**I've actually been here for one month now...due to limited internet access, I'm a bit behind on my blog, but working on catching up!**
After about a month, I’m finally on my own at my placement. September 15th was the day that all of us volunteers separated and went off in our own directions. I will miss everybody! Some of us are pretty close to each other, but others are on the other side of the country and I know I won’t see them again until our retreat in November. We are getting together in the capital (Bratislava) at the end of November to meet and celebrate Thanksgiving. I’m looking forward to it!
Anyways, the director of the facility I’m working at (Marcel) picked me up at the train station in Puchov after a 3 hour train ride from Velky Slavkov. I rode the train with Mark and Daniela, which was nice, so the ride went quickly. Marcel had to pick me up in Puchov because my village doesn’t have a train station in it. Puchov is a pretty big city (60,000 people) that is about fifteen miles from Koseca.
The center is very nice!! It was remodeled only a few years ago, so it’s pretty modern. There are two floors with an elevator built in, a nurse’s office and dining room/kitchen. There is a nice patio area with a little picnic shelter attached to the main building, and there is another building currently being built next door. This will be used for more staff and residents rooms, a fitness room, another laundry facility and bathrooms, and more. My room is very nice, it’s cute and decorated with curtains, some artwork, plastic vines, and candles/other knick knacks.
A few minutes after getting there I was introduced to a woman named Zuzana (Zuza for short) who has a room right down the hallway from mine. She was very nice and welcoming!! Within hours I felt SO much better about being here and being alone, and I didn’t feel so alone anymore. She was a little guardian angel right from the start. She made sure I had a spot to sit at dinner, showed me where things were, and took the time to patiently page through the dictionary and look up words so she could communicate with me. She has been SO patient, trying to explain words and things to me (as best as she can with my limited Slovak knowledge). Right away the first night when I got here, I could feel God showing me my new friend. She is 38 years old and has quite a few health problems and physical disabilities. She was thrown out of her house by her brother less than a year ago, so she is living here at the facility. She’s not really a resident, and not really working here, and she is just sort of lost in life right now. It was great because I need her, and she needs me. After weeks of frustration and adjustment, I felt like I was in the right place and I found God through her. She’s wonderful and crazy!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Struggles in Language Training
Hi again! So about a week ago I finished my Slovak language traning. We’ve been in Velky Slavkov for the past two weeks taking a crash language course in Slovak. Honestly, this language is INSANELY difficult, and it was a very frustrating few weeks…but I made it! People keep telling me that it’s one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn…(I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it seems like it could be). Nouns, pronouns, verbs AND adjectives change gender in Slovak!! There are four cases and seven declinations. After two weeks, I still can’t even tell you what a declination is. Whenever our teacher attempted to teach us about them, she just started laughing, along with the German girls, and was like “This is impossible. You don’t even know what this is, they don’t have declinations in English”. Pretty encouraging, haha! The training was helpful of course, but at the end of the two weeks I could only understand a few words of our “listening paragraphs”.
The training was pretty intense. We did four hours every morning after breakfast, and then usually did an hour or so in the afternoons or in early evenings. During our breaks we usually did some studying, and at night we worked on our homework assignments for the following day. Since we were in a small village, there wasn’t a lot to do during the days. We usually went for walks just to get exercise, and once in awhile we would take the train over to the neighboring city of Poprod to go to an internet café. Basically, it was a LOT of Slovak in a short time, and hopefully my brain absorbed more information than I think it did. I guess I will have to see, once I get to the point where I can speak in sentences and worry about tenses and things. Our teacher was a student who is living and studying at a University in Kosice, Slovakia (second biggest city in Slovakia, Eastern part). Zuska’s English is pretty good! She plans to become an interpreter in England after she graduates in a year. She was helpful with the language, and just general questions about the country. She introduced us to Slovak Superstar, which is Slovakia’s version of “American Idol” and it’s hilarious. We spent a few nights watching that, and a few other television shows, attempting to pick out words in Slovak. I will keep you updated also on how the language is going! More coming soon!
