the same dorm as last year, but the bathrooms are a tad on the nasty side. Kinda moldy, not like the last ones, but I'll live (might just start sneaking up to the second floor to use the shower.)

Friday I bought my bike, it's a road bike from a Swiss company called "VILLIGER;" cost me 130€, but I'm justifying the cost by having my friend Deike hold on to it for me when I leave in July until August so I can have it for the mission. Needless to say, I love riding it, and I'm looking forward to getting some miles under the tires this upcoming year.

I was going to go to church on Sunday, but I overslept-- the jetlag is still getting to me. I slept all day Sunday more-or-less, but it still doesn't really feel like enough! The church is a huge old Lutheran cathedral in the classic Gothic architecture. Above the main door there's a statue of Martin Luther; the church is very pretty, and it's the tallest thing in Oldenburg, towering over the entire city.

I've been enjoying hanging out with a few of the American students that came with us. On my floor there's 3 other Americans (Charles, Cliff and Munir) and then a guy named Diego from Australia, a guy named Salim from Pakistan, a girl named Li from China and that's about all I've met so far. Most of the students stay pretty busy and are usually just in-and-out. I keep my door open all the time though, in case someone passes by. I've been spending most of my time hanging out with my "buddy" from last time I was here, Deike, and Charles, when I get a chance to see him. It's good to already have some friends here with a few connections, and I've been acting as a sort of orientating figure for the new kids as well.

Anyway, I'll update later!