To travel is to live

The last weekends we have been travelling to other cities to meet some friends and to visit new places.

One weekend we decided to go to Arad which is a city in Western Romania. It has around 160 000 inhabitants and isn’t far from the Hungarian boarder. We know some other volunteers who live in Arad because we met them at the On-arrival training in Sibiu. Some friends told us that they were hitch-hiking around Romania and so we decided to try this as well. In the morning, we walked to the edge of Baia Mare and held up our sign on which was written:”Arad, va rog!” Then we had to wait some time until a man stopped. He told us that he is not driving to Arad but he can bring us to a spot where it is more likely that someone who is driving to Arad will pick us up. We were really happy that this man helped us because we were finally picked up by a mini bus that was driving to Oradea which is quite close to Arad. When we arrived in Oradea we bought something to eat and walked through the city. Then we walked out of the city and held up our sign again. And again a man picked us up to bring us to a better spot for hitch-hikers. That was funny! It was already afternoon now and there were some other people who wanted to be picked up as well. But finally a Romanian who works in Italy picked us up. He drove a very nice car and brought us very quickly to Arad. After our arrival we contacted our friends and they showed us their apartment where we could sleep as well. In the evening we met some other volunteers because there are many of them in Arad! I think we were around twenty but there are even more of them. Furthermore, the Christmas market has already opened and so we drank some hot wine there and listened to Christmas music. The other day we hiked in a forest with some volunteers and afterwards we had a barbecue because it was very warm this day. We also did a little bit of sightseeing. Arad is a very nice city and it was perfect that we knew some people there so it was even more fun.

Due to the fact that the 30^th November and the 1^st December are holidays in Romania we had some free days and so we decided to travel to Budapest. We lived in a very nice apartment which was located centrally so that we always walked. Of course we visited the most popular tourist attractions such as the House of Parliament, St Stephens Basilica, the Fishermen’s Bastion, the Heroes Square, the Gellert Hill et cetera. We also went to one of the famous ruin pubs and due to the fact that some other volunteers had decided to travel to Budapest, too, we met them one evening. I really enjoyed Budapest because it is a very nice city and the weather was quite good, too, because the sun was shining most days.         So I hope that I will come back one day!

 

 

The non-formal education week

Our first full week of own workshops had as its motto “non-formal education” and the target group were primary school children and kindergarten children.

We started on Monday in Rus, which is a village in the rural area around Baia Mare. The activity lasted one hour from twelve to one o’clock and it was a so called after-school activity. The first day, we had eleven children and we had organised three different activities. We had one station where we sang English nursery rhymes with the children such as “the penguin song”, “head shoulders knees and toes” or “the Hockey Pockey” and of course we also did the movements that go with the songs. For the second activity, we pressed some leaves so that the children could take one and put it under a sheet of paper and then hatch with some crayons so that you can see the pattern of the leaf. Furthermore, we had drawn a big tree and they had to cut out the leaves and stick them on the tree. The third activity had as its motto “games” and we played “musical chairs” and “duck-duck-goose” with the kids. If we had enough children to split them into three groups, I was in charge of the last activity.

On Tuesday we were in Şindresţi and there we had around 16 children. On Wednesday we went to Unguraş (20 children), on Thursday to Chechiş (11 children) and on Friday to Dumbraviţa (around 50 children). On Friday, we were also one hour in a kindergarten with around 25 kids. So as you see, the amount of children differed a lot but we managed to deal with that very well. Furthermore, nearly all the kids were well behaved and they really loved to do our activities. It made me happy when the children were smiling and many of them came in the end to us and hugged us although we had seen them for the first time.

The AIST has decided to do activities in the rural areas because more and more parents from the countryside send their children to the schools in Baia Mare because they think that their children get a better education there. The result of this is that the schools around Baia Mare lack of pupils and fear to close the schools. Unfortunately, the schools in the city are not necessarily better because there are for example 30 to 40 children in one class so that you actually don’t get a very good education. Due to the fact that in the schools in the rural area is a small amount of children, you learn a lot and the AIST wants to make these schools more attractive for the pupils and also for the parents.

I think that this is a really good thing and I am glad that I am part of these activities!

