March 10th
10th March
Rooms.
Five girls in one room, each from different country. Quite a difficult job if you know that girls are more sensitive than boys. On the one hand it is quite a good idea to mix the countries in a room. Like we got to know each other and our way of living better. Also after a few days that we were among foreign people all the time we realised that we started to think in English all the time. It was quite interesting to experience such thing.
But on the other hand this composition of rooms can carry many difficulties. Just to mention the main things we had to face in the morning: the moving iron beds when waking up, arranging the order at the sink and of course at the mirror. Also for some of us it could be very confusing to change dress in front of each other.
In the breaks when you are tired it can be nice to have a little island where you can be yourself using your own language. Too much information you accept during the activities but there is no time and place to relax because you are always in a n environment where you have to respect the customs of everybody even if they are totally diferent from yours.
While for girls respect and relationships are the most important things that determine the room-life, in the case of guys some other questions occured at the same time. Like the mistery of stinky socks left under the bed, or the rotten sasages in the dustbin, etc.
Altogether living in such conditions was an interesting experience.
Intercultural Evening.
Bulgaria.
Today was the so expected from every one of us Intercultural Night. All the participants were exited to see what the other every group had prepared to present its own Countri. Stefan, Georgi, Dobri, Tyurkyan i Zoya were also preparing their presentation. On the table there were a lot of brochures with information about Bulgaria, about its history and traditions.
So they began their presentation with giving every one of the participants one Marteniza and explaning them that bulgarian tradition. Martenitsa is Bulgarian tradition related to the 1 of March and the welcoming of the ensuing spring . According to Bulgarian folklore the month of March marks the beginning of springtime. Therefore, the first day of March is a traditional holiday associated with sending off the winter and welcoming the spring. On the first of March the Bulgarians give to one another white and red tassels or small wool dolls called Pizho and Penda, or "Martenitsi". The white symbolizes the purity of the melting white snow and the red symbolizes the setting of the sun which becomes more and more intense as spring progresses. These two natural resources are prerequisites for life. They are also associated with the male and female beginnings. Additionally, in Bulgarian folklore the name Mart is related to a grumpy old lady whose mood shifts very rapidly. The tradition has remained almost the same today as it was when it began. Today the bulgarians give one another the red and white colours to please Baba Marta so that she will not make winter last. The tradition calls for wearing the martenitsa until the person spots a stork for the first time in the season. When somebody see a stork he has to tie his martenitsa on a branch of a fruit tree, thus giving this tree the health and luck, which we had enjoyed while having it. A martenitsa tied to a tree, a symbol of approaching spring.
Other thing that was interesting especialy for all the girls were the bulgarian perfumes from the Rosse Valley, that the groupe was showing. The Rose Valley is a region in Bulgaria located just south of the Balkan Mountains, between them and the eastern part of the lower Sredna Gora chain to the south. The valley is famous for its rose growing industry, which produces 70% of the world's rose oil. Rose oils are still perhaps the most widely used essential oil in perfumery.
Germany. We began our presentation with 2 songs accompanied by a guitar. And the others participants joined in with the lines of the chorus “Wo ist die Kokosnuss ? ”. Further more, we presented a map of Germany and showed the others where born and where we study right now. There was also “German Kinderschokolade”, and Dublo, some of the Germans are really addicted to it. Hopefully it has made the other participants happy as well ! Not to forget about the “Gummibärchen” of course ! A t-shirt from the football world championship was also presented like a symbol for the fairy tale Germany experienced last summer when the German people had the first time after second world war the possibility to feel being a united people and it was like a miracle that every body could hiss the German flag and was proud and enthusiastic about being a German. Patriotism is a sensitive topic because of the German history. At that evening there was maybe some German beer missing but in fact the participants have whole two weeks to try it on their own an experience what Germany is about!
France.
Marion, Camille, Ikram, Fanny, an Jessy brought a few things with them which belong to French society.
First, we spoke about one group from Roubaix, a town in the “Lille Metrople”, which is called Le “Ministère des Affaires Populaires” (Ministry of popular/working class who make a good crossover with different kinds of music : a “Rap- hip hop” way of singing, hip hop DJ, oriental violin, accordeon. The lyrics have social and political contexts (class domination, racism and xenophobia domination, ecology, etc.) and powerful, friendly and positive energy.
When they present themselves, they say: “we are ch’ti (name of the people from north of France) we have worker class and migrant backgrounds, don’t ask us to choose, we are all those roots !”.
We brought:
* Candies : “les bêtises de Cambrai” form… Cambrai, Nougat from Montélimar, “violettes” from Toulouse.
* Food: « gauffre » of the north of France, “maroille” from… Maroille near Lille, “makrout” form Wazemmes (a neighbourhood of Lille) which are also present form Morocco to Turkey and is part of the actual “french gastronomy” !
* Drinks: wine from Bordeaux, bier: “Amadeous” from Belgium, “Angelus” from Annoeulin (near Lille), “Moulin d’Ascq” from Villeneuve d’Ascq near Lille,
* DVD: a few videos about a popular party called “Carnaval” or neighbourhood’s party on the street in a disctrict which is still composed of a lot of people of the “popular class” (worker class), and some of them have migrant background (from Africa, East Europe, Asia, South America, Middle East, etc.)
* A book: the Coran. It was important to put it as a French root, ’cause the idea of our country being a “Christian” country is not connected to the diversity of regions, believes, “cultures”, of the “concrete French people”. As French we are black, yellow, Arabic, white, Muslims, Christians, without religion, etc. And even for people who don’t believe in god and are not practicing religion, we are some of them who think that Islam is part of French culture and background!!!
We sang a song of George Brassens which was very popular and appreciated because of his critic of the French society. The name of this song is: “La mauvaise reputation” (the bad reputation). It deals with the fact that people, in general, don’t like that some person think and act differently than they do, maybe are marginal or just refuse to follow the dominant idea or way to behave. He criticises the nationalism and the patriotism, the hunt and repression against poor people who need to steal to survive and/or have the feeling to belong to the society, to have what “normal” people have! We just changed the last sentences, saying that if Nicolas Sarkozy finds a jail for us, he will put us in it!
Hungary. Before the exchange programme we had a meeting where we discussed what should we prepare for the Hungarian part of the Intercultural Evening. We really wanted to forget about the Hungarian stereotypes like the "gulash soup", the traditional dresses and the "puszta". So we decided on presenting Hungary as we youngsters see it. On a PowerPoint presentation we showed Hungary through pictures that were taken by us. We also made a short descripiton about the history, culture and famous people of our country - highlighting the famous festivals. What is more Kata and Marton made a vieo of our capital, Budapest which was really funny and interesting. When it was about the food we brought some Hungaricums. Hungaricum means something very tyical and unique Hungaran. We served wine, "Pick" sausage and "TuroRudi" (which is a cottage stick covered by chocolate). (M.KSz.)
Sweden.
The Swedish group was the one that began to introduce their country. The tradition that we chose to perform to the other countries was the famous “luciatag”. In Sweden it is a tradition that on the 13th of December every year there are people dressing in white clothes (looks like sheets); holding candles and singing traditional songs. Among the things that were brought a lot of different candy could be seen, Swedish clothes and a book presenting places in Sweden listed on UNESCO’s list of World Cultural Heritages.