We travelled by bus, with a weeks bus pass provided, which was very painless and probably more efficient than England's!
On our arrival we were greeted by Betty, a social worker for the youth centre. She spoke English fairly well and explained a bit about her role and the plight of the surrounding area. Poverty and unemployment was rife, as seems to be the case for a large proportion of Hungary. We were then told we were to watch a play bout drugs that was being delivered to primary school children from the surrounding schools.
The play was in Hungarian, with the script given to us in English so we could attempt to follow. The play was a mix of dance and narration about the life of a drug user from Argentina. The play was designed for the shock factor but it didn't seem to hold the kids attention. As the play developed it was clear there was a religious undertone that grew into an advertisement for a Christian rehabilitation camp through an organisation called Word of Life. After the performance the cast spoke to those young people who were interested and told them about the camps in more detail.
The concept of a Christian play promoting a bible camp sat uneasily with me. It is a very American concept and immediately made me question why it made me feel so torn. In England, evangelical methods have never quite taken off as most English are not susceptible to the hard sell 'god will save you or you go to hell' method of religion. After the play we sat down with one of the actors who talked to us about the idea of taking the email addresses of the young people was to try to recruit 'disciples'(direct quote). It made me relate the concept to the historical
notion of religion being a vehicle for the poor to channel there energy into something positive, as in a cause that may distract from their circumstances. Now, this is not a comment to say that this notion is wrong, but as a self confessed atheist and a westerner, I questioned whether there is a slight element of opportunism on the evangelical messengers part...
In the afternoon, after a lunch of mammoth pastries, we helped in a youth club held at Freedom House on Monday's, Wednesday's and Friday's. The simple setup was of six PC's, a table tennis table, some balls and some board games. The main aim was to allow kids to access the Internet in a place away from school if they were not able to at home. The similarities in the use of the Internet, the worlds greatest information resource, to the kids in the Youth Cafe I run were apparent - Facebook and flash Games... The young people who weren't using the computers were happy to kick a ball about or play table tennis and were not too shy they couldn't laugh when one of us played a bad shot! It was heartening to me that youth clubs 1000's of miles apart can be similar in the way they are enjoyed and delivered.
In the evening we went for a meal to Calico Jacks, a ship themed restaurant. The food was great and the portions huge... I ordered a meat platter which had every type of meat cooked perfectly!
As we left the restaurant Shandor said 'jó éjszakát' which means goodbye... The pronunciation of which sounded like 'you is a cat' which I shared with my fellow volunteers (Hayley, Leonie and Kath) and Judit. I said that it sounded like the English phrase mentioned - 'you is a cat'; to which they all fell into a state of hysteric laughing, to a point where there were four girls in tears of laughter on the tram getting strange looks from others. But, google translator vindicated me when i returned to the flat, as when I typed 'goodbye' in, the words in Hungarian spoken to me by my phone were 'you is a cat', which everyone overheard and burst into hysterics again... Check it yourselves and get back to me with your results!
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