 

Welcome to our weekly workshops

This week we started our weekly workshop project about our own countries. For the first one we chose the topic “stereotypes” with the intention to find out what our participants already know about Denmark, Britain and Germany. There were four girls and one boy at the age of 13 to 17. Before the workshop, Alex, Katja and I had bet how many children would come to the first workshop and Katja won because she had said that there will be five participants. Of course, it was rather a small group but so like that you get more in contact with the people.

At the beginning, we introduced ourselves and we asked them to guess who is from which country. Surprisingly, they knew immediately the correct answers.

The first activity was about the stereotypes. We wanted them to think about what comes to their mind when they hear Germany, Denmark or Britain. We had big sheets and they drew the clichés and stereotypes on it. Afterwards, we talked about what they had drawn and it was fascinating to see what they were thinking about our home countries. For Germany and Britain it was easier to find stereotypes or clichés than to find some about Denmark but they already knew some very interesting facts about this country.

After that we had prepared a quiz (or rather a kahoot) with questions about our countries. For example, how long is the coastline of Denmark? – 7 314 km; in which countries do you speak German (apart from Germany)? – Belgium, Austria, Swiss, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Italy; what happened in 1066 in Britain? – The battle of Hastings. The question weren’t easy but our young guest managed the quiz very well.

In the end, we had pictures of famous people of our countries and we showed them the pictures and they had to guess from which country they are and what they had done or do.

After the workshop, they told us that they have enjoyed the activities and we hope to see them again. I am already looking forward to the next workshop and hopefully some of the participants will bring a friend. It is very, very nice to see that there are people who are interested in your home country and in other cultures or languages – I feel happy about it.

 

Curing Chronic Monolingualism

Part of my EVS experience, as it inevitably would be in a non-english speaking country, is language learning. Personally, this was an intriguing yet challenging reason to come to Romania and improving my foreign language ability is one of my aims while I’m here.

Being a native English speaker can make one rather complacent when living and working abroad. It’s too easy to assume everyone speaks English and if they don’t they should. This causes a terrible affliction in the Anglophone world – monolingualism. Not only is it outright boring not to know any of the world’s 6,500 languages in all of their variety and vibrancy, but people who only speak one language are really missing out! 54% of Europeans and a similar proportion throughout the world are fluently bilingual. Bilingual people: are more likely to recover from a stroke; have better memory, attention and mental performance; can make more rational decisions in their foreign language; can earn 5-20% more money; can slow the symptoms of Alzheimer’s; have more grey matter; and know when they’re being sworn at by rude waiters in restaurants abroad. Although, learning a new language becomes harder with age and some evidence suggests that bilinguals have less vocabulary in a given language, I believe it’s clear that the benefits outweigh the costs – it’s worth your time to learn!

 

 

I’ve never really been gifted with languages. I grew up only speaking English, I dropped out of French class at school and even in my native tongue my spelling is quite poor. However, a couple of years ago I decided to take a French course, the difference this time was that I wanted to be there. I chose to be there. A handful of evening classes and a couple of trips to France later and I’m semi-fluent and in the future I will continue to learn. Currently, I’m taking Romanian classes, where I hope to pick up the practical skills to make the most of my time here but also to hone in my language learning ability. I want to learn to learn, practice practicing and experience experiencing a new language. After learning one language it can help with learning the next, so for me Romanian is about more than the here and now, but a lifelong process of being more connected with languages.

It’s not going to be easy and I don’t expect to be 100% fluent in 5 more months, but that’s not the point. Even a little Romanian will make my time in the country easier and more enjoyable. Crucially, this opportunity will allow me try different learning methods for myself and build my confidence in linguistics. Perhaps I too can cure myself of monolingualism.

If anyone has any tips, you know where to find me.

 

The journey to Cluj

This weekend, we wanted to experience something new and so we decided to travel to Cluj-Napoca. On Saturday, we got up at six o’clock in the morning to take the bus to the capital of Transylvania. According to my researches on the Internet, Cluj is said to be the second largest city in Romania so I expected it to being very big but in comparison with Hamburg – Germany’s second largest city which has around 1 814 597 inhabitants – it is rather small.

Our first stop in the city was the Fortress hill. Locals love it and it is one of the most romantic places in the city. People say that every single person in this city had a love story that began here. Very close to the city centre, green, quiet and people love to go there to relax, read a book or just get away from the city centre noise. We drank a coffee in the café on the hill and we enjoyed the amazing view.

