It has been
almost 10 days since our project ended. But nothing’s over ‘till it’s over. So,
here comes the post where we say a HUGE “thank you” to all of our great supporters
and collaboration partner. Without each and every one of you this project
wouldn’t be so amazing… or even possible!
Youth in Action
First of
all, we say a HUGE and very special “thank you” to EU program “Youth in Action”
for your support and that you believed in us and made this project possible!
One more special and HUGE “thank you” goes to "Riga 2014", our collaboration partner. Thank you for letting everyone to hear about us and our wonderful project!
And here
comes many, many, many HUGE “thank you” to all of our friends…
... to “Aldaris”
for quenching our thirst.
… to “Antalis”
for giving us base to build our ideas on.
… to “Ādažu
čipsi” for crunchy packages full of chips.
… to “Coca-Cola
Hellenic” for quenching our thirst.
… to “Fazer”
for sweet candies and tasty bread.
… to “Latvijas
tekstils” for Latvian bracelets.
… to “Red
Bull” for giving us wings.
… to “Riga Wake
park” for opportunity to enjoy water joys.
… to “Skrīveru
saldumi” for making our project sweeter.
… to “Sofrost”
for cooling us off with tasty ice-cream.
… to “Svilpaunieku
Bazārs” for Latvian sounds in Europe.
And now we
can officially say that this project has ended. But this is not exactly the end
because they say – every end is a new beginning. :)
Some of the participants started to left hostel during the night from 14th to 15th of July. And they continued to leave hostel until the late afternoon. So, this post will conclude our updates about youth exchange. There will be few more posts, but they will no longer be about this project it self.
Latvia
Personally I don't like goodbyes (who does?) and this time wasn't an exception. All morning people came and woke everyone else up to say their last goodbye before leaving. We accompanied part of the participants to the airport and bus station. And in general that's all what happened that day.
Finland
Turkey
But there are still some things I would like to say. Right now I'm writing as a participant and team leader Lāsma from Latvia and I don't know if everyone else agrees or disagrees with me. But here it is...
Malta
It's weird how a group of people you've met for first time in your life can become that important. Maybe my emotions are so exaggerate because this was my first that kind of event, I don't know. But what I do know is that in those 10 days there were 40 awesome people from 5 countries.
We all have become good friends, we have gained a lot of knowledge about each other culture and traditions. We have learned so many new things that include how to interact with each other, how to lead a group of people, how to accept each other, even how to play other countries games and perform their dances and songs.
the Netherlands
We have been together 24/7, we have get to know each other so well. But most importantly - now we know more about all the countries and their culture that took part in this project. And let's not forget about all the new friendships that started during this project and hopefully will continue after this project.
Exhibition place with our friends'
"Skrīveru Saldumi" banner
Our leaflets, pens and badges
On 14th of July we woke up a little bit sleepy but full of optimism and willing to present what we have done in these last few days. But before going to "Eslpanāde" where our exhibition took place thanks to our collaboration partners "Riga 2014" we went to the University. There we had an outcomes session. We were divided into groups and we had to discuss what we liked and what we would like to improve. We also filled in a feedback paper. And after that we wrote some information for our Youthpass paper. Then we went back to hostel and started to prepare for evening. When everyone was dressed up we then went to our exhibition place in Eslpanāde. There we did our last preparation jobs and... it was on!
Few seconds before start
At first, lady from "Riga 2014" said some nice words and explained what is "Riga 2014" and also gave an information about where previous capitals of culture were. After that Gunita told everyone about the exhibition and then Dārta (main organizer) gave a small speach about this project "Roots in Europe, culture in heart!". The next ones who gave a little speaches were team leaders from every country.
Some snacks
And then came the main thing, the main reason why we all were there in that evening - the result of this wonderful project, our video! Although we are a little late with posts in this blog, you still have to wait for video to be posted here because our technical team is still working on publishing the video. Be patient and you won't regret it, we promise! :)
Later we had some snacks and we also took a couple of group photos to keep that day in our memories.
A poster at exhibition place
Information: It may seem that this is the last post on this blog, but we can tell you that it's not! Here will be some more posts. What will they be about? You'll see! :)
On Saturday we went back to Riga from guest house. All morning we were busy with packing our bags and in the afternoon we went to the University to discuss all the things we still have to do for exhibition.
Working hard
Later we started to put all edited footage together and thanks to our technical team it went well. However our technical team got keen about this video making thing so they stayed up all night and made it perfect. We provided them and everyone else aswell with Red Bull energy drink, so it would be easier for them to work harder and for rest of us to help them better. Thank you, Red Bull! Actually, it was quite nice to work together and make this great video. Although some of us worked really hard and went to sleep when sun was up for few hours, we were and still are sure that the feeling when we will present our video will outweigh our input in this project and video that represents the project.
