HOME projekt, Budapest

In the one-week Erasmus program from September 26 to October 1 the theme was migration. During this one week, we had many opportunities to get to know this topic more deeply. Since we held the meeting in Budapest, we all hosted an exchange student. Being a historical city, Budapest dazzled our guests with many colorful attractions. My personal favorite was the holocaust museum, which was close to our school and left a deep impression on everyone. The exhibition took us through the horrors of the war and ended in a synagogue. This museum spoke to me in particular, since I myself come from a Jewish background. The teachers even provided us with two guides for the exhibition, one for the foreigners in English and one for us Hungarians, in Hungarian.
They showed how anti-Semitism began to spread in Hungary around the time of the Second World War, what the nazis used to dehumanize them, and how they made the lives of Jews more difficult day by day.
It was a disturbing experience, and not the only one we visited this week
We also looked at the shoe sculptures on the banks of the Danube, next to the parliament, with which we remember when the soldiers of the Hungarian Arrow Cross Party took the Jews out and shot them into the river.
We were able to get to know these stories from a new perspective, through the eyes of our foreign students.
Of course, during our one week, we didn’t just show them shocking things, they had the opportunity to get to know a fun and lively Budapest, as we know it today.

Day1
We arrived to school on monday morning, we had a welcoming ceremony with homemade snacks and presentation by one of the school coordinators. After that the students formed groups and had one hour to do the mission (im)possible tasks, when everyone was finished we moved on to our first lunch together in the dining hall.
In the afternoon every group presented their finished tasks and then we had a guided tour around the school. That was the first day, after that we had free time with our guests and in the evening most of us got together at Ponyva café.

Day 2
On tuesday we went sightseeing in the same groups as we did the tasks in the other day. Every team started in different points of the city and the goal was to show the most important things in Budapest, like Buda Castle, Heros square, Liberty bridge, the Parliament and lot’s of other things. We stopped for lunch at noon and my team ate a hungarian speciality called Lángos and a hungarian sweet food called kürtöskalács. We finished the tour around 15:00 and we some of the hosts and their guests got together in the evening at Manyi from there we visited Marget island and when everyone got tired out we all went home.

day 3
Wednesday was a bit more laid back. We went to the school again where we watched a part from a movie about a Somalian migrant girl who escaped her father and started a new life in Hungary. We also had the opportunity to have a chat with her and ask questions about her life. It was really interesting. We ate lunch together in our school and then we visited a holocaust museum near the school. We learnt about the brutality of all the thing that went down in that period of time mostly in Hungary, and how the jews were discriminated even before the nazis. Then some of the students and the teachers went to a thermal bath.

day 4
On thursday we were supposed to go hiking in the hills of Buda but the rain washed away our plans so instead we went to a museum about all kinds of inventions and electronics. It was really big so we didn’t have time to go through all of it but it was still very interesting. After the rain stopped we formed two groups and we went to two different cave systems in the hills of Buda. We had guided tours in the caves. Then we met up with the students in the evening and had a house party.

day 5
Friday was our last day. We went to school again to listen to all the presentations about migration in each country. When everyone was done we formed new groups and the teachers gave us an egg. We had to trade the egg to as many and as valuable thing as we could. It was really fun. After two hours every team presented their journey up until the last item. There was a group who finished with a hug, and there were groups who finished with an object for example some slippers. Then in the las free time most of the students went shopping and then we got back to school for the farewell party where we ate traditional hungarian dishes and danced to some folk music. In the end we did some karaoke. Then sadly we had to say goodbye to everyone.

After the projectweek every countries organised their own photo-exhibiton about the topic of migration.