Afterwards we strolled through the city centre, visited some churches, the market and the autumn festival. The festival was about German companies in the one marquee and there was also German folk music in another one.

In the afternoon, we went to the art history museum and to the botanical garden. The Garden was founded in 1920, by Professor Alexandru Borza, and it belongs at present to the “Babes-Bolyai” University. The Garden hosts the Botanical Institute, the Botanical Museum, a Herbarium, with over 650.000 exhibits, 3 hothouses, a Roman and a Japanese Garden. Due to the fact that the weather was perfect, I really enjoyed walking through the garden and looking at the flowers and trees. Later, we also went to the central park which is also very nice and pretty. It has a restaurant, a summertime club, a lake with swan boats you can rent, a fountain and pavilion where you can relax, a basketball court, a small area where you can do aerobic exercises, long and wide paved roads for running, cycling and roller blading, and last but not least a really amazing tobacco and tea house right in the middle of the park.

In the evening, we met some other volunteers who are doing their EVS in Cluj. I met Johanna and Lena in Germany at the pre-departure training and so we decided to meet in a bar. They brought their volunteer colleagues from Greece and Portugal and we drank some cocktails. It was a very nice evening!

On Sunday morning, we had a delicious breakfast in our hostel and afterwards we visited the ethnographic museum of Transylvania. The current pavilion exhibition is called „Traditional folk culture from Transylvania in the 18th-20th centuries”, rebuilds, with talent, the way in which the Transylvanian peasantry lived two centuries ago.

The rest of the day we were relaxing and enjoying the wonderful weather due to the fact that we had visited most of the tourist attractions the day before.

In the afternoon, we ate in a vegan and vegetarian restaurant called “Samsara Foodhouse” and it was extremely delicious. I can only recommend this place!

On the way home we got stuck in a traffic jam but fortunately, we arrived in Baia Mare not that late and we were all happy about our journey to Cluj-Napoca.

 

All about chestnuts

Last weekend, there was the „Chestnut Festival“ in Baia Mare and of course, we went there because it was a unique experience for us. On Friday, we were part of the big parade from the Hotel Mara to the Millennium Place and I was proudly waving the flag of my home country. It was very nice to feel like being part of the Romanian culture. In the evening, we listened to folk music and it was a pity that we couldn’t understand the lyrics because I would be very interested in knowing what the singer sang. Daniel Făt was very funny, I liked him the most. Unfortunately, it turned quite cold later, but the hot wine helped. It reminded me of the “Glühwein” that you can buy in Germany on the Christmas fairs.

On Saturday, we strolled along the fair and ate some chestnuts, of course. It was the first time that I ate these delicacies and I like them. Later on, we went to the classic concert of the philharmonic orchestra “Dinu Lipatti” from Satu Mare. I really enjoyed the music due to the fact that I like playing classic music myself. After this, we went to the new centre to listen to some modern music. I liked the music, too, but it is strange when everybody else knows the lyrics and you are just standing around because you can’t sing along due to the fact that you don’t understand it.

Sunday was already the last day of the festival – it passed so quickly. We visited the “Expo-Flora” and went to some more concerts, for example to another folk concert from the National Folklore Ensemble “Transylvania” – they had lots of soloists – and to the promenade concert of the Municipal Brass Band of Baia Mare. The firework at the end of the festival was amazing and we enjoyed it from our balcony where we had an excellent view.

Most of you know the Chestnut Festival very well, that’s why I had the idea to include some interesting facts about chestnuts and chestnut trees that you hopefully didn’t know yet.

It is fascinating that of all the nuts, chestnuts are the only ones that contain Vitamin C. One ounce of boiled or steamed chestnuts delivers between 9.5 mg and 26.7 mg of the vitamin, while the dried variety has double the vitamin for a total of 15.1 mg to 61.3 mg for 3.5 ounces. Furthermore, chestnuts are different than most nuts because they contain very little fat and protein. In fact, chestnuts are a great source of carbohydrate (50%) and water (45%).For instance, chestnut porridge was given to Roman soldiers before entering a battle.

