Potatoes and privacy: Jodie Hendrick (B.A., Social Work, '96) learned about Slovak hospitality while living with a host family during her Peace Corps training.
Potatoes and privacy
Jodie Hendrick (B.A., Social Work, '96) learned about Slovak hospitality while living with a host family during her Peace Corps training. In Slovakia, people feed guests until they are so full they can't move, she says. Once, as her host mother offered Hendrick more food, "I put my hand over my plate. I said, ‘No, thank you, I have enough,' and she put food on my hand." Hendrick realized that the Slovak way is to want their friends and guests to "be happy and healthy and full."
After training, Hendrick lived in Dubnica nad Váhom, a manufacturing town of about 25,000 people, where she worked with Dub, or Oak, an environmental education group. Initially the organization didn't have an apartment for her, so she lived with her boss's mother-in-law. While Hendrick found the lack of privacy difficult, her language skills improved immensely. She learned how to cook Slovakian food, including potato pancakes and the national dish, bryndzové hulusky. "That's goat cheese with potato dumplings and bacon on the top, very fattening but a wonderful dish."
After seven months, Hendrick moved into her own apartment. When Hendrick's brother came to visit her, she decided to make Slovak food, but found she was out of flour and went to borrow some from her neighbor. That was how Hendrick made a friend, and how she learned that "once a week each person cleans the hall of the apartment and down a couple of stairs."
Hendrick taught environmental education, discussing topics like the ozone layer or pollution with schoolchildren. Sometimes they explored the school yard, learning about trees, leaves, and photosynthesis. She helped develop libraries for Dub and for the public school. She worked with another Peace Corps volunteer on a teacher training program for environmental education. Hendrick volunteered for a third year in which she taught English and also helped create an English-speaking debate group for high school students.
