The Dutch

I was told by someone once that the Dutch are everywhere in Europe – and sure enough, they are even in Tata.  There is a long standing exchange program between my school and a gimnazium in The Netherlands that is a really neat opportunity.  Every other year, a group of about 40 Dutch students and 4 teachers come to Hungary, and the next year the Hungarians go to The Netherlands.  Upon my return to school after the break, the Dutch were in full effect in Tata.  The students stay with Hungarian students and the teachers stay with Hungarian teachers.  English is the common language – it’s really interesting to watch.  At any rate, I was roped into being the emcee for the final event with the Hungarian and Dutch students.  They would have a series of activities to participate in as groups and it would be a competition (of course, because what in Hungary is not a competition).  I was told by Gabi that we would discuss the details on Thursday morning – with the competition being held at 10:00 on Thursday morning.  Perfect – no worries.  When we “discussed” what the kids were going to do, it was a total crap shoot.  There were things like identify the pictures of places in Hungary, put together pieces of a puzzle of a picture of something Hungarian, recite a Hungarian tongue twister (which is no easy feat) and sing a Hungarian folk song.  It was a nice event that wasn’t real structured so it gave me a little bit of room to be an entertainer as well as a facilitator.  I think all of the dutch were fascinated by the resident American since they didn’t know that I existed – it all worked out well.