And have you heard about the biggest chestnut trees? Apart from the biggest and oldest Hundred Horse Chestnut Tree on Mount Etna in Sicily (between 2,000 and 4,000 years old), there are other two chestnut trees that deserve a mention to their dimension: the Tortworth Chestnut.  In 1776, it was described as the largest tree in England and it has a girth of 12 metres. Southern Spain’s Sacred Chestnut of Istan has a circumference of 14 meters and it is estimated to be between 800 and 1,000 years old. Besides, Chestnut trees seldom grow spontaneously. Usually, the presence of a chestnut tree is the result of human activity rather than an act of nature. It is important to notice that people do not plant chestnut trees for themselves. They do it for generations to come because the trees begin to bear their fruits only after 15 years and their yield is not optimal until they are 50 years old.

Chestnuts are also an important food source for animals such as squirrels, wild boars, birds and deer. Wood of chestnut tree has similar properties like oak – it is often used in the manufacture of houses and furniture – and the leaves and the husk are used in cosmetic industry for the production of shampoos.

As you can see, chestnuts and chestnut trees are very fascinating and useful for us. Baia Mare can be proud that there are growing so many chestnut trees.

 

Chestnuts, Tongue Twisters and Life Goals.

Now the introductory period is drawing to a close and the real fun begins, I can safely say I have settled in comfortably and I look forward to what lies ahead. Over the last couple of weeks almost everything from the mundane to the original has been exciting and intriguing, mostly due to the unfamiliarity with living in a new country. It’s an experience many people will never go through, except those who take the chance to live abroad, but one I couldn’t recommend more highly.

Most recently was the Festivalul Castanelor, or Chestnut Festival, in Baia Mare. This is an annual celebration, akin to the harvest festival in other parts of the world, where Romanians from far and wide come to the city to eat roasted chestnuts, drink mulled wine and apparently buy a multitude of furry slippers. We enjoyed it, particularly the variety of music and dance on show and the endless supply of saliva inducing meats and beer. Together with many other organisations we took part in the parade, waving our home countries’ flags and promoting our international school. Best of all the weather held out, which was great start to the autumn.

Speaking of which, the fall semester of activities at AIST has begun and we can’t wait to start working with the kids, some of whom we met yesterday. We gave our first activity, with local high school kids, presenting the European Day of Languages, which largely went very well other than running out of time. It’s quite amusing to hear Romanian pupils wrangle with tongue twisters. Hopefully, we can make our future activities go consistently as well, or better. I for one have had an amazing insight into non-formal education and truly believe this will make invaluable experience.

I have been assured that I made the right decision to come here, but now I’m here the key question is: ‘What next?’  Learning Romanian, defining and pushing my personal development and overall having fun are my goals, but I’ve got no idea as to how I’ll go about doing this over the coming weeks. I feel like this is a healthy position to be in and once the project has flown past I’ll then be able to answer the key question, in retrospect. In the meantime, I’ll drink tea and keep doing what I’m doing.

 

Games, carpets and books

With a cup of tea by my side and the sun shining in through the window I’m about to start my second post for this blog, (I know, a lot later than promised…). In the background, I have the meditative sound of Lorena typing away on her own post, Alex punching holes in papers that need binding and relaxing music. This has been a common scene for the past couple of weeks. The whole office has been preparing for the start of the school year, and we have helped out where we could. We have cut and laminated hundreds of letters, pictures, flags, you name it. We have bound books and painted trees. We have spent hours sewing the carpet together earning sore fingertips and blisters. Yesterday however, was the first day of classes and the preparation is thus drawing to a close.

Besides helping the real teachers prepare, we have been given courses preparing us for the activities we will be in charge of. Some weeks ago, we had a course in gamification, where we talked about different kinds of games and how to choose which game fits your purpose the best. We have also looked into other kinds of non-formal education methods and researched how they can be used in our activities.

Our newly acquired knowledge was put to the test yesterday, when we had our first activity. It was the European Day of Languages and we were asked to plan an event for a small group of high school students. We were given free rein to decide what to do with the only guideline being to fill one hour. So we spent last week, when not laminating and carpeting, preparing a quiz for them. The first part of the quiz was “Guess the language” where we showed different phrases passed through google translate. I now know how to say, “Do you know Chopin’s latest album?” in Polish and “Can I go to the bathroom please” in Bulgarian. The second part was to guess the meaning of weird idioms in our mother tongues. Can you guess the meaning of “having a muscle cat” or “a chocolate teapot”? Though the equipment wasn’t working as we wanted it to, the students seemed to enjoy themselves so we considered it a success.