The training was pretty intense. We did four hours every morning after breakfast, and then usually did an hour or so in the afternoons or in early evenings. During our breaks we usually did some studying, and at night we worked on our homework assignments for the following day. Since we were in a small village, there wasn’t a lot to do during the days. We usually went for walks just to get exercise, and once in awhile we would take the train over to the neighboring city of Poprod to go to an internet café. Basically, it was a LOT of Slovak in a short time, and hopefully my brain absorbed more information than I think it did. I guess I will have to see, once I get to the point where I can speak in sentences and worry about tenses and things. Our teacher was a student who is living and studying at a University in Kosice, Slovakia (second biggest city in Slovakia, Eastern part). Zuska’s English is pretty good! She plans to become an interpreter in England after she graduates in a year. She was helpful with the language, and just general questions about the country. She introduced us to Slovak Superstar, which is Slovakia’s version of “American Idol” and it’s hilarious. We spent a few nights watching that, and a few other television shows, attempting to pick out words in Slovak. I will keep you updated also on how the language is going! More coming soon!
Saturday, September 29, 2007
My address:
Hello again! Here is my contact information:
Mailing address:
Ashley Severson
Stredisko Evanjelickej diakonie
Koseca 898
018 64
Slovakia
Phone #:
011-421-918-310-062
Ok, more to come soon!! :-)
Mailing address:
Ashley Severson
Stredisko Evanjelickej diakonie
Koseca 898
018 64
Slovakia
Phone #:
011-421-918-310-062
Ok, more to come soon!! :-)
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Technical Difficulties
Hi! So, I’m having technical difficulties with setting up pictures and video. I will keep trying, and hopefully they will be coming soon! The blog pages are in Slovak, and the internet connection here at the facility is dial-up, so that’s the recipe for no success yet! I think I’ve figured out which buttons to press to choose and picture and upload it, but they take a LONG time to upload. Anyway, know that I’m working on it. Ok, more soon!
Arrival in Velky Slavkov
So our little group of nine (the four German girls, myself, Kristen, Mark, and Jessica) arrived in the little village of Velky Slavkov on September 2nd. The train station isn’t really a station, but a little garage sized shack out in the middle of nowhere, pretty much. We were greeted by the Tatras mountains…very beautiful scenary! Much different than being in the city, in Bratislava. We were immediately greeted by two young boys (I would guess about ages 8 or 9). They immediately asked “where is Kya?” Kya apparently was the volunteer from our program that had served there the previous year, and she made quite an impression on this village! Many kids and adults asked us where she was in the first few days, and a reality hit me with this. Volunteers can make quite an impact on people, especially in smaller villages (and my placement is in a smaller village) and are paid attention to very closely! It made me a bit nervous to live up to expectations they might have of previous volunteers, but also excited that I’ve been given the gift of time here. I’ve been given a whole year to build friendships, make connections, and become a part of daily life here in Slovakia, and for that I’m very grateful.
Once Daniela told the boys that we were a new group of volunteers, it didn’t take them long to warm up to us and get excited. They crowded around Mark (everyone we’ve talked to so far is quite thrilled that a male volunteer is in Slovakia!) and gave him a pen so he could write his name on their arms! It was pretty entertaining. They did the same to Kristen eventually. I took pictures, and the boys ran over to me in excitement to see them on my camera screen.
When it came time for everyone to head up the little hill leading into the village, the boys INSISTED on carrying our luggage for us! This is pretty crazy, considering these boys are pretty scrawny, and probably about the same size as the bags we were carrying (and probably about half of the weight…these bags are carrying a year’s worth of stuff!). Anyways, they dragged a rolling suitcase each up the little hill into town, stopping only a few times for breaks. About halfway up the hill, they decided that they were pretty macho and that they could each take TWO suitcases up the hill, one in each hand. So they did. When we finally arrived at the center, the two boys collapsed in the front yard! HAHA! I’m pretty impressed. After carrying just one I probably would’ve been laying there next to them. Hard little workers!
The facility we stayed at was a Christian Retreat Center, newly built within the last few years. It was very nice! All eight of us girls stayed in a big room together, which was REALLY nice. There were actually three separate rooms (one in the little attic, and two downstairs) and a bathroom set. Poor Mark (being the only guy) was again by himself in his own room, but I don’t think he minds too much. The rooms were named after different books of the Bible. The girls stayed in Esther, and Mark stayed in Nehemiah.
