LDA Sisak volunteers Silvia, a Spanish girl doing her European Voluntary Service with us, together with Alba who is doing her EVS in Petrinja in Association IKS, presented their country to high school pupils in Petrinja.
Read her impressions about today’s presentation:
My friend Alba (who is from Barcelona) and me, I am from Galicia) went to Petrinja’s High school to meet a group of pupils aged between 17 and 18.
They have been working during the last weeks in some projects related with the Spanish folklore, nature, political economy, artists…Indeed they have nice posters and banners about Spain and other countries all over the walls.
First of all we introduced ourselves and explained that in Spain each province is very different from the others. We are from the north and we do not have customs such as dance flamenco or go to bullfights.
Alba started talking about things like Catalonia’s fireworks, the human castles, Cuban influences in her culture or the Saint Jordi day which very special in Catalonia. In that day (23 of April) lovers bring books and roses to each other but also commemorate the death of their patron saint. She was talking about their music (rumba catalana), dances and typical dishes.
Pupils were especially interested in the human castles and in the weird people who use to cheer the parties in beautiful disguises.
I brought a banner with some photos related with Galician nature which is very wild. We have a dense landscape and beautiful beaches, some of them quite dangerous because there’s the Atlantic Ocean on the west. I explained them that Galicia, as Catalonia, is Autonomy and we have our own language. I also make a presentation on the projector with some photos of traditions like the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage, the castro culture, the cape Fisterra (called that way because Romans though it was the land’s end), witches and magic spells ( in Galicia we are very mystics), the big fires at Saint John’s night and explained some typical dishes (seafood) and music (bagpipes).
I think that people were quite interested, after that they show us the high school which I like a lot. They have original things, banners, calendars, plants, hand-made pictures, etc. In addition people were very kind; they even gave us a bag with wine and souvenirs from Petrinja.
More about the project read here.
