Raine Lindepuu as a coordinator of the project and Külli Oja as the principal of Lohusuu School and a history teacher participated in the project meeting in Romania.
On Tuesday, 15 October, we visited local authorities in Moreni, we were welcomed by the local mayor who introduced us to the local area and expressed hope that during our stay in Romania we could get a good picture of Romanian traditions and people.
The rest of Tuesday we spent at the project partner school in Moreni. We were welcomed by teachers’ team and students’ team. As a tradition, the local teacher offered us salt and bread which was a proof that Estonian and Romanian traditions may not be very different at all, as we have the same tradition of welcoming people in Estonia. After welcoming speeches, the students of the school made their presentations. At first, they pretended to be the members of one of our participating countries and wanted us to guess which country they were introducing. After that the students made a detailed presentation of Romania and Moreni area in general.
The second half of the day passed in working sessions where all the details and possible problems connected to the project were discussed. We tried to find the solutions and possible ways of dealing with problems. Each participating school made the presentation of their home country. We also decided when the next project meetings should take place and how many people approximately should participate in meetings. We had a more specific discussion around next assignment – how to make videos and presentations about our basic traditions connected to birth, marriage and death. We discussed the input of information to our project webpage and how to handle eTwinning environment.
On Wednesday, we had a field trip to Romanian capital Bucharest. We had a guided tour in the Palace of Parliament where we received a lot of information about Romanian history, symbols connected to the country and about the construction of one of the biggest symbolic buildings of socialist era in Romania. Afterwards we visited the Village museum which gave us a detailed picture of Romanian houses and living conditions throughout last three centuries. We have quite similar place in Estonia – Rocca al Mare Village Museum – where one can see the living conditions of Estonian people. After the field trip we had a discussion where participating people could give their opinions about what they had seen and draw connections between their own countries and Romania. We tried to find similarities and differences. For us, Estonians, the main similarity occurred in handicraft and the building materials and shapes of the buildings, also the symbols used on doors to protect people. We also noticed the circle cross – very similar to Estonian one from the same era.
On Thursday, we had a field trip to quite different region – Transylvania. Because of Estonia’s flat landscape, everything connected to mountainous area is quite fascinating to the Estonian eye. We had a possibility to explore the Bran castle – also known as Dracula’s castle – and to hear Romanian explanation about how much of Dracula they think to be a myth and how much of it could be a reality. We visited Ethnographical museum in Brasov, where we could observe national clothing and tried to find similarities between Romanian traditional clothing and our own Estonian national costumes. After the field trip we had another discussion where we mainly rolled around the Dracula’s myth – could it be real or just a figment of someone’s wild imagination. We also talked about our own mythical figures but Estonian Kalevipoeg really stays in the shadows compared to worldwide known Dracula.
On Friday, we had a working session where all the trips and visits were once again discussed and we tried to point out the most interesting things and facts. We also discussed about the forthcoming visits, organizing project meetings, next assignments and how to make things work.
In conclusion, the project meeting in Romania was very informative and gave us a lot of new information about Romania in general, about Romanian people and language, its traditions, political regime and national situation. It is well known that firsthand experience is the best way of getting to know someone and something. Romanian project meeting was a proof of how important these meetings are.
Raine Lindepuu, project coordinator in Lohusuu School