After our first meal at the facility (spaghetti with beans and chunks of hot dog in it), we were invited to the church next door for a music concert. Our language teacher, Zuska, said she didn’t know how good it would be, but we went anyway because we wanted to check it out. It was hilarious. The first few rows were filled with people, and then us and a bunch of teenage guys were in the back. The concert began with a blat noise from the balcony above us, coming from a trombone player. This trombone player played for probably fifteen minutes for the first song, but he didn’t actually play a lot…he just sort of held LONG, drone-like, out of tune notes. He held an out of tune note while he traveled from the balcony down to the main flower and held it as he made is way down the aisle up to the front. Once he got to the front, he finally switched to a different note, and then he started spinning in a circle! He was spinning for at least five minutes, still playing this one note, still out of tune. We tried REALLY hard not to laugh, and it was going okay, until Zuska (the only native Slovakian) started laughing out loud when the trombone player ripped the mute out of his instrument and threw it at the ground (it made a loud cracking noise), and after that we lost it. We weren’t the first ones to laugh, or to leave. I felt bad! Most of the people in the church were snickering, and at least fifteen people from the back rows, where we were sitting, filed out of the church before the trombone player finished his first song. We stayed for a few more songs after that, one more number by the spinning trombone player, and then a woman sang a folk song with her guitar (also a bit drone-like and out of tune). It was a pretty funny experience, and I was surprised at how the locals behaved. Especially for a volunteer performance at a church! Pretty crazy.
Once Daniela told the boys that we were a new group of volunteers, it didn’t take them long to warm up to us and get excited. They crowded around Mark (everyone we’ve talked to so far is quite thrilled that a male volunteer is in Slovakia!) and gave him a pen so he could write his name on their arms! It was pretty entertaining. They did the same to Kristen eventually. I took pictures, and the boys ran over to me in excitement to see them on my camera screen.
When it came time for everyone to head up the little hill leading into the village, the boys INSISTED on carrying our luggage for us! This is pretty crazy, considering these boys are pretty scrawny, and probably about the same size as the bags we were carrying (and probably about half of the weight…these bags are carrying a year’s worth of stuff!). Anyways, they dragged a rolling suitcase each up the little hill into town, stopping only a few times for breaks. About halfway up the hill, they decided that they were pretty macho and that they could each take TWO suitcases up the hill, one in each hand. So they did. When we finally arrived at the center, the two boys collapsed in the front yard! HAHA! I’m pretty impressed. After carrying just one I probably would’ve been laying there next to them. Hard little workers!
The facility we stayed at was a Christian Retreat Center, newly built within the last few years. It was very nice! All eight of us girls stayed in a big room together, which was REALLY nice. There were actually three separate rooms (one in the little attic, and two downstairs) and a bathroom set. Poor Mark (being the only guy) was again by himself in his own room, but I don’t think he minds too much. The rooms were named after different books of the Bible. The girls stayed in Esther, and Mark stayed in Nehemiah.
