Mazurka... to be continued

As I told you last time I started with workshops about the Czech Republic in community centres (rural schools). And here are some more photos, because it is tremendous to see people in Uruguay dancing mazurka. I do like it much.








This was a workshop with youngsters one Saturday morning. They had a lot of energy and at the end laugh a lot.











Here we danced last Friday night with youngsters and adults. They were vey enthusiastic, so I will introduce polka next time :)

And this week I started with workshops about the Czech Republic in liceo in Colonia. The educational system here differs from the one we have in CZ. Pupils attend primary school for six years from the age of 6 and later on continue in liceo for another period of six years. The last two years of liceo are specialized. I do workshops now with the first years of liceo. They have lot of energy and they are curious. They seem to like mazurka, however, they introduce me to a new concept of this dance. The boys dance with boys and girls with girls :) I thought that I did not explain myself precisely yesterday, because I do still have some difficulties with the language. That's why today I tried harder and repeated three times that the dance is in couples of a girl and boy and these couples changes in every round. But it did not work out.



Jak to zpívá Lucka Bílá - holky s holkama, kluci s klukama :)

 The children wear uniforms in  school. And for example in liceo, where I do these workshops, there are three turns - morning, afternoon and evening. In the morning pupils from the first three years of liceo come, in the afternoon the fourth, fifth and sixth years. The evening works like evening school for those who stop studying before finishing liceo. 

  However, we don't just dance mazurka. We also talk about EVS, Checoslovakia and Czech Republic, Czech beer, Prague, Skoda, European Union, Euro and Czech crown. We found out  that the value of czech crown is equivalent to Uruguyan pesos. And moreover the banknotes are quite similar - with a famous person on one side.  

And we also talk about famous footbalists - uff, I have to learn :) 


Discussion time

It seems interesting, doesn' t it?



We play...



...move and change places...

and we act and guess... this was travelling :)

Mazurka has been danced

My EVS takes place in municipilaty of Colonia del Sacramento. I am in the department of Cooperation. The project I am involved in the most is Colonia Integra which aim was and is to support rural development. As Uruguay is less populated country (only 3 million people living in the country which is twice the size of CZ), there are lot of rural areas where you can find only few people living and sometimes schools with 6 children. So the idea of this project was to create community centres where could people gather where would be internet, mobile library, mobile helath centre and also some courses or place where people could do something together.
Thus my activity now is to do some workshops in some of those community centres.



Invitation to the workshop which children had in their notebook.

Last week I started with two workshops about Czech culture. The first workshop was with children from the primary school and a few adults. We learned where the Czech Republic is, that we are in the EU, but we have a Czech crown, the capital is Prague, hola is ahoj, the most popular drink is beer, that in the Czech Republic the summer holiday is in July and August (here in January and February) and that we like to ski, skate, play ice-hockey. I also showed my village I am from - Stepanovice.
Finally, we sang ``mela babka ctyri jabka`` and danced Mazurka. Mazurka makes people happy :)

Mela babka ctyri jabka

How to dance Mazurka...two left, two right, look, look and send

Two left...

uaaa, Mazurka

Colonia del Sacramento

Five weeks ago (more or less) I started living in Colonia del Sacramento. It is a town of about 20 000 inhabitants. However, in less than 1 year the number increased for about 5000 because a Finnish factory is being constructed nearby. What a coincidence (I studied a year in Finland). And last week I met a Finnish man. I felt very happy because since I saw him I was sure he must have been a Finn. Well, he was a bit drunk at 8pm, but very polite, shy and when he began talking with his Finnish accent, I was amazed.

Some days ago I realized that I did not shar eany pictures of Colonia. And then I found out that I did not take many. So I made a touristic tour into the old town one beautiful morning with the camera. And here is the result:

Colonia del Sacramento is one of the biggest and most important town in Colonia department. Colonia itself is the oldest town in Uruguay. It was established in 1680 and it has Portuguese roots. The old town was declared as a World Heritage Site (UNESCO). I must say that the old town is beautiful. When I entered the town for the first time, I got the feeling that this is the place where people go for holiday to spend some relax days, to walk, enjoy beautiful sunsets and to feel that life is worth living :) And moreover it is like a peninsula surrounded by water. Even it is a river, a person from central Europe can easily feel like at the seaside.

