4th of July Celebration in Ároktő

Last Friday, we went to Ároktő for another visit.  This time we planned an all-American 4^th of July party, complete with roasting hot dogs, potato salad, potato chips and s’mores.  

They have hot dogs here in Hungary, but they had never roasted them over a fire, and they had never had potato salad.  Even stranger, they had never had hot dogs and potato chips to eat together in the same meal.   They seemed to enjoy these new treats and we had a good time being the ones comfortable with what we were eating and watching them question whether they wanted to eat it or not.

 

S’mores were also a new type of dessert for them.  Typically, Hungarian desserts are not very sweet so we worried that they wouldn’t like the s’mores.  Since they don’t have graham crackers here, we used sugar cones, chocolate chips and marshmallows.  The marshmallows here are kind of strange though.  They don’t puff up like American marshmallows and they “sweat” before they get toasty.  In spite of the differences, they were yummy and everyone liked them.  I think a few of them even had 3-4 cones.  I think I liked the sugar cone even better than the graham crackers.  Maybe we can start a new trend when we get home.

                       

After lunch we had a tour of the community center where there is a small library, computers, and a sewing room complete with 6 sewing machines.  We have plans to teach the women how to sew.  Timi, the 7 year old pictured below with her mother, will be my assistant.  She is very excited to learn to sew and help the other women.  I also told her that my granddaughter, Kaitlyn, wanted a pen pal in Hungary.  Kaitlyn has already written to her and we had her letter translated and given to the Mayor of the village who will give it to Timi. This is their backyard with their big garden.

In Ároktő, the families have their own individual backyard gardens as well as a large community plot that has been donated to them by the mayor of the village. The following pictures are of the community plot.  It is in a beautiful setting just across a little river and surrounded by crops of sunflowers.