June 2019
November 15, 2020Bujoreni Village Museum – Vâlcea
For a short period of time, we had the opportunity to visit and help taking care of the yard and houses within Bujoreni Village Museum in Vâlcea county. For some of us it was easy to fulfil the tasks, while for others it was a bit hard, but the adapted quickly. The beauty of the place, the smell of hay, the smell of old houses, the opportunity to sit in the benches of a classroom from the old school brought us both joy and a good feeling which gave us the strength to finish the “chores”. We gathered hay, rode in the carriage, “scrubbed” through the small houses of the old Romanian village, we had fun and felt somewhat closer as a group. During the time spent at the museum, we also had two faithful companions: the son of an employee and a puppy found by him on the road to his father’s job, the puppy being eventually adopted by the child. The tranquillity of the place and the joy of doing things that the visitors will enjoy determined us to believe more in ourselves, but also to feel useful and involved in the local community.
Launching Conference and Intercultural Night
During this month we had a few changes when it comes to the componence of our project. Even though our Spanish colleague decided to cut short his project, we welcomed the arrival of other volunteers. The Launching Conference of the project and the Intercultural Evening were two events that challenged our creativity, imagination, abilities and knowledges in creating presentations and culinary delights proper to our countries, North Macedonia and Turkey. The Conference started in the afternoon. The participants were delighted to find out aspects regarding the Turkish and Macedonian culture, history and gastronomy. Then, after the presentations regarding the project, activities and cultures, came the flavoured part, where the taste buds were activated. Those presents had the chance to try traditional North Macedonia dishes, such as tavche gravche and bajadera, and Turkish dishes: un helvası, mercimek köftesi, ali nazik, cacık. The evening ended with music and dances. Some of our colleagues offered us a small musical show, delighting tje audience with famous Turkish songs. This day gave us the opportunity to interact with people from the local community, of all ages. We said goodbye with the promise of reuniting with them during other activities from the project or our free time.
Pietrari School
During Summer vacation, we continued the activities, the participants joining them with pleasure and on their own initiative. One of the schools we gladly went to was Pietrari Secondary School. After we introduced ourselves, the children from this community wished to share their activities and projects in which they are a part of. We were pleasantly surprised of how active and creative these young people are, among their main concerns being: sustainable development goals, scientific and technological projects (they created a weather station…). Taking these into consideration, we concentrated our activities on getting-to-know games, integration, interculturality, creativity, leadership and team spirit. An interesting activity was that in which we split ourselves into groups and created maps of the places where we came from. In this way, the youngsters found out new things about North Macedonia and Turkey, while we discovered new areas for traveling in Romania. The librarian of the village was present throughout all of the activities and enjoyed herself together with us. These were full days, with smiles and a lot of interactions, days with a lot of beautiful memories.
Măgura Secondary School
At the end of the Summer, we were also in Mihăești village, at Măgura Secondary School. Although he already had experience with the children from the rural area of Pietrari, we found differences between the two communities, children that were not involved in projects. These are shyer, they don’t feel comfortable in talking with us, although it can be seen and felt that they want this to happen. Also, the communication is done only through translation. During the activity, they proved a lot of imagination, creativity, power of observation. Alphabet Game and Mission Impossible were two of the activities in which youngsters proved both creativity and speed, managing not only to stay within the short time give to them, but also to finish much quicker than the limit. We ended the week spent in this school with the presentation of some Turkish musical instruments, but also with Turkish songs sung by some of our colleagues. The goodbye brought into the eyes of both sides because of the strong connection made between all of us.