This is a map of Rio de la Plata which tries to explain that all this water around is really a river. This is the first map made of this territory.

This is thte famous famous entrance gate which you can see when you google pictures of Colonia. Look at the dog.

And this is the famous famous famous Portuguese house which you can find on all postcards of Colonia. Calle de los Suspiros.

The old mill, nowadays a restaurant.

:) This is a one of the places where you can see marvelous sunset. It is also a place where you can find street artists selling their artesania.

The port

The port and yachts

One old street in the old town

 I also climed up the lighthouse to take some pictures from above. However, one important thing about Uruguay. It is not a mountainous country. The highest point is about 514 metres.

The old town from above and the river

The old town and water purifier - right down.

 We drink water which comes from the river and it is purified here. Well, it cannot be compared to water from lakes, but I still keep on drinking it from the tap. They do not recommend it to me, but I keep on drinking it and so far so good.

The old town and far far away the rambla

Rìo de la Plata, would you believe that it is a river?

La Rambla. There people walk, ride cars, motorbikes, drink mate, eat, jog, sit,...

Rambla in the evening

The sunset on the beach. The palms are natural.

My friend

Look at the dog. Do you remember the one from the picture with the entrance gate? My friend he decided to spend one afternoon with me on the beach. In Uruguay there are lot of dogs which live in streets independently. They eat what they find and do what they feel like. They are usually very friendly and interact with you. Many times you can see them pulling food from garbage bins. If you eat in the street they will definitely join you with the expression: what are we having for lunch today?

This is my house. We live on the ground floor, the two windows on the right of the door are ours. My room is on the opposite side of the house heading to the garden.

The typical feature of Colonia`s street - platans (plane trees). They border the end of the pavement.

In Uruguay is the autumn right now. However, the temperature is very very pleasant. Every day we have the sun. In last five weeks I remember one all day without the sun. Otherwise, even it was a storm at night, heavy rain, cloudy in the morning, the afternoon was sunny. And now we have over 20C in the afternoon. I can walk with short sleeves. Yesterday I was lying on the beach. They say that it is a bit untypical for May, usually it is colder. I don`t mind that it is warm :)
And one more great thing. The sunset in the winter is at about 6pm. It is just perfect!! I do appreciate that I spent two winters in the north of Europe, but this is the perfect reward and I learnt again that the sun is essential for my being.

Aurinko joka paivaa :)

Evita in Buenos Aires and buquebus

In Buenos Aires one of the interesting place to visit is a cemetery. The cemetery is located in Recoleta which is one of the more alternative neighborhood with markets, young people, concerts in the open air...

The famous cemetery in Recoleta

In this cemetary famous, rich or important people of Argentinian history are burried. You can find writers, presidents, politicians, doctors,... I went to see the two which I know. Jorge Luis Borges y Eva Perón.

Jorge Luis Borges

Here is the alley where Evita is.

Evita

Always with flowers.

In general, Buenos Aires seemed to me a very busy and noisy city. Honestly, I felt lost. However I feel that it is good to come back and experience it again without jet lag and with some cultural knowledge.

And here is one photo as the proof that it was hot weather these days :)

The guard

Next day I continued to Colonia del Sacramento. The distance between Colonia and Buenos Aires is about 50 kms by water. In between them is a river called Río de la Plata which is the widest river in the world. Or there is a discussion if it is a river or estuary, because Río de la Plata is actually estuary of two rivers: Paraná y Uruguay. Anyway, this river looks like the sea. The only difference is that it has a typical brown color which changes with different airs. And it is sweet :)
So the best way to arrive in Colonia is by boat.

Bye-bye Buenos Aires

Río de la Plata and far away Buenos Aires

Colonia del Sacramento from the boat

 And here I arrived. My new home for the next 9 months. The oldest city of Uruguay and the country of mate :)