We’re all looking forward to starting the activities with the kids and youth and since the school opened officially yesterday it wont be long!

Katja

 

First adventures

The first two and a half weeks of my EVS have passed and I have experienced lots of interesting things already.

From the 9^th to the 11^th of September, there was the NORTH WEST FEST, the international festival of jazz and blues in Baia Mare and we went there every day to listen to the different bands or musicians. Honestly, I didn’t expect that the term “jazz” contains so many diverse music genres due to the fact that we heard everything from traditional jazz to rock. Furthermore, I thought that the people would stand or walk around instead of sitting and listening. Nevertheless, I was enthusiastic that there was such a festival and I liked the bands “Blues Progression” – blues rock (Romania) and “Pluto my World Project” – jazz fusion (Hungary) the most. The Piața Cetății was a very good location for this event and the weather was perfect, too.

The other weekend, we went to the Hungarian Főtér Fesztivál on the Millennium Place. There were lots of stalls with Hungarian food, clothes or books. Besides, there were horses and carriages and many people wore traditional clothes. We also saw a little bit of the performance of “Cinderella”. It was very interesting to discover the Hungarian culture and we tried some Hungarian food. I realized that some food is popular in Germany, too, but I have never thought about the fact that it could be Hungarian. For example we often eat goulash at home and you can buy langos at many fairs.

On Sunday, we decided to hike to Igniș because the weather looked promising. We went by bike to the foot of the mountain. Due to the fact that there were nearly no street signs, we lost our way and we had to ask somebody until we finally found the right street. We tied our bikes and started hiking. Same problem as before: There was only one sign that marked the hiking trail, so we had to ask again, but nobody spoke English and we had to guess the path. In the end, it took us five hours to get to the top of the mountain, to Igniș. In between, we really were in doubt about achieving this place and we were so glad that we did it. The view was amazing, so it was worth the hike! The way home took us only two and a half hours. Back home, we were very tired but happy about our trip.

On Monday, we heard about the basketball game in the evening in Baia Mare and thankfully we got the chance to go there. I have never been to any live sports event. In Germany, football is very popular and many people go to the stadium to watch the games but due to the fact that I am not the biggest football fan and I live in a little town, I never felt like going to such an event. So I was very excited. Municipal Olimpic Baia Mare played against Steaua CSM EximBank Bucharest and the atmosphere was great. The game was good, too, although Baia Mare lost in the end but nevertheless they had played well.

So as you see, I am not getting bored at all here in Baia Mare because there are lots of things to do.

 

A good start!

I’m sitting in my bed looking out at the forested mountains north of Baia Mare. I’ve been here in Romania a little over a week now and every time I see those mountains I am affirmed in my choice to go here. I wanted to get away from the well-known, to travel the world and experience new cultures. My home country of Denmark is probably the flattest country in the world, so every morning when I awake to the view of the mountains, I am reminded of where I am (and where I am not). What a good start to the day that is!

Besides experiencing new cultures, I wanted to feel like I was doing something good in my gap year. EVS was the perfect opportunity. I get to experience the world while doing voluntary work without paying a dubious organisation a load of money that I do not know where will end up. I am supported from start to finish both by my sending organisation, Danish ICYE, and by the hosting organisation AIST. After joining ICYE I was sent adverts from projects all over Europe in search of volunteers amongst which I found this project. The AIST has since been in charge of transport, accommodation, setting up a bank account here in Romania, getting a phone number and all other kinds of practical stuff, which they have taken care of admirably. Even though my trip here was not without complication, (a long delay meant I had to stay in Cluj overnight to catch the bus on to Baia Mare the next morning), it went painlessly for me because Onoriu, the project manager, took care of everything for me. All in all I feel in very safe hands.

From my first week at the AIST I believe that it is the perfect project I have become part of. The employees are not only very friendly but seem dedicated to the cause of opening the world to children and young people through languages and the meeting of different cultures, a cause I might add that I am a great believer in. Though we have not started the activities with the kids yet, I believe that they will be varied and fun! Our activities up until now have definitely been varied: from moving furniture to sewing carpets and laminating cards.

That will be all for now, but I am looking forward to describing the experiences I make to you all!

Katja