Thursday (20 - 03 - 2008)

Hello,
Today was a day filled with a lot of different things.

Workshop with pupils (digital didactics)
The first thing of today was the workshop with the pupils. The children of the 5th and 6th class of primary school came to our school. They could do the exercices that we had prepared the last few days on the computers.
Because we had 4 different groups of students with other exercices, the children were also divided in 4 groups.
We worked with a swop-system. That means that we had 20 minutes with each group.

First we showed a powerpointpresentation with information about the different countries. In the presentation they could see the position of each countrie on a map, they could guess of which country each flag was and at the end they could see different pictures of typical things in the countries. They also had to guess of which country each slide with pictures was, because the names of the countries were written in the language of the countries.

The children really liked it that they could guess the countries. I must say that the children were very smart. When i had their age, i didn’t know all those flags and the positions on a map.

After the presentation the children could do the exercices with hot patatoes. It were exercices about the typical music and instruments in the countries. There was also an exercice about different landscapes of the countries.

The children liked the exercices.It motivated them that they first had to see some movies of music on you tube to be able to fill in the exercicse.
You could see that the children were intrested and envolved during the workshop.

I have to say that all the students worked very well. In all the groups (also in my group) i saw that the Belgian and the foreign students were envolved. You could see that they enjoyed that they could help the pupils.

Everyone has done a great job!

CULTURAL TRIP IN GENK:

After the workshop, we went to Genk to do a cultural trip.

Turkish mosque

The first thing that we visited, was a Turkish mosque in Genk.

The first thing that suprised me when we enterred the building, was that there were so many other rooms in this building. I thought there would only be a huge room to pray in on the inside, but this is only a little part of it.

The first room we went to, was a nice room with a cosy corner with pillows, mattresses and a big carpet. We had to take of our shoes when we enterred this corner. The same thing counts when you go into the praying part of a mosque.

In this corner we got some general information about this mosque in Genk. I was suprised to hear that this mosque was build with their own hands and their own money that they had collected.
After the information, we could drink some Turkish thea. I tasted it, but unfortunately it wasn’t my thing. Some of the other students did like it a lot. Ofcourse the Turkish students were very enthousiast to drink something of their own country.


After the drinks it was finaly time to go into the mosque where the praying and the religious things happens.

We had to take of our shoes and the Turkish girls did a headscarf on their heads.

I loved this mosque on the inside. It was beautifully decorated and it was nice and warm in there.

I was suprised to see that there were no chairs in this room such as in other churches.

We got some more explanation about the mosque and the Turkish religion.

We saw how people of the islam pray. It was very interesting to see.

I was suprised to hear that the women pray in a different way then men do. (Some movements are in an other way with women.) I also was suprised to hear that they pray a lot during the day and that they even have a timeschedule for it. Ofcourse the praying doesn't always happen in the mosque. They can do it everywhere, but they prefere quiet and clean places.
It is expected that they pray five times a day with there face in the direction of the Ka’ba in the holy city of Mecca. The first pray is early in the morning before the sun comes up. It wouldn’t be something for me to get up so early in the morning to pray. Especially because the praying is such an intense ritual.

I really liked the visit in this Turkish mosque. I have seen and learned a lot of interesting things.

The Ukraine church

The next thing we visited, was a beautiful Ukraine church.

On the outside you get a joyful feeling because of the light colour, the beautiful building and its wonderful surroundings.

On the inside i got a warm, cosy, but also a little bit of a heavy feeling because of the dark colours, the smell of incense and the overloading of paintings.

We got some more information about this Ukraine churche and the orthodox religion from the Greek girls and from this man.

I was suprised to see how the man was dressed. I didn't know that this was the typical clothing for an orthodox priest.

The Spanish cultural centre in Genk

The last thing we visited, was the Spanish culteral centre.

We ate a specialty of Spain: 'paella'. I'm not so fond on seefood, but i have to say that i did liked this meal.

Offcourse the Spanish girls enjoyed it very much.

After our meal we learned some Spanish dances.

First we saw some beautifull examples.

Here you see a short video of these girls:

Afterwards, it was our turn to dance.

The Spanish girls were in there element!

You couldn't see only Spanish dancing. Also some students performed some things:

We saw some Turkish bellydancing and an Austrian folksdance.

After all the dancing, it was time to go home. I was very tired and in the evening i was glad to see my bed!

I really enjoyed this day full of different cultural things!