The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

While January was a bit sleepy around these parts, things have really kicked into gear this month! Time is flying, and gone are the quiet days of winter break. Here's a recap of some of the things that I've been up to recently:

The Good: In Which I Did A Cool Thing!

There's an initiative of the State Department called American Corners; these are offices located all over the world and serve to promote and strengthen understanding of Americans and American culture. The American corner in Budapest often hosts events and discussions related to the United States, from holidays to politics to religion. The director of the Corner (and a good friend of mine) Vali, asked me a while back to host a discussion. So, just over a week ago, I led a conversation at the American Corner about volunteerism. 

The people who attended had all been involved in volunteer work in some form or fashion -- from one lady who does children's programs for siblings of cancer patients so the parents have time to focus on their sick child, to another woman who works with an organization to help people living with multiple sclerosis. I talked about my experience in the Peace Corps, as well as some of the things I am doing here in Hungary, and it led into a really interesting discussion about volunteering. How can we make sure that the volunteering we do is effective? How do you overcome burnout? How can we motivate more people to engage with their community?

It was a really interesting discussion, and I was so glad that Vali asked me to do it. Those of you that know me well know that I don't particularly enjoy public speaking. (I know, I know, I'm a teacher. I do this for a living.) But through my teaching, and events like this, I am getting better at it (and more confident) every time. Plus, I got to have a lovely evening with some intelligent and community-minded Hungarians. Success!

The Bad: In Which I Witnessed an Operatic Disaster

Since the first grade, when I was cast in the prominent role of "mouse" in our class production of The Little Red Hen, I have nurtured a lifelong love of theater, and especially musicals. So when a friend of mine invited me to a special showing of an opera about to open here in Budapest, I accepted without hesitation. Little did I know what I was getting into!

This was a production of Porgy and Bess -- which, if you haven't seen it, revolves around members of a poor Black community in the slums of 1930's Charleston, South Carolina, and it is traditionally performed by an all-Black cast. Given that the Black community in Budapest is pretty small, I immediately wondered how that would work. The answer? Imagine a cast of all-white Hungarian opera singers, highly trained in German, English, and Italian operas, attempting to get through lyrics like this:

"No, no, brudder, Porgy ain' sof' on no woman;

They pass by singin',

They pass by cryin', always lookin'.

They look in my do' an' they keep on movin'.

When Gawd make cripple,

he mean him to be lonely.

Night time, day time,

he got to trabble dat lonesome road."

It. Was. A. Disaster.

Now, usually, I am all about sharing of cultures, and would hypothetically support a show that might serve to educate Hungarians more about American culture and history. However, this show was so staggeringly bad that I am still shocked that it ever even got off the ground. Apparently, none of the designers talked to each other, because the set looked like the inside of a contemporary art museum (think: white walls, bushes, and metallic shapes) complete with escalator. The costumes looked like someone just went nuts in a thrift shop with the concept "homeless chic". For some reason, half the cast wore neon colored wigs, but you couldn't tell because the actors were in dark pockets the whole time. The lighting designer inside my cried the whole time. Even if you could have seen them properly, the characters were flat and lifeless, and it was really hard to follow what was happening despite the fact that there were subtitles in English. 

That said, the friend who invited me is a professional dramaturg, so we had a grand old time discussing the production with her and her other dramaturg friends. It's been a long time since I got to hang out with "theater people" so even though it was an awful show, weirdly enough, I had fun.

To see what I'm talking about, you can watch a "trailer" for the production here.

The Ugly: Piggies Big and Small

Hungarians really like festivals. Since coming here, I've been to a dessert festival, a chimney cake festival, and a few others. This weekend, Jasmine and I took the opportunity to go to a sausage festival. (Yes, you can laugh. Get it out of your system).

It was perfect timing, actually, because we had been out late the night before with the other Fulbrighters, and were in need of some fresh air and greasy food. We could smell the festival before we could see it, and it did not disappoint. So many different types of sausage, as well as cheeses, wines, honey, crafts, soaps... it was fun. 

To warm up the appetite, there were some pens that you could look into, containing some huge, smelly pigs. Mmmm. Naturally, after looking at the pigs, we went and bought some pork sausage, which we ate with traditional Hungarian stuffed cabbage. Delicious! 

This morning (the next day), I was sitting in my favorite coffeeshop doing some lesson planning, when in walks a lady with her pet on a leash. Now, it's quite normal in Hungary for people to bring their dogs into coffeeshops (especially since, as a whole, Hungarian dogs are about a thousand times better behaved than the average American dog.) However, in this case, it was not a dog. It was a pig! A little piglet on a leash, complete with a mini sweater, walking around on its tiny little hooves, sniffing at people and wagging it's little curly tail. The pig looked so happy, and I couldn't help but feeling a little guilty for eating his peers less than twelve hours before.

OINK