We sat in a circle, chair touching chair. The large alphabet letters, rhymes and colorful math posters hanging on the walls seemed slightly humorous and out of place as I looked around at all the adults filling the room. Some older, worn from a lifetime of dedicated work, many younger, in their 30’s, still in the Summer of their lives, all the way down to me and my fellow volunteers in our 20’s. It was the last day before I would venture outside the small town of Magyarmecske, and head up north to spend Christmas with some fellow volunteers in Budapest, and it also happened to be the day for the teachers’ annual ‘Christmas Party’ at the school where we volunteer – and they had graciously invited us to join in the fun.
Now, I can’t say I know what a typical teachers Christmas party consists of, but I can say this turned out to be a bit different than any ‘holiday work gathering’ I’ve encountered before.
Let me take you back a bit…perhaps to about two weeks before the date of this party…back to the day we were told we could attend, and of course, going hand-in-hand with that, we were also invited to participate in a gift exchange with the teachers…you know, put everyone’s name in a box, pull a name out and you get a gift for that person. Nothing new, I was used to that type of Christmas tradition, even though I ended up drawing the Headmistress’ name out of the box (as if that wasn’t intimidating!), I still felt fairly confident that I could successfully complete my task of finding a gift to wish her a Merry Christmas with. Now, let us fast forward two weeks, to the night before said Christmas party. After a day full of little kids’ Christmas skits and festive songs at school, I found myself walking home through a lightly snowy evening, beside Ildiko (the teacher who also happens to live with us). We were chatting about how the day went, when seemingly (to me), out of no where, she asked me if I’d finished writing my poem… (translated from Hungarian)
“hmmm, poem?...what poem?” I ask…trying to rack my brain and remember if she saw me writing a letter, or something she might have thought was a poem.
“You know…the poem.” She replies, thinking I must not have understood the Hungarian.
“hmmmm, was a writing a poem?” trying to figure out why she’s asking me about writing a poem I can’t remember writing…
“You know…the poem…for the party tomorrow…” uh-oh…
“We’re supposed to write a poem for tomorrow?! Like about the person we drew?! I did NOT know this…” haha, double uh-oh
“No one told you?!” Ildiko asks with a laugh
“I don’t think so….”
But then again, I’m beginning to accept that there are a lot of things I happen to miss out on hearing, when I don’t speak the language as fluently as those around me J
I proceeded to spend the rest of that night struggling to write a poem…in Hungarian…about the headmistress of our school. And let me tell you, it didn’t rhyme, and I highly doubt it was pretty J but at least everyone laughed at my last stanza that said something about apologizing for making them all suffer through my horrible Hungarian, and they were able to correctly guess the person I’d written about! (and no, her name was not in the poem J)
As we went around the room – everyone reading their poems, people standing up at the realization that they were the subject of a poem, and graciously giving the writer a hug and receiving their gift, my eyes were opened to what incredible people these were, surrounding me. It wasn’t just a room filled with co-workers, it was a room filled with friends, and brothers and sisters, joined together by their compassion and concern for the children they work with every day. With every poem that was read, laughter filled the room, often, along with tears, for the incredible overflowing of love and friendship spoken in the thoughtful verses. I couldn’t even begin to understand all the humor, or heartfelt feelings that were presented in the words spoken in that 2nd grade classroom, but I could see that these were incredible, beautiful, compassionate people, whom I was blessed to work with. People committed to working in a school that others might turn and run from, people committed to teaching and loving children who may be at a loss to find someone who believes in them, and people committed to making a difference in their students’ lives. I have no aspirations to become a Hungarian poet, but I do hope that my days would reflect the same love and passion and commitment, that those teachers revealed to me that day…and what a lovely world it might be if we all aspired to do the same J
