Once we were fortune-tellers: Anrzejki in Dom Polonii

Since old days Andrzejki is a time of fortune-telling and mystic. Previously people believed that only in the night of 29^th of November all the rituals have special power that makes wishes come true and open gates for the future. Nowadays Adnrzejki is rather a good way to spent time with friends having fun by fortune-telling and usually nobody takes it seriously.

In Andrzejki Party organized by a local Social Care Center for Seniors Club in “Dom Polonii” we had a chance to show our actors abilities as far as we had roles of fortune-tellers there! Preparations started long time before this event and till the last moments we had no idea how it’s going to be, but the task was clear – collect different types of fortune-telling in our countries.

So, at 23^th of November (yes,yes – one week earlier then it is) we arrived to “Dom Polonii” to prepare our “mystic corner” for traditional palm-reading, fortune-telling by books and coffee, but we also had a surprise – unusual fortune-telling from Transylwania! 

Now more about last one. In English it’s so called dumpling fortune-telling. The idea is to put 3-5 little papers with one’s wishes into a piece of dough, then put it into boiling water and wait which dumpling will come to the top first. Of course, that one will turn into reality! It took more preparations but the result was really worthy!

Dumplings are ready!

After official part and little concert, people started to come with their wishes to know the future. We are professionals but we give only good prognoses!

The most popular questions - how long will I live and will I meet my love!

I have to say that we were not the only “wrożkas” (wrożka – a fortune-teller in Polish) in this party. On the left side there were another pavilion where worked a girl from Poznań who was doing wax fortune-telling for us as well.

What your name says about you?

It's not just a shadow - it's a gnome!

How did people react?

It was our first meeting with a Seniors Club in Pułtusk. It’s another generation with different view on modern life but they were very interested to know why we are here and what do we do in Pułtusk. Maybe, they will tell grand children about us and they will join our activities?

What did I learn?

For me the most important thing in that evening was communication. In the very beginning I was frustrated about it because there is a language barrier between us and seniors. But it’s appeared not that much difficult and even funny – at least they understood my Polish!        

Daria

Dzieżenin, here we are!

As Zsófi wrote you in her previous post this Thursday was a day of presentation in gymnasium in  Dzierżenin. And our report about this event can wait no longer!

First of all I want to admit that meeting was a result of networking from a conference for teachers of foreign languages in Dom Polonii where we run a presentation about IVS last month. Nice to realize that people want to cooperate, that means we do useful work!

So, early in the morning we started our trip to Dzierżenin, small village 15 km from Pułtusk. We were kindly met by a principal, Russian teacher pani Dorota and English teacher pani Bożena. After little talk we started our preparation. And half an hour later the projector set up, a poster with no-name girl set and children were ready to listen to Sylwia’s presentation about volunteering and work-camps! Then was a turn of a school to say about themselves. It was really nice to know that there is a voluntary club that was opened this September. Congratulations to newly-born! Children seem a little bit shy but interested so for sure we will find ways to cooperate!  

After a break we started presentations about counties. Zsófi worked with English classes and I worked with students who learn Russian. Well, we are getting more and more experienced and this time we prepared our presentations in a more interactive way. Of course it took more time and creativity, but the result was worthy. As was discussed before with teachers we divide our presentation into 3 parts: short country presentation, music and traditional cuisine. I started with asking them some simple questions about Russia and its culture and first group of 14 boys was surprisingly active!

But second group (where were only girls, by the way) was shy but they were more successful with task where they were asked to fill in the missing words in a well-known Russian song “Pesenka o medvedyakh”. And of course I can’t mention about our innovation – degustation of traditional food in the end of presentation. “How could they know cuisine if they didn’t try anything?” – decided we and went to Hungarian and Russian shops in Warsaw to buy some Hungarian sausage and mustard, so called “Baklazhanovaya ikra” (vegetable paste) and Russian sweets. After the lesson it seemed that they really like Hungarian sausages…and about “ikra” – well, as I expected after some hesitations they tried and liked it! But anyway they preferred sweets J

How did people react?

It was new experience for this gymnasium and children were really curious and interested to know who we are despite of the fact they were rather noisy in the beginning. But during the presentation I surprisingly didn’t face up with discipline problem, otherwise they were active and lively! And as a final – I was happy to know from pani Dorota that other classes are also asking for these lessons!   

What did I learn?

As I mentioned before we made our presentations more lively and interactive. It really works, we will continue this way in the future. I must say that now I can speak simple and slowly Russian – don’t laugh, it’s not that easy (it’s also a trick of experience – last two weeks I run Russian lessons in Lyceum)! But I still struggle with time; I should learn time-management!   

P.S. I’d like to say thank you to teachers and of course special thanks to principal of this gymnasium for the good organizational conditions and tasty lunch J.  I’m really looking forward our next meeting in January. 
P.P.S. photos will appear soon! 

Daria                                                     

English lessons in Świetlica

EVS in Pułtusk is becoming more and more lively every month! As a proof, last week we started going to Świetlica to have English lessons for the kids. Let’s see how it went so far. : )

The first lesson started out being a bit chaotic, we weren’t so prepared and kids preferred to play but soon they realized that it’s better to listen and learn as it might be useful for them. We taught them the alphabet and some basic greetings which was followed by games to make them remember.

Yesterday, we started our second lesson with a little revision. The children didn’t really feel like answering our questions about last week’s lesson so we switched to the new lesson’s material. I’m sure they remembered everything though. They just thought that it’s too easy for them and were more interested in learning new things. Right?

This time, things went so much better! Last Thursday we had a meeting with Maria, an English teacher who gave us tips on how to teach English to children. She even offered to visit us at one of our lesson to help us even more. Is she awesome,  or what? But now let’s go back to yesterday’s lesson. After introducing them to the numbers we sang a number song together with some movements. Thank you YouTube for always providing us what we need! Then, we stood in a circle and practiced counting with different games. We finished with bingo and another game that they already knew from the workcamps. 

The idea is simple: the first person to choose the said number from the little cards gets a point. After a few rounds, they really got the feeling of it. Unfortunately, our ‘1’ card got injured while there were many kids reaching for it. We are working on its recovery but it doesn’t look good. Let’s hope for the best! 

November is mostly the month of visiting schools, so now we are preparing for new presentations. On Thursday, we are going to Dzierżenin where after a presentation for the school, we will have two lessons with different classes. We will keep you updated with how it went there. And ‘til then, keep visiting our Facebook page and don’t hesitate to write us if you have a question!

Do zobaczenia,

Zsófi