After packing up my Viennese life and hitting the road, I found myself three hours south-east, in Budapest! I had planned to spend around 14 days learning about Hungarian culture and exploring the country before I jet off to Cairo to meet with my love.
Before I left Austria, I had managed to arrange a volunteering experience through workaway.info with a company called Angolfalu, an English language summer camp based an hour outside of Budapest. They required English speaking resident summer camp assistants to speak English with the campers. I applied for the post straight away and within a few weeks, I was living in a beautiful small castle nestled in the quiet and rather charming Erdotarcsa.
Erdotarcsa is a small village located in the Nograd county of Hungry, with a population a little over 600. It is extremely peaceful and made the perfect environment to 'get away from it all' and enjoy the therapeutic benefits of being in the countryside. Time seemed to stand rather still in this small village as the local 'high street' consisted of a post office, a corner shop and a pub- which was someone's home that they had opened up to the rest of the village. The backdrop of course was chickens flapping about and the loud sound of flexing in the distance- something which my new friend Kata explained to us clearly. 'Flexing' though I'm sure I have the spelling wrong, was the sound of Hungarian country people welding. A sound that cannot be mistaken for anything other than the Hungarian countryside as you will undoubtedly hear it in any Hungarian countryside you visit!
On arrival in Budapest, I was met by a very friendly man named Krisrof who was going to be the camp leader. He mentioned to me that we were waiting for just two more volunteers, both American and then we would be off. I couldn't help but ask how many students would be attending the summer camp in the coming week and to my surprise, there were only 5 individuals. So this meant that altogether the 9 of us would be having a fun intimate week of English learning- woo hoo! It sounded rather daunting at first as in all honesty I had no experience teaching English, however, I had a heap of experience volunteering with young people in schools. I figured out that possibly it will turn out to be a blessing in disguise as working alongside a small group of young people meant each and every one of them would receive direct help on their language skills. After nipping to the loo, I was greeted by the two other volunteers, Tom and Sonia both from the USA except Sonia was living in Spain. Tom had just graduated and was doing what loads of American graduates do- travel Europe over summer (no judgements passed Tom!) We all hopped in the minivan and headed to our new home.
That evening, once all the campers had arrived we sat down for a nice evening meal which I must say was greatly appreciated on my end. I hadn't eaten a proper big meal in what felt like forever, as you see when you live alone and are a student who loves travelling everywhere all the time your money tends to go towards cheap flights and climbing mountains rather than a three-course dinner each night. I'm not saying it's the best way to be as I believe good eating habits are so important though I must admit that week I spent at the summer camp, my body adjusted rather quickly to the regular meal times and buffet portions. And that was for every meal may I add including breakfast! We chatted and got to know each other a little bit, of course in English and then settled in the common area for some evening card games.
The highlight for me had to be the camps visit to the local sunflower field. I had never been to a sunflower field before and it was truly magical. Such noble plants reaching far taller than any of us... smiling up to the sun or shying away from the rain. Such beauty we are surrounded by!!!!
Over the course of the week without going into too much detail, our days looked a lot like this:
8:00am Breakfast
9:30am Chill Out & Chat
10:00am Language practice in groups on the chosen topic; i.e family, school, careers, sport etc
-Use of Pool, Sauna, Tennis Courts & Castle Grounds-
1:00pm Lunch
2:30pm Language practice in groups
-Use of Pool, Sauna, Tennis Courts & Castle Grounds-
4:00pm Group Debate/Afternoon Walk/Games Afternoon
6:30pm Dinner
8:00pm Chill Out/Movie/Campfire
So not only were us volunteers receiving 3 buffet meals a day but also accommodation and use of all facilities within the castle grounds. All in exchange for our time and enthusiasm! Thank you workaway.info and thank you AngolFalu!!!
The week went by rather fast and soon I had made some lovely new friends. We had chatted about everything from education systems across the world to strange supernatural experiences. We had played a lot of board games and watched some heated World Cup matches. I had also developed a secret admirer amongst the students and had to carefully explain I was soon heading to Egypt to meet my boyfriend. My flight to Egypt was in fact in a few days and I wanted to catch the best of the Budapest before I left so I bid my farewells and caught the train back to the city.
Thank you to AngolFalu for giving me this fantastic opportunity and thank you to all the lovely students who taught me a lot about Hungarian culture... I hope I helped improve your English!
If you are interested in doing a volunteer placement with workaway.info just click the link and sign up! There are over 1000 different placements in Europe alone. If you would like to attend an AngolFalu summer camp in Hungry, follow the link!
Peace&Love,
Willow
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