Monday, June 15, 2009

Week 4 @ the Centar & Pidriš

(Note: Have not edited)
The Centar:

Monday: We made fish and jelly fish with the children.

Tues: We taught the children occupations. We did the yes/no guessing game in three groups. Then we split the kids up into two groups. One group would go outside and do some filler games like ˝Winds of Change˝, while the other group stayed inside and played a game of jeopardy using the occupations. For instance, if the card said, ˝I teach children how to defend themselves˝, the kids would have to guess, ˝Who is a Karate Teacher˝. (There were 2 translation sheets translations for the different occupations per group.) After 15 minutes, the groups would switch.

Thurs: We made a short dance to ˝Jenny from the Block˝ by J-Lo.

Friday: Since the other volunteers went to Belgrade, I had a low key day with the children. We made crafts for half of the time and then played filler games such as Limbo, A LOT of Musical Chairs, Buckle Buckle, etc. I got them to make hand prints/plate suns and chain caterpillars.

The others left on Thursday at 2:30pm. For some reason I was nervous about teaching the program alone. I don't know why since I have been teaching classes alone for the past few summers. I suppose is was because I had gotten used to them With that said, with the exception of a couple of times when i felt like I was in a zoo, Thursday and Friday went very well!! I enjoyed my time. In the morning I had my little helpers. It was a lot quieter, and the children and I had a blast playing games, dancing, and doing Arts and Crafts. During the evening I took some time to organize our main programming room. I put up all the kids artwork, and cleaned the shelves. Then my sister and our friend came to get me and I went home to spend the rest of the evening with family.

There were a few reasons why I did not go with them to Belgrade. However, the main reason was because my sister had invited me to go with the rest of our family and neighbours to Pidriš on Saturday.

Pidriš

On Saturday we left bright and early: between 7-8am. It was a very long and tiring walk. It took us about 3 hours and it was mostly uphill. My sister and I travelled with her three school friends. My brothers, tata and neighbours left an hour later. It reminded me of a pilgrimage that my Baba, Deda, mom and I went to back in Canada. It seemed like the whole Catholic community was there, some travelling by foot and others my car. While there, we attended 1.5 masses, looked at souvenirs, and my sister and her friends got ice cream. (I was saving room for the BBQed lunch my family and neighbours were preparing). It was nice to see the community coming together. It reminded me of the mass I attended a few weeks before. The mass took place in a grave yard where most of the diciest from the town were buried. People brought bouquets of flowers and lit numerous candles for the mass. We prayed over those that had gone before us. Both events were very powerful and emotional. My only wish was for my family from Canada to have experienced these things with me.

Our lunch took place half way between Pidriš and home. It was near a well we stopped at on the way to the church. We rested, conversed and ate DELICIOUS food. I had steak, čevapi, tomato and cucumber salad, etc. It was great!

The journey to and from Pidriš was awesome! We came across mini strawberries, wells, and foot long leaves. We took many silly pictures. On the way home the sides of the path were ramped. It reminded us of a skate board park. It was tradition for the girls to run up and down them. Who was I to fight tradition. (It was a blast!)
Parental Surprise, Water Tossing and Movie Nights:

Since my mama pulled a double shift on Friday and Saturday, and missed Pidriš, I wanted to do something special for her. Thus, my sister and I made her and the rest of our immediate family crepes. As toppings we made homemade banana whipped cream (consisting of 3 egg whites, 2-3 spoon fulls of sugar and 3 mushed bananas whipped), diced strawberries, and 2 pieces of nutted chocolate. Tata and mama were overjoyed! :D

Afterwards, we were allowed to play outside with the water balloons I brought from Canada and one of our neighbours. We filled them up, tossed them to each other, and virtually got soaked! them we sprayed the hose on each other (Sh!)

That weekend we also watched two English movies (with Hrv subtitles): Oceans Eleven and Parent Trap. We wanted to try eating popcorn with chocolate (like Katie Holmes in ˝The First Daughter˝). However, there are no decent priced M&Ms in town. thus, we tried cutting up regular dark chocolate and putting them into VERY salty popcorn. The result: a disgusting mess! lol It was worth a try! :D

The Americans are coming soon and Ive asked for M&Ms so my sister, little brother and I can try it the N.American way before she leaves for Croatia on a class trip in a month.

What a GREAT weekend!!!

~G.

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