On Friday participants lived with
Latvian folk songs, dances and other traditions.
After morning wake up in the army
style mixed with lovely „Rise and shine” from beautiful Latvian girls
participants had English breakfast made by James from the Netherlands but
originally from UK.
Presentation
Later Lāsma and Kristīne presented
Latvia, told foreigners about our traditions, Midsummer Festival Līgo, our
tradition foods and costumes. Participants found out a lot of new things about
Latvia, Latvians and how to tell if you have stayed in Latvia too long.
Clay workshop
Then we went to Svilpaunieku Bazārs,
where participants saw how traditional potter is working in Latvia and made
their own whistles from clay and decorated a pot and then painted them.
Everyone really enjoyed it, thanks for that to hospitable Svilpaunieku Bazārs
hostess.
Our pot from clay
Made clay souvenirs, we started to
relive Līgo traditions. First of them was rain that surprised us before dinner,
unplanned as always. Fortunately, it was for short time so after refreshing
rain shower we could go by riverside of Daugava and introduce foreigners with
Latvian culture and traditional activities in Līgo festivity.
Participants composed traditional
Līgo folk songs in the way it had componed hundred years ago, they learned to
dance Latvian dances such as “Tūdaliņ, tagadiņ”, “Plaukstiņpolka” and others.
There was also future prediction mini – workshop with Latvian beliefs about
future love life, a game called “Kartupelis” or “Potato” and charades called
“Mēmais šovs” where teams had to show different words which describes Līgo
festivity.
After mini – workshops we had
delicious picnic near the bonfire with traditional Latvian food – Līgo cheese
and patties with pork. During the picnic Latvians sang Latvian songs and foreigners
presented their composed Līgo songs.
Sauna
When it got dark we went to guest
house to relive Latvian traditional sauna. Bathhouse attendant Sergejs showed
the sauna ritual to interested ones.
After the Latvian day participants felt relaxed and fresh and ready for
next day!
A top event of Turkish day was their
traditional wedding ceremony sketch and I was playing brides role so I got a
deeper view in Turkish wedding traditions which differs a lot of Latvian
wedding traditions.
Before the wedding bridegroom’s
family visit bride’s family to ask permission to brides father and get to know
each other family. It is stressful for groom because he has to get permission
from bride’s father and it is not easy at all. In this visit bride serves
Turkish coffee but bridegrooms’ coffee is salty, he has to drink it all to show
his love. I served my “groom” salty coffee and he had to finish it and after
some conversations between families father of the bridegroom starts to say
“With the will of Allah and the permission of Muhammed, I ask your daughter for
my son”.
Groom and bride
Brides father replies positively
(almost always) and visit is over.
I had to be shy and worried bride,
because bride is showing her love to her parents and they are examining him.
First dance
In wedding there is a Yes/No
ceremony and after that (in case of positive answer) people start to dance with
traditional Turkish music. Wedding rings are already on fingers before ceremony
by the way. Certificate of marriage is given to bride after signatures because
it is believed that lady cares more.
After dancing guests start to give presents (mostly money and Turkish
gold) to newlyweds to help them economically in the start of new life together.
It started with traditional and
national Turkish songs and for breakfast Turks prepared special Turkish meal
called Menemen which contains eggs, tomatoes, some Turkish species and olive
oil. It was really great and everyone enjoyed it.
Turks dishes
Turkeys' flag
Turks presentation
After delicious meal we played
games, such as “Uzun esek” which means ‘long donkey’, egg game “yumurta tasima
oyunu” and Turkish oil wrestling.
Later we were introduced with
amazing and rich Turkish culture, which contains also traditional dances and
the most popular – belly dance was taught byBüşra to all Youth Exchange girls.
After dancing there was presentation
about Turkey, Turks traditions and national food and drinks.
Introducing with Turkish culture
continued with Turkish wedding and tasting real Turkish coffee and in the
evening - wedding party.
On
Wednesday it was the time for the Finnish day! We Finns started the day by
getting dressed in “pitkät kalsarit”, kind of long underpants, and naturally
the guys were not wearing a shirt, just a winter hat. With an “excited” Finnish
smile on our faces, we went to wake up the people by giving them water and
singing a water-related song in Finnish. We kindly asked them to move to the
morning sauna so that we wouldn’t have to carry them there. At the breakfast
there was the possibility of tasting Finnish porridge and we stole the jam
because Finns don’t eat sweet food in the morning.
