Written by Valts Rozentāls
Some rain snuck in overnight to offer us some fresh air to recover from all the heat of yesterday. While this brought some heavy sleep at night to rest our bodies – this would also mean that with the sunrise the extra water around would make the air heavy again. This was just the case as we found ourselves on the outdoor court of “Székelykapu Panzio”, our lovely host pension. Start at 800 sharp, both Teams on time and ready for a warm-up. Four station training – ball handling, footwork, shooting, 1on1. Perfect way to start a day, even if the rain cut our practice some ten minutes short. Short period of rain in a very hot weather – another lesson to be learned about being happy about the short relief, as it bites you thirty minutes later as the sun and heat makes their return.
Some time went by till we got to breakfast as for the first time the participants had to take part in preparing the food. As most of the first times, we had to accommodate the learning curve – also for dinner. At the end work went smooth enough and we could get a nice and well deserved meal.
After that some free time was in order. Some went to explore the village with all their inhabitants and their daily lives, some played some extra ball games on the court, and some were just chilling and enjoying the short period of extra rest. Miriam and I had to visit a very nice bakery in neighboring city Udvarhély called “Alexandria”. We were also on luck as just before we had to make our order – some lady walked in, and on our attempt to ask if they spoke English, she told us she can translate the German. Very helpful and made our purchase much easier. What did we buy? More on this below.
Around seventeen hundred it was time team up with the local youth, by mixing them and our youth in four teams, to explore the village of Bögöz with their 1’700 inhabitants (around 98% of population are Hungarians). The goal was the teambuilding, as the teams received 32 pictures to be found and had to communicate almost without any knowledge of the specific languages to find them. Of course, this was mostly based on youth of Bögöz as they had to lead the way to find the objects. As we later went into feedback round there were many challenges the teams had to overcome and many curiosities along the way. This way the local youth could show some parts of their village to the guests and our youth had a chance to take a glance how is the infrastructure (Bus and train stops, roads of different kinds, buildings etc.) around here and also – the local people. Altogether very nice and satisfying experience, culture shock guaranteed.
Right after returning to our base in “Székelykapu Panzio” – we had to prepare ourselves for an evening training. Topics were some easy footwork and cutting techniques, passing and fast breaks. This is also where the part of our visit to “Alexandria” comes in – a girl from Bögöz with soubriquet Orsi was having a birthday today and turning 15 years old! A time to celebrate, even if we could tell she came somehow shy on this kind of celebration, for a brief moment – all the attention turned to her. Anyhow, I and Miriam did get two very nice and tasty cakes from “Alexandria” earlier today (even with a Name written on one of them!) and after singing “Happy birthday dear Orsi” to her, we celebrated a little by eating a slice of chocolate cake after the practice. Practice, birthday and a chocolate cake… Isn’t the life beautiful?
After that it was time to say our goodbyes for today and go to dinner. Then the feedback round to reflect on all the amazing events today and determine some organizational points for tomorrow and up in beds we went to get well deserved rest and recover our strength for tomorrow as it will be also very promising day full of events. Dusk seemed to cool down the air to let us sleep at night, and as the darkness set in for stars to be seen – the grasshoppers went on stage to lull us into sleep.
