YE #Cultural Storytellers

YE #Cultural Storytellers

“Goedeavond” or “iyi akşamlar”, we were warmly welcomed by friends from Greece, Turkey, Spain, and the host country, the Netherlands, in the picturesque town of Schaijk in the southeast of the Netherlands. We had dinner together and, exhausted from the journey, went to bed. Erasmus could officially begin. And it started right in the morning, with a short energizer as a warm-up, followed immediately by get-to-know-you activities. We dove into the project theme with enthusiasm, full of expectations and excitement. We discussed various topics, presented our opinions, and had many meaningful debates on themes such as community, determination, or the courage to stand for something and speak up for it. This went on for several days. Two morning sessions full of active self-development and sharing opinions, a later lunch, diverse afternoon activities, followed by the long-awaited dinner.

However, dinners were not always ordinary. Often, they were connected to the culture of a particular country, which prepared their traditional or specific food for us. This way, we could fully experience the nature of the participating countries, as well as their eating and dining customs. The day traditionally concluded with a cultural evening. Here, we learned a few more interesting facts about each country, played some interesting interactive games or quizzes, and usually learned the traditional dance of that country. The cultural evening slowly turned into night, and we all, bravely exhausted from the day, went to bed. In addition to the positively stereotypical days spent, we also had the opportunity to get to know the Netherlands in a different way, a slightly different approach. For example, we took a full-day trip to Nijmegen or visited various surrounding towns on traditional rented bicycles during our free time, during the afternoon break. We had many opportunities on this project. The opportunity to get to know the country, experience the Netherlands firsthand, or switch off and relax from normal everyday life. All of this is wonderful too, but the main and important thing the project brought us are the people we met and got to know, the friendships we built, and now only the memories we can take home from the entire project. It is a wonderful experience that was simply worth it.

As one of the outputs, our participants created a manual with lifestyle recommendations in PDF format.