The past couple of weeks...

Hello! Here's a quick update on things that I've been doing for the past couple of weeks:
I believe my visa situation is finally settled. It took four trips to the immigration office, but Pastor Misi tells me that that is to be expected. Additional taxes and paperwork had to be paid and gathered, and the last obstacle was to obtain a copy of the deed to the house I'm staying in with Zsuzsikaneni (Aunt Suzy). It turned out that her sister-in-law who lives in former Yugoslavia still owned part of the house, but that Zsuzsika had gotten a judge to grant her full control over it; however, the deed hadn't been modified to include this information. Once that was done and everything was in order, I was good to go. One side note: I was beginning to think that one particular man at the immigration office had something against me, because he kept telling us that we needed more documents and that my documentation wasn't right yet. But when all was said and done and I was signing the last of the forms, he told Misi and I that he thought it was great that I am here in Hungary and he hoped that my work with the Gypsies would go well! That experience was very encouraging, and sort of had a "don't judge a book by its cover" moral attached.
I've also been working at a site in the village of Gorogszallas which will eventually be a preschool. The building had been open to the community, but it was in quite bad shape. The church I work with applied for a grant from the "New Hungary" organization and is using the money they received to renovate the building. Both Gypsy and Hungarian people are contributing to the building process. Late last week we invited the members of the community in to answer some of their questions and discuss the use of the updated facilities. One possible issue of contention is that the building had once been used for parties celebrating Gypsy heritage, which included a lot of dancing and celebration, but also a lot of smoking and drinking and roughhousing. Obviously, a preschool is not a good place for events like this to continue in the same way they did before, so some new arrangements must be made. During the community meeting, the discussion on this topic actually got quite heated between a leader of the Gypsy community and a leader of the Hungarian community. It seems like they both want to work together, and they recognized that in earlier generations both groups worked well together, but it seems that grudges have arisen. It was really my first time seeing this level of distrust between the two different groups.
This past weekend, I spent two days with a chapter of a Hungarian environmental group catching and tagging birds at a nearby national park. Camping was very fun, the people were great, and it was really just a nice change of pace.
My tasks for the future are kind of up in the air at the moment. It looks like I will have the opportunity to help out at the new preschool when it is completed and work with the Gypsy and Hungarian children. I may also have the opportunity to work with Peter, a seminary student working at the church with me, as he teaches religion in a local school a couple of times a week. Both tasks sound very exciting and promising!