Wednesday morning was still quite hard for us because of jet lag, and waking up two hours earlier than we were supposed to, but it’s getting better every day. We had an amazing breakfast with Ami and his family. We felt like real American kids while eating the French toast and drinking orange juice on the side.
After we arrived at school and had a second breakfast we had our third workshop. We played a really fun game where we had an opportunity to learn more about the community of Beth Tfiloh Dahan Community School. After that we visited the Hebrew class of grade 11. It was surprising to see how similar it was to the Hebrew classes back in Budapest (very likely because our teacher is also Israeli). We also had a talk with Mr. Joel Monroe, who previously visited Hungary with this program. He invited us into his office, and we had an amazing conversation about his memories about Hungary, and how we see life in Hungary at the moment, six years after his visit. He also told us about some of his experiences living in the USA.
After visiting the classes of the BT students and talking with Mr. Monroe we had lunch and a short break before Coach (AKA Eli Creeger) took us with one of the school buses to our community service project with Art with a Heart. The organizers were so kind and welcoming, they showed us around the place, and showed us a quick five-minute video about what they do. While watching the video, we had the opportunity to learn about the project and what the organization is all about, while also helping them create and customize material for the projects mentioned above. There were also other volunteers there, who we could talk to. They were very kind and interested in our experiences while living in Hungary, so we had a lot of fun and valuable conversation with them.
When we got back from our community service with Art with a Heart, we had dinner, and afterwards we had some time to talk to Chanan Weissman, who has been the representative of the American Jewish Community twice, once with the Obama Administration, and now also with the Biden Administration. We asked him questions about what it was like working as a diplomat in the White House, and being Jewish at the same time, meeting representatives of other countries and about his experiences while working in the government in general. It was also fascinating to see how enthusiastic he was about helping his community, other minorities and preserving democracy as a whole.
After all of our mandatory activities, our amazing host took us to TJMaxx and Ross, both are discount stores, where we went to look for clothes, which we actually got loads of.
Written by: Mozes Borbély and Samuel Ecsedi
