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| Kaga, place of our exchange, Southern Ural, July 2012, Fot. A. Pukszta |
„Dawaj na Ural” was a two-sided exchange
(Action 3.1.), conducted in Kaga in Ural
Mountains (Russia), that aimed to deepen mutual understanding between Polish
and Russian teenagers and to encourage youth to draw from the contact with
elderly people. 24 young people from Poland and Russia took part in the
project. The main subject of our 13-day-long action was the culture of
indigenous people, mostly elderly women
called “babushki”. We were discovering their customs, beliefs, local geography,
family stories, and natural medicine.
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| Interviews with our beloved Babushki. Fot.M.Molisz |
We lived in tents 2 km from the village. We
had to build everything on our own: toilets, kitchen, fridge etc. We were
cooking on a big fireplace in big cauldrons.
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| Cooking in our big cauldrons in the camp. Fot. A.Pukszta |
Our plan of the day was:
interactive language workshops, with vocabulary needed for the given day, and
around 12 o’clock, matched in Polish-Russian pairs, interviews in the village.
It was amazing: sometimes we were talking with babushki for 3 to 4 hours,
drinking tea, talking about all family stories,
watching house equipment (which was like an open-air ethnographic
museum).
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| Babushka showing us how to make slippers from phloem. Fot. M.Molisz |
In the evenings we were singing Polish and Russian songs, evaluating
each day and just talking…
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| Evening fires, singing, talking, evaluating... Fot. T.Szpakowski |
Last 3 days we were hiking in the mountains in a
‘nomadic way’ learned from the local people.
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| Reaching the highiest pick of the region: Bolshoj Shatak. Fot. M. Molisz |
Methods that we used were: interactive games,
songs, lively dances , word puzzles etc.
For the ethnographic part we were recording interviews on Dictaphones, taking
pictures and recording videos. Later on we were making posters, maps, movies
and writing blogger articles.
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| Interactive language worshops - one of our methods of work:) Fot. M.Molis |
The effects of the exchange are greater than
we assumed. First of all we became real friends with our Russian and Polish
peers and certainly rejected many of former prejudices. Secondly we initiated
contact with older generation. Thirdly we gathered really nice ethnographic
material and fourthly, we improved our language abilities. We got from European
Commission 16 132,20 Euro for our project, for which we are very grateful
:)