After our first meal at the facility (spaghetti with beans and chunks of hot dog in it), we were invited to the church next door for a music concert. Our language teacher, Zuska, said she didn’t know how good it would be, but we went anyway because we wanted to check it out. It was hilarious. The first few rows were filled with people, and then us and a bunch of teenage guys were in the back. The concert began with a blat noise from the balcony above us, coming from a trombone player. This trombone player played for probably fifteen minutes for the first song, but he didn’t actually play a lot…he just sort of held LONG, drone-like, out of tune notes. He held an out of tune note while he traveled from the balcony down to the main flower and held it as he made is way down the aisle up to the front. Once he got to the front, he finally switched to a different note, and then he started spinning in a circle! He was spinning for at least five minutes, still playing this one note, still out of tune. We tried REALLY hard not to laugh, and it was going okay, until Zuska (the only native Slovakian) started laughing out loud when the trombone player ripped the mute out of his instrument and threw it at the ground (it made a loud cracking noise), and after that we lost it. We weren’t the first ones to laugh, or to leave. I felt bad! Most of the people in the church were snickering, and at least fifteen people from the back rows, where we were sitting, filed out of the church before the trombone player finished his first song. We stayed for a few more songs after that, one more number by the spinning trombone player, and then a woman sang a folk song with her guitar (also a bit drone-like and out of tune). It was a pretty funny experience, and I was surprised at how the locals behaved. Especially for a volunteer performance at a church! Pretty crazy.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Visit to Parliment
Hi again! So on one of our free days in Bratislava, we went with our country coordinator, Daniela, to see the Bratislava castle. On the way there, we stopped to look at the Slovak Republic Parliament building. We soon found out that it was a free observation day there, and decided to tour the building! I guess at this time of year every year there are a lot of celebrations going on because it’s the anniversary of the signing of the Slovak Republic constitution in early September. It was amazing how relaxed security was, and how freely we could wander around the building. It made me remember going through Parliament in London when I was here a few years ago. The process of even getting into London’s Parliament doors took over an hour, with multiple metal detectors and bag/body pat searches, not to mention the tight security and limited access to what we could see after we actually got through the building. We went through one detector in this building, had a quick purse/bag check, and that was it. Also, we were able to go through pretty much the entire building. We got to go into the main offices of the five chairmen, as well as other rooms with video clips honoring the country’s history and displays of original flags and gavels and things. We got to go in the main council room where meetings are held. We got to go up into the balcony and see the view from the press boxes, as well as go down on the main floor. They even let people sit in the high-rise seats in the front, where the president of Slovakia and other government officials would sit. One thing that was really exciting too, (and I never thought I’d hear myself say this) was that we got to see and KEEP a copy of their constitution! They were giving out nice book copies in Slovak, English, and German! It was exciting to be able to read it.
I think the greatest part about our trip to the Parliament building was the entertainment going out in front of the building. While we were still in the building, we saw kids and teenagers running around in groups, dressed in costumes (which we assumed were traditional country costumes). Daniela told us that each city/town in the country has their own unique pattern or style of uniform that represents that area. There was a stage set up outside where each group was performing a traditional song or dance wearing their area’s costume. It was great!! We watched for almost an hour and got to see quite a few different types of performances. The girls’ costumes were usually long dresses with an overlapping apron of some kind, and the colors and designs were all unique. The guys’ costumes were usually a shirt with some type of vest, a hat, and pants. The girls sang a lot of folk songs, usually in a nasal-pitched tone, and they yipped/screamed short little screams while they’re dancing. It’s strange, and at first I thought the screams were coming from the small kids at the front of the stage. I’m going to post video clips I took of the dancing, and if you listen you can hear the screechy yips they make! There were a few all male groups that went up that told folk stories, and did more acting and dancing, but not much singing. Anyways, check out the clips and pictures from the dancing. Sorry if they aren’t up right away, but eventually they will be. Hope all is well, talk again soon!
I think the greatest part about our trip to the Parliament building was the entertainment going out in front of the building. While we were still in the building, we saw kids and teenagers running around in groups, dressed in costumes (which we assumed were traditional country costumes). Daniela told us that each city/town in the country has their own unique pattern or style of uniform that represents that area. There was a stage set up outside where each group was performing a traditional song or dance wearing their area’s costume. It was great!! We watched for almost an hour and got to see quite a few different types of performances. The girls’ costumes were usually long dresses with an overlapping apron of some kind, and the colors and designs were all unique. The guys’ costumes were usually a shirt with some type of vest, a hat, and pants. The girls sang a lot of folk songs, usually in a nasal-pitched tone, and they yipped/screamed short little screams while they’re dancing. It’s strange, and at first I thought the screams were coming from the small kids at the front of the stage. I’m going to post video clips I took of the dancing, and if you listen you can hear the screechy yips they make! There were a few all male groups that went up that told folk stories, and did more acting and dancing, but not much singing. Anyways, check out the clips and pictures from the dancing. Sorry if they aren’t up right away, but eventually they will be. Hope all is well, talk again soon!
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