We travelled to Horezu – a small town in Romania, which is famous for the pottery that is handmade by the local artists. The participants of the exchange came from 6 different countries – Romania, Poland, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Greece.
The topic of the project – culture – was combined with the origami technique, which was a challenge for everyone in the beginning and a pleasure in the end, when we’ve finally mastered the skills of working with the paper. Our great facilitators started this youth exchange with the ice breakers, so we could get to know each other, then the team building activities followed. We had a “Paper Clip Challenge” which was combined with the city rally, so the participants got to know this cozy Horezu town as well as work together to communicate with the local people using body language (Romanian language was not allowed!) and to collect as many things as we can starting with a single paper clip. Everyone was surprised by the hospitality of the local people! The following days let us learn more and more about each other and our cultures. We started with the Romanian origami – Dracula bookmark, then the other symbols followed – the Italians taught us how to make a gondola, the Turkish presented the national flower tulip and a funny symbol – a Turkish turkey, Spain showed us how to make a traditional dress and a bull, Greece choose to teach us how to make a ship and told us the stories about their mythology and why the ship is so important to this country. Meanwhile we – the Polish team – taught everyone how to make an eagle – our national symbol which is in the emblem of Poland as well as an old Polish car – Polonez.
During the evenings we had the national presentations with the songs, dances, quizzes as well as traditional foods and drinks. The Romanians made not one but even two surprises – they invited the local folklore ensemble to sing and dance for us (this was a part of the Romanian night) and a Eurovision song contest where we worked in international teams and presented our versions of such popular songs as “Hit Me Baby One More Time” or “What does the Fox Say”. It taught us how to spread our creativity and overcome our boundaries.
The participants also had a chance to see more of Romania – we visited a historical town Sibiu, we spent half of the day there, visited an art gallery as well as got to know the local architecture which is unique and eye-catching. During one of the days we visiting a local pottery workshop where a lady showed us how to make traditional ceramic. After a short presentation we all had a chance to make our own bowls, mugs or unidentified objects.
We had a great time, we met amazing people and learned a lot! Looking forward for our future actions together – thank you!
[- written by Polish team]
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