So the Work Days turned out to be quite full, very little time for blogging. I'll go through in order, but it's Tuesday and Lindsay and I are off to our favorite bookstore/tea house in the old castle district of Budapest to celebrate our 31st anniversary in quiet style!
Day one in Banska Bystrica we drove in from Budapest with Mate Varga of Hungary and Elizabeth Balint of Toledo and Budapest. We arrived, grabbed a coffee and went to work, reviewing 66 applications for the exchange program that will bring 14 US organizers here and 28 europeans to the US for 6 weeks. The task was to identify the first 16. I guess it's a lot like the Needmor proposal reading process. For every applicant there are three or four others out there who are interested, involved in good work but just couldn't get away for 6 weeks. Every applicant represents a story - and reading and hearing about these stories is tremendously encouraging. One Roma (gypsy) woman told of her struggle to please her family as a "perfect Roma girl" but breaking out to prove that this could also include going to college, getting a job, causing a stir, standing up for herself. I admit to being touched by her courage.
The process goes on - we'll meet some of the Hungarian applicants later today. But by 7:30 that night when we finally broke for dinner, we had sixteen names (the tentative list) and possible "matches" for the US organizations they'd visit. The reality is unfolding - in Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania there will be this year (2012) a lot of meeting, preparation, travel and training. At the end, there will be a new generation of activists who know what they mean when they say "community organizing" and are - together - doing it!
A picture of the food at our lodgings (the Kuria) in Banska Bystrica, Slovakia. More toomorrow.
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