Our Project Meetings (2)

From them on, we have had contact through the web giving one another information and planning the second trip, this time to visit the Greek school participant in Afxentio. There we met and had an unforgettable experience. The four Spanish teachers immensely enjoyed our trip. The previous meeting in Spain, having been the host school, did not give us either time nor impartial opinion about the stay, since it meant for us a race against the clock and a constant anxiety to cover and control every possible circumstance.

This second time has been very different indeed. We were picked up on our arrival and taken everywhere with polite manners and careful affection. The friendly attitude and natural charm of Giorgo – the host headmaster - allowed us to feel really comfortable. He is a man of resources. He splendidly manages in his free style English and, so merry and easygoing as he really is, he also very satisfactorily copes with the organization of events. Apart from guiding us to several places of interest, we were prepared a beautiful performance of very young dancers and musicians in which we were given some gifts and had the occasion to participate before the audience to explain our programme and, in the end, were invited to a delicious cold dinner especially cooked for us by the students’ parents. Delightful!

It is barely impossible to explain how intense the work is during the days of the meetings. It is not only what is done, but it is also the teachers` brains continuously at work absorbing the information, enjoying the sightseeing, imagining new procedures, mentally organizing the ideas which continuously arise, photographing every interesting detail, writing down any relevant hint, becoming in all progressively but sweetly exhausted. And this such constant flow gives birth to a very familiar and tender relationship with those around you.

Just after our return from Greece last week, all the participants told in the three schools everything about the trip, and are already making things up for the third meeting, next June in Turkey. There we have our already very dear friends Ozdan and Güllu, with the rest of the Turkish teachers, looking forward to receiving us. I can imagine the first one, so lively, joyful and charming, longing to take us to the interesting places and explaining everything to us; and the second one, our very dear Güllu, so professional, helpful and committed to working on the project, endevouring herself to the organization of the visit and to make us feel so safistified as we will surely be there among them. How near from you two I feel myself in this very moment when thinking of you both.

Hardly could I imagine that this project was to mean so much for my professional career. After having worked as a teacher since I finished university, I could not have guessed before that this Net of Tolerance would mean to me a different approach to my daily teaching resources. It has brought me plenty of work, but parallel to it lots of new experiences, human contact, understanding of other cultures and why not, a certain amount of merriment altogether. Many times in my adult life have I felt proud to speak foreign languages, as they have offered me an open door to the world, to its understanding and to its people; however, this time I have experimented that sensation in a deeper way than before, because it is not only me who has benefited from this abilitiy, I have also been extremely useful for the rest of the group, for our high school and for the project, and to be sincere, it has made me feel good and at the same time compromised.

Let`s now allow the project to continue and I promise a new update soon. See you in the blog!

Satur Rueda