We started the day at Gan Balagan, meeting up with Beti and Niya, as well as our friends who came from Lauder Javne Ovode in Budapest, with their director Szonja. Beti and Niya took us on a tour of the light-filled and spacious classrooms of the school. We were greeted by friendly educators and happy children. We got to experience the older children welcoming Shabbat with homemade challah, a story, and a few songs.
After spending time in the classrooms, we began the process of examining the relationships between the children and educators and the environment of the school.
We only scraped the surface when it was time for our next appointment. We (Fran and Mara) had lunch with Julia Dandolova, CEO of the Bulgarian Jewish Community, and Milena Leneva, where we discussed the opening of the new Lauder School in Sofia. The preschool is scheduled to move into a new building with the day school, which will be built over the next couple of years. We talked about the importance of design decisions which will be made soon. We are looking forward to seeing the new day school and the land for the new building.
Our evening was enhanced by celebrating Shabbat with our Budapest friends at their air bnb. As Mara remarked, this will be a Shabbat that we will always remember as one with new friends from around the world. Thank you to SOS for bringing us all together.