Warm up
When the
people got ready, we took them to the yard for a warm-up that was inspired by
Finnish winter activities. We imitated e.g. snowboarding, ice-fishing,
“ampumahiihto” that includes skiing and shooting, and also managed to build a
snowman by using a little bit of imagination. However, it melted quite fast
because the weather was so perfect like on every day of this event by now.
Eukonkanto
After the
warm-up the people were ready for moving to the lake, where we organized “The Finnish
Olympics”. The idea was to have outdoors activities that taught the people some
nice facts about Finland at the same time. We had come up with six games,
including e.g. mosquito killing and “eukonkanto” that is about carrying a woman
and running. The people also got to make a “saunavasta”, a bunch of birch
branches that the Finns use in the sauna for relaxing. Some Southern people
desperately tried to climb the big birches even if there were some smaller ones
around. There were also many other funny moments, and I think that some new
Finnish national sports might have seen the daylight.
Saunavasta
In the
afternoon we got the people know more about Finland by telling them about our
folklore, history, and ancient sauna traditions as well as the sauna etiquette.
In the form of a small play we also had the opportunity to observe a rare
moment, Finnish men talking about their emotions. That seemed to be quite touching
as the expressions on their faces almost changed.
Presentation
The evening will
continue by a Sitsit party, a table party that is really popular among the Finnish
university students, especially in the universities of technology. Shortly,
Sitsit is about singing and having a dinner in a good company. Afterwards
everybody gets to try how the saunavasta they made feels like as naturally
there’s a sauna also in the evening. I’m looking forward to at least as a great
evening as the day has been by now!
The Netherlands getting ready for
arrival of Sinterklaas
Yesterday participants from the Netherlands
woke us up in a kind of an army way by shouting into a loudspeaker since their country
has been invaded during the Second World War. After all the other participants got
up and enjoyed their breakfast, we all strolled to a nearby lake. Here
Sinterklaas would arrive from his long trip from Spain.
But now you’ll probably wonder: “Who is this
Sinterklaas the Dutch invited?”. Well, in The Netherlands there is a festive
day in the beginning of December where we celebrate Saint Nicholaas, a saint
who cared for the poor. The tradition nowadays is a festivity for children. If
children have been behaving good Sinterklaas will reward them with candy and
presents, but bad children risk being taken to Spain with Sinterklaas and his zwarte pieten (Black Peters). While
being a kid this is actually really scary, because this Sinterklaas has a big
book in which everything every kid did that year is written. You are scared he
might know about you not being nice to your best friend or not eating all the
food on your plate and as a result take you to Spain... Looking back, being
taken to the sunny country of Spain might actually be not such a bad thing
after all. :)
To share this tradition with the other
countries in this exchange we played the entrance of Sinterklaas. We all
dressed up like Sinterklaas and his helpers (who are completely covered in coal
because of the chimneys they climb through to deliver presents). This tradition
eventually spread all over the world in the form of Santa Claus which you most
likely have heard of.
Levend Stratego, team one
After Sinterklaas left, while the participants
were singing traditional Sinterklaas songs, we played a well known game from
the Netherlands: Levend Stratego (the
flag capture game) in which each of two teams (this day it was Malta vs.
Netherlands) is meant to protect their flag and meanwhile trying to steal the
other team’s flag. Although Malta and the Netherlands normally do not try to
conquer each others land, the Dutch managed to conquer Malta.
Levend Stratego, team two
Next on the schedule we presented our Dutch
culture and history to our fellow Europeans. We started with a video explaining
the never disappearing mistake of confusing The
Netherlands and Holland. (In
short: Holland consists of the provinces of North and South Holland, while the
Netherlands is the whole of North and South Holland including ten other
provinces). We are not famous for our Dutch cuisine obviously (you cannot
expect the krokketen you can buy from
a snackmuur to be of noteworthy quality...
– fried meat you can buy from a wall in the street). So what are the Dutch
famous for then?
The Dutch have always been entrepreneurs.
Sailing all over the world to look for good investment opportunities. We
actually still have some islands in the Caribbean in our Kingdom from that time
we call the Golden Age and in South Africa the people still speak our language.
Nowadays, we have a lot of famous export products. Everyone will have heard of
the Heineken beer, the beautiful tulips and world famous modern musicians like
Tiesto and Armin van Buuren.
Personally I think it is a nice to be able to
share our traditions and history with our fellow Europeans. We can only become
a stronger Europe by understanding each other and invest in pointing out the
differences and similarities to work out the best way to work together as a
closer community.
The Dutch might have a small country but our
roots spread all over the world!
/Marissa, Delft, the
Netherlands/
P.S. A nice video from the Netherland's presentation.
