Heartbreak

Heartbreak, you see, transcends language barriers.

Monday started wonderfully, three classes in German (we mostly understood each other) and then two in English. The first English class, I must say, aptly sums up many of my first impressions about the Hungarian schools.

(Let's take a moment, though, to make sure that we are all reading Heves as "HEV-ish." Start to say the word "heavy," but then cut out the "y" at the end and replace it with an "ish." If you have not been doing that up to this point, you are wrong. Please change.)

Bells are significant in America. Teachers, students, everyone is ready to start at the bell, and more than ready to leave at the second bell. In Hungary, bells might better be replaced with the following loudspeaker announcement:

"Attention Eotvos Joszef Kozepiskola: Hello, how are you doing on this lovely day? This announcement is just a suggestion, consider it however you might. Students, now is probably a good time to put out your cigarette and begin to file back into the school. Of course, if you are engaged in a really interesting conversation with a scantily-clad member of the opposite sex, please continue talking until you have reached some sort of conclusion. And if you just lit a cigarette, what the heck, take your time. And attention teachers: No need to rush yourselves this lovely day. Please begin now the third of five in-depth personal conversations you will have between classes. That way, once the students have all filed back into the school and toward the general direction of a classroom, you might be able to do the same. Of course, don't feel pressured, as the students will certainly understand if you are just now beginning to plan a lesson or are in the middle of a particularly delightful snack. Class is 45 minutes long, no need to hurry. Thank you for listening to the bell, enjoy your approximately five-ten-fifteen minute warning, and have a great day!"

A second difference/challenge is the schedule. Not content with anything simple or well-organized, the school has A weeks and B weeks. Classes regularly divide, especially for language classes. The groups migrate, as do teachers, and occasionally no one is exactly sure where they belong. Friday, for example, my contact teacher told me to take six kids to the courtyard. We had a great time, but I was promptly yelled at by the principal. Second-hand, of course, he speaks none of the three languages I speak, and I speak none of the two he speaks.

Today, 10B and I were one of the nomadic classes, with no real home. We wandered around the school for ten minutes, I promise you, trying random doors until we found one that was open. A lone chemistry teacher, not an English or German speaker sadly, was in the room. I somehow got the point across that I was a shepherd to a herd of children without a home, so she let us discuss the finer points of how to pronounce their names, and whether or not I have got a job, car, girlfriend or pet. Not always in that order.

I left school smiling, but we come back to the heartbreak.

"Internet no today," the librarian stuttered. I appreciated the attempt at English, but walked home crushed. The world was stolen for me. (For example, I would have to wait another day to find out that William Rehnquist died.)

I mulled the sad state of things over reheated spaghetti, but left with a smile, knowing that for two hours my life would be better. I would live in the fiction of a different time and a different place in a language I happen to speak. Batman Begins began at 6:00 pm at the theatre.

I smiled all the way to the theatre, three blocks away. I grinned as I slid 400 forints ($2) across the counter and proudly said "egy." The lady frowned and said "nem" before starting a rather long explanation. I told her I didn't know Hungarian, but she continued on, pointing variously at the cash box, the seating chart and the weekly schedule. I stumbled backwards in defeat. Crushed. The harshness of reality swallowed my attempt to escape in fiction. I couldn't get into the movies, for a reason I don't understand.

I stormed to the grocery store, bought 400 forints worth of ice cream and pouted all night.