The story of a nice, snowy Wednesday

Wednesday has been really nice for us and not necessarily because of the arrival of the snow. We were invited to Gimnazjum Nr 2 in Popławy where we had the chance to introduce international voluntary service, our countries and we also prepared a little competition for the students to make the lesson more interesting. We had two lessons, one with a group of about 20 students, the next one was around 30 students. Let’s take a closer look to the events, shall we? :)

Explaining the task to the girls' team

The lesson started with introduction of voluntary service, presented by our dear coordinator, Sylwia. She was also helping us with translation of tasks later on. Then came country presentations. The students got to know more about Russia, its traditions, crazy winter and the Polish village in Siberia. They now also know the height of the Hungarian Parliament, what inventions Hungarian scientists gave the world as well as some basic phrases. After that, the students were split into teams. In case of the first class, we had the boys’ and the girls’ team and at the second class, we divided them in three teams with the popular counting method. The teams had two tasks. 

The boys during some serious work

One was concentrated on Geography of the two countries. They had to find the countries that are not neighbours and for extra points, they could also write the name of the neighbouring country in the correct place on the map. While these were being corrected, a new challenge began: recognising pictures. We were showing the pictures on the projector and the task was to raise the flag of the country where the picture belongs. The fastest one gets the point. Then we added all the points and the team with the biggest number of points was given a certificate to prove their knowledge of Hungarian and Russian culture.

After the lessons have finished and we have eaten our delicious obiad, we had the chance to take a walk in this beautiful, modern and well-equipped school. All teachers were kindly welcoming us and it was great to see that the students enjoyed our visit, as well. For sure, we had a great time and we are looking forward to our next visit! : )

The winner of the second lesson: Team One

To wszystko będzie. Keep warm, everybody!

Zsófi

New year, new ideas

Hello everybody!

I hope you are having a great time in this beautiful, sunny day. I started the week quite actively and early. I am planning to create a Hungarian film club here in Pułtusk, so I visited Liceum to introduce myself and to promote this idea.

It all started after I have arrived back from holidays. I have had the idea of a personal project in mind for a long time, I just did not have anything concrete. I wanted to create something which helps me introduce my country and at the same time it gives me the chance to get closer to local youth in a fun way. This is how the idea was born. Let’s see the process:

After some brainstorming with my dear coordinator, Sylwia, it was the time to make some posters and flyers for promotion. It’s enough to say that I am not going to be good friends with Publisher. I also asked some teachers to meet me. I told them about the idea and they were kind enough to help me with realizing my project. My other big supporter was the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Warsaw.

I have already visited them once back in October, that time I was just collecting information. This time I was more prepared and they were eager to lend me the film I chose. They also suggested sending a report about the first meeting and if it becomes regular, they offered to include my film club in their monthly programme. Aren’t they the best?

And now we have arrived to today’s promotion lessons. I prepared a presentation that lasts about 15 minutes.

I told the students a bit about Hungary which was followed by some information concerning film industry in Hungary. I also introduced them a couple of films that might be shown later on. I was very happy to see some interested faces, nothing is better than being appreciated. (Maybe chocolate ;))

My idea is not to just simply watch the film and leave. The meeting would start with a little introduction of the writer or the background of the film (something related). After that, we would watch the film together while enjoying some tea, cookies and sometimes even Hungarian specialties. The film would be followed by a discussion about the film. This way, the students would have the chance not only to get to know a bit of Hungary, but also to practice their English.

So that’s all folks, see you soon!

Zsófi


First meeting: 23.01.2014 17:00 @ 3 Maja 19 Pułtusk
Zapraszam! : )

Christmas is almost here!

Just arrived after Mid-term we were invited to Christmas Evening for Seniors Club, which was appointed on 14th of December. As international volunteers we shared how Christmas and New Year are celebrated in our countries.

Of course there are a lot of similar traditions, but at the same time there is something special in each culture! Let’s see what similar and different have people from Hungary, Poland and Russia about Christmas and New Year. 

Christmas in Hungary

On 24th of December life in Hungary goes around Christmas. Streets are empty and some people are decorating Christmas trees, others are making dinner for the family feast. Traditionally people serve dishes with fish – Halászlé (fish soup) and carp baked with potatoes. Why carp? The answer is easy – the fish symbolize wealth and well-being for everyone! In every family there is own secret recipe they follow for years! Töltött pulyka (stuffed turkey) and Pörkölt (stew) are also favorite dishes in many families. It’s hard to imagine Hungarian Christmas without Bejgli – rolled dough filled with nuts or poppy seeds, people buy them in cake-shops or bake at home. And of course time for presents is the most pleasant time – brightly and colorfully packed they wait for children and adults under the Christmas tree! When dinner is finished religious people go to the Church for Christmas mess. And the day after is the day for visiting relatives and friends.

 

Christmas in Poland

Christmas has an important place in life of Polish people. Especially if we talk about Wigilia, Christmas Eve in Polish. There is a special role for Christmas decorations – the main element of it is a Christmas tree and Christmas wreaths. Also you can see compositions represent Holy Family, Christ Child and Magis. On 24th of December people cover tables with a white covering and set a table for the all family plus for one uninvited guest. Traditionally people lay little piece of hey under the covering as a symbol of well-being for the family. Christmas dinner should consist of 12 dishes.

