The weather

Hungarian students are usually diligent, committing to memory immense amounts of information which they can spew out in oral exams, using short-term memory skills. However, they sometimes expect a break from the rigor. In a land filled with hot thermal medicinal baths, their attempt at respite comes from an unusual source.Each day, ’the weather lady’ reports on radio and TV as does ours. But, additionally, each day, a meteorologic physician adds his report, notifying Hungarians that due to barometric pressures or changes, they will have headaches, or be lethargic, or ache all over, or need extra sleep. My students early began sharing these predictions as ’gospel’.

It became quite a challenge to anticipate what collective symptoms I might encounter in any one day of classes. And it was painful for my students to learn that this, evidently, was an only-in-Hungary phenomena! (When I checked with my Hungarian co-teachers, they too were suffering from the prescibed maladies and tried to take that into account as they taught.)

To go ahead irregardless of the weather was unheard of, but that is what we gently do in my classes.

Coralyn T. Medyesy, Missionary in Hungary

Coralyn Medyesy is a missionary with the Reformed Church in Hungary, based in Budapest, Hungary. She serves as a Teacher of Social Work and Diakonia at the Nagy Koros School.