The superhuman kids from the Black Army JZsUK
I had already taken part in the Guardians of Our Heritage competition a few years ago, with a superb team of high school students that included names like Tasnádi Nóra, Nagyosi Mátyás, etc, students who had grown to be quite legendary during their high school years. That time, we managed to win the Brussels trip with that great team, but this time, I thought to myself that if I was to enter the competition again, I would want to do it with my own class of VI. B, because I think they are fantastic, and I love them to bits. But how will they be able to perform tasks that were at times horribly difficult even for the best high school students of a few years back? So, I entered my class hesitantly and began with something like: “Well, there is this competition... it will be terribly difficult, and you guys would get way out of your comfort zones and do tasks that will seem impossible at first... it’s about choosing a monument and advertising it throughout the year with creative activities…” This was as far as I got in my great speech, when all hell broke loose, and the students were all shouting each other down like: “Where do we sign up? It will be awesome! When do we start?” Well, this is my class. And I love them for it. Six students could make up one team, and we could have made at least two or three teams from all the volunteers. In the end, I said I wanted my trio of crazy girl leaders, Sándor Emma, Tamás Ágó and Iedlicska Nóra, because they could shout down an army if they had to, and from experience I knew that we needed such skills for the contest. The other three members I let them choose for themselves. In the end, they came up with Szakács Reni, for whom I was happy because I knew she had some insane dancing skills that the team would need, then there was Rácz Alpár, a small boy with a big smile and no problem with social skills, which was also a quite adequate choice. And then, there was Dávid, a serious, quiet boy who I appreciated but had doubts that would be the best alternative for this army of dynamic pirates that was starting to form. Boy, was I wrong! But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let us not forget that these wonderful kids are still in 6th grade, they are 12 years old and have no Facebook accounts. Thus, communication outside of school hours, which is of paramount importance when we activate on an almost daily basis, proved to be a highly intricate problem. We somehow made a WhatsApp group, but for example Ágó did not even own her own phone. So, she usually hijacked her mom's phone, but during the holiday she went to not one but two of her grandmas, and, of course, in the meantime, our team could not stop its activities. So, I called her mom to find a solution, and finally. Ágó logged on from one grandma's phone, then from the other's, but by the end of the holiday we were up to date with all activities, and she had written her tasks from half a dozen different laptops, phones and tablets. Pretty good performance for someone who does not even own a phone, right? We finally received our team hoodies and went out to the monument for group and individual photos for the site. But where was Nóra? We were already on our way when I heard that she had gone home a few hours prior, with fever. I was about to freak out, I mean make the mature choice and reschedule, when I saw the others speak on the phone, and in 10 minutes, Nóra was there, a little worse for wear, but smiling throughout the photo shoot. Then she went home and it was more than a week before she came back to school next, but the team photos were up on the team page right on schedule, and the Black Army JZsUK proved yet again that we were unstoppable! It was I who chose Emma to be King Mátyás, but I did it because of her hair, which was similar to that of our great king. Becoming the very real, undisputed leader of the group was entirely her doing. Leadership just came natural to her, and it started to show early on, when we began preparations for the November flashmob. I told the team that we should recruit our whole class, and class VI. A as well, since we would need an activity of about 50 people. I thought I would get horrified faces and negative answers, but they just said “Cool!”, and in two days they came to me to arrange for this and that song to play in the yard during the big break. And the result was what you all saw, an uneven but enthusiastic row of some 40 kids moving to the rhythm, with Emma leading them like a king on the battlefield! I was amazed at what they all did, and even more so during the next week. We had some five separate hours of rehearsal, some of them in the yard and some in the Festive Hall, but all I had to do was the “police work” of arranging 50 twelve-year-olds into formation and keeping them there. The dancing was all choreographed by my capable team, I don’t even want to start to explain the complex process, I’ll just say that at one point Reni was sitting in the middle of the Festive Hall like a professional dance teacher, surveying with pride the controlled chaos that a small legion of children created when moving to the same rhythm. Then the videos started to become a necessity, and it was then that Dávid proved his worth, hundredfold, I might add. When I asked who had the know-how for such an intricate task, he just said silently: „I can do it.” And the rest is history. From cutting and editing pictures and text into videos to creating animations where King Matthias plays football with his troops, his magic has shone through all of the videos of our team! Not only that, he is behind most of the brilliant ideas that our team realized during through this rollercoaster ride that is the Guardians of Our Heritage competition: he designed calendars, Christmas cards, he came up with the idea of the World Cup winner’s poll, etc. I sometimes made a joke to the other members, saying we should rename the team to “Dávid és a köcsögök.” We also needed media coverage, and I was thinking „Maan, I need to ask Mr. Solymosi if he could arrange something”. But then Alpár came through, waving his hand, saying “Leave that to me!” And the next day I get a phone call from Szabadság, with a kind voice asking for an interview about the Black Army JZsUK! We have been in the newspaper multiple times since then, and each time Alpár just smiled modestly and waved away all the thanks of his teammates. And then, there was the charity Advent fair in Báthory. We went there with lots of goodies to sell, and there was a raging river of people all around our table, and the four girls from our team just stood in the midst of it all like navigators of our small raft, smiled at the storm around them and sold book after cookie after calendar after Christmas card, and by the end of the day, we had raised more than 1000 RON for charity, almost double the amount of money the runners-up came up with. Not only that, in the meantime we were also shooting one of our videos: Dávid brought the materials, and the girls made a board from them that looked like a giant phone screen, and invited people to pose like King Matthias in the middle. And, of course, Dávid and Alpár photographed and filmed the whole process like professional cameramen. By the end of the day, everyone was exhausted, but, as we had agreed in advance, Emma still had to shoot a speech, dressed as King Matthias Santa Claus. This was again a moment when I understood that this girl was made either for leadership or the stage, or both! She literally could not stand from exhaustion, her clothes were all sweaty from the thick Santa costume, and when I asked her: “Did you rehearse your speech, like we agreed?”, she looked at me with blank eyes and asked: “What speech?” I thought at that moment that it was all over, but then I pulled myself together too and explained again the things I needed her to say. She just nodded, and I thought she would pull out a piece of paper and start composing something, but she just put on her costume again and shrugged: “Ready.” So, Alpár got behind the camera, and this little girl who had been the picture of exhaustion a minute ago suddenly straightened and smiled like after a good night’s sleep and started speaking and moving and pointing, and generally acting like a genuine diva, and in a minute, in one single take we had all the footage we needed, no script, no rehearsals, nothing! And when we turned off the camera, she just slumped back into the chair and almost fell asleep. So, this is my small team of secret superheroes, I thought it my duty to share some of their adventures, because they are worth all the recognition in the world! Team, it is an honour to work with you! Black Army JZsUK 4 life!
Vorzsák Milán
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