There is one rule – all the dishes should be without meat. Usually among all the dishes there is “polish borsz” (beetroot broth), pierogi with cabbage, bigos and of course plenty of pies, gingerbread and poppy seed rolls. Every member of family has to try each dish at least once. And traditionally for all Catholical countries after the dinner people go to Christmas mess.

            

New Year and Christmas in Russia

It is well-known that most people in Russia are orthodox. That’s why we have Christmas on 7th of January. The reason is Julian calendar wasn’t change to new Gregorian one and that’s why we have 13 days difference. Unfortunately, most of Christmas traditions in Russia are just history now because in 1918 it was prohibited to celebrate Christmas. It’s so sad to imagine that children didn’t see the Christmas tree that year! Only in 1935 holiday appeared again, but it became rather New Year celebration then Christmas – because of anti-religious propaganda most of traditions were lost in history. Now only most religious people celebrate it according to all traditions, but others just prepare Christmas dinner and spend nice time with families.       

That’s why for most people in Russia nowadays New Year is more significant than Christmas. For this reason there are more traditions connected with New Year. For example, my favorite – making a wish! The secret is to write down a wish on a little piece of paper, burn it, throw ash in a glass with champagne and drink while Kremlin clock is striking twelve times! Also according to Russian tradition how you celebrate New Year's will dictate the course of the next 12 months...So that’s why people prefer celebrate it with family and close friends. And for this reason also there are so many dishes on the table – meat, fish, and different salads and of course caviar! If you have a lot of tasty food on your table, a year will be rich and prosperous.

And of course New Year and Christmas are favorite holidays for all children in the World. In each country there are characters that come especially for this time and secretly give presents to children! In Russia there are even two main characters – Ded Moroz (Father Frost) and his grand-daughter Sniegourochka. Together they go to New Year’s parties in kindergartens and schools and leave sweets and tangerines under the New Year tree. 

In Poland and Hungary live brothers of Russian Ded Moroz - Święty Mikołaj and Mikulás, but unlike from him they bring presents much earlier – at 6th of December. In Hungary there an interesting tradition – good children get chocolates fruits from Mikulás, while bad children get “virgács” (a broom) from little evil-helper of Mikulás – Krampusz. In 24th of December children get presents again – this time from little Jezuska.

In the end I’d like to wish Merry Christmas and Happy New Year for everyone! Enjoy your holidays, spend time actively and gather energy for the next year! See you soon! 

Daria

Mid-term training

You might remember our post about the on-arrival training. Yes, already it was time for another one. This training is compulsory for every volunteer who has a long-term project. Thanks to the National Agency, our trainers and all the volunteers who were present we had a great time. Let’s see what happened:

 

The most delicious symbol
of Toruń: pierniki

The arrival day was the 6^th and many of us were stuck in traffic jams for long hours because of heavy wind and snow. However, everybody made it in time for dinner. It was great to see familiar faces from the previous training but we were also excited to get to know the new ones. After dinner, we had a quick integration session with the trainers and then we decided to explore Toruń’s bars. One of our fellow volunteers had his project in Toruń, so he was our guide that night.

The next day was the first real day with workshops. After energizers and other fun brain starting activities, we split into groups. The groups were given a piece of paper with only one word on it. The task was to go out in the city, find out what this is and to get to know the story behind it.

Want to know a city well? Ask locals.

Then we met in our meeting room to present these stories. It was not just a simple presentation. We became actors and had to use our creativity and drama skills to tell the others our story. Fortunately, we had really nice weather and friendships already started to form, so we were happy to be there. It was a really nice way of getting to know Toruń. One day, we also had a little guided tour around the town.

Wojtek as a tour guide

On other occasions we visited the Centre of Contemporary Art and we also went to a children’s theatre once. Probably, Dudi the bird and her adventures will be remembered for a long time. At the Centre of Contemporary Art we did not only have a visit but it was also the place of a workshop. The topic was everyone’s least favourite: future. With the help of the sheets of papers on the ground, we had to walk on the path of our future and present our plans. I really liked the idea of exploring possibilities this way but somehow I was too scared to think about it. It was too soon maybe.

Let’s see some other activities, shall we? Once we were offered to discuss different topics at different parts of the hostel. There was one day when one part of the group wanted to go outside for activities and the rest of us preferred to stay inside. We were given questions to discuss questions about our stay in Poland, our projects and point of views. The ones who decided to go out did the same but they also had to take pictures that reflect their project or goals in the future.

Presenting the story of  'Filuś'

Most of the time we were working in groups and had various workshops and we (almost) always ended the day with evaluation and our Wojteks were welcoming any request. It was great that they took everyone’s needs into consideration while making the plan of activities for the training. Time went by very quickly and we soon arrived towards the end of our training. We finished the training with an evaluation letter and wishes and thoughts for everybody. During our last lunch altogether, we did a little performance in the dining room for our trainers to thank them this great experience. There was a friendly atmosphere all through the whole training, we got to know awesome people, nice stories. I would say that the training was a huge success and we all went back to our projects full energy and motivation.

Group shot!

I hope to see you guys soon!

Hugs to everybody,

Zsófi

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