Cultural performances in Zua Primary School

Boys and girls from Zua Primary School are very good at dancing and singing. On 20^th of October 2016 we had a cultural performance day at the school to show different local dances to our friends in Estonia and other countries.

In front of the schoolhouse boys did the traditional War Dance. It is a dance usually performed on funerals. The tradition comes from old times when different tribes of our area were always fighting. When a person who had married to a different tribe died, their family members would suspect that somebody from the new tribe might have killed this person. To make sure if this had happened, they would dress in menacing war costumes, take weapons like bows and arrows with them and go to the funeral. There they would perform a dance to threaten the people of the new family and see if somebody gets scared of them. It was believed that he who shows fear might be the killer. These days the dance is performed as a traditional ritual, not out of necessity and is an important part of every funeral. Of course we did not have a funeral at the school, but because students have seen the dance done many times, they could show everybody what it looks like.

Then we gathered under the baobab tree where boys and girls showed different local dances.

Later in the day Godfred from class 5, who is a very talented musician, built a Kolog (local guitar). To do it he used a calabash, goat’s skin, pins, string and wood for the handle. When the instrument was finished we could sing and dance some more. We also learned to play one of estonian traditional instruments, the Parmupill (Jaw harp).

PS! We will add videos of the dances later, in December 🙂

Colourful World by Valga Gymnasium

A intruduction to project värviline maailma (colorful world)
Valga Gymnasium offers from last spring to valga city basic school students a career training courses. Course purpose is to help basic school students to choose what comes next, to introduce different jobs, and schools speciality, which is also the UNESCHO school status. The courses are everymonth on friday and last for 5 hours. Over the year there was seven school days. Two days of course we devoted Global Education themes. In the end of the course 64 students got a diplom.

In April we prepared lots of preparations ,because we wanted to do something special for that day and we wished that our students also would take part in organizing, listeners and also took part in them.

Sushi making workshop
The day started in the school kitchen, where students were waited by nori sheets, sushi mats and boiled rice. Luckily some of the students have already tried to made it and therefore they were also helping to organize. Half of the group spinned the sushi rolls and the second half made Japanese Fresh rolls. This fresh rolls were rolled to a thin rice leaves with hot water. In the iniside there was a cucumber, pepper, shrimp sticks, carrots and so on. The fresh rolls was a clear under the colorful of the inside.

With laughter and more fun hour and a half there was lots of tasty foods for later eating.

Tibetan in school
School had invited a adventurer called Roy Strider with a real tibetian Dolma and they bringed a Tibetian dog Karma.

All the school and the course students listened them with pleasure of their adventurous stories. Dolmas story was translated to the students by Roy Strider. Dog only slept all the day :). Questions didn’t want to end. Even after the course everybody asked lot of questions. That exotical person we haven’t seen in school before.

Japanese workshop
Japanese workshop aim was to but the students to a new situation. The classroom was made a japanese style with Geishas. In the room was a incense smoke and the fresh air gave cherry blossoms. To the room you could enter from a 66cm door, you needed to bent down to get in.
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When you enter you had to take your shoes off and but them near the door. Visitors were hosted by the house ladies, who bented down and silently leaded visitors to their carpet on the ground. When the visitors had sit on the carpet then they offered some Chinese tea. Popcorn and rice and good smell made the tea tasty. Students shared their cups like the traditional japanese way and prayers.

Japanese tradition showed our geishas who were actually our 11 grade students with silent waving water and music they shared the visitors eating sticks and visitors tried to eat what they had made in the morning
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In the workshop there was 25 students so silent and were so impressed by the food and they enjoyed it. And when the lesson ended the bented opposite with the women and turned around and left the house.

Tibetian workshop
This room had a tibetian flag and some good prayres on the pages Students were sitting on the carpets and pillows and then listened to the tibetian women who talked about high mountains. Also there was Tibetian music. In the middle of the classom there was butten a camping stove, because when Dolma talked she could make some traditional Jaki tea. Students looked impressed because they hadn’t seen it before. They had never seen that a butter and salt was butten in there so much.

In the building the smell was rich and different. When the tea was ready everybody tried it. Who said it was good and some said it was disgusting nobody felt cold about the tea or Dolma and Roy’s story- Visitor also singed us a children song, which was really old song. Tibetian dog Karma still sleeped all the time when we talked. Everytime they changed the workshops with differend groups so that both groups can get their.

Also to make the day more colorful, in the kitchen there was some Asian food. After the workshops there was a poll and this global education workshop winned every heart. The Project was helped by MTU Mondo. The Career days were made by the wonderful team, were belonged Andrus Murumaa, Pille Olesk, Meelis Oja and Triinu Ugur. In the workshops were project helpers from the 11. grade students.

Estonian Independence Day – national dishes in Toila Gymnasium

We are students from Toila Gymnasium and currently we are in 11th grade. In honour of 97th Estonian Independence Day (24th February) we decided to make three different national dishes. Cooking these dishes is easy and fast. We hope that you try them out and find them delicious.

Enjoy your dishes! 

 

Estonia – a small country with a beautiful nature, unique ethnic patterns and friendly people. Estonian people always stick together no matter what happens and protect their homeland with passion. We can bring out friendship in our own country and also between other countries by sticking together.

 

Classic potato salad

            Ingredients:

• 10-15 potatoes
• 4 carrots
• 5-6 eggs
• 1 large cucumber
• 4-5 pickles
• 1 large onion
• 400g-500g sausage
• 400ml sour cream
• 400ml mayonnaise
• Salt, sugar, pepper, herbs etc

 

How to make?

1. Boil the pealed potatoes and carrots until tender (about 15-20minutes). Drain well, cool slightly, then chop them into small pieces.
2. Meanwhile, bring a seperate pot of water to a boil. Carefully add the eggs; cook for 10min. Peel the eggs under cold running water, then roughly chop.
3. Put chopped potatoes, carrots and eggs into a bowl.
4. Chop the cucumber, pickles and sausage into a small pieces. Add them to the same bowl.
5. For a dressing take a different bowl. Mix sour cream and mayonnaise. Add salt, sugar, pepper, herbs and a chopped onion (to taste).
6. Pour the dressing on the salad ingredients and mix them together.
7. Serve immediately or let the salad sit for awhile to soak up the dressing.

 

Sprat sandwich

            Ingredients:

1. Black bread
2. Sprats
3. Green onion
4. Butter
5. One boiled egg

How to make?

Spread the butter on the bread. Clean up the sprats. Put the cleaned sprats on the bread. Slice the egg and the onion and put it on top of the sprats. Your sandwich is ready to eat! 🙂

 

Cream of wheat/semolina

            Ingredients:

1. 1 l mixed juice with water
2. 1,5 ml semolina (cream of wheat)
3. 0, 5-1 ml sugar

How to make?

Mix the juice (200ml) with water (total should have a liter of liquid) if necessary add sugar. Heat the juice to boil then add semolina (cream wheat) and mix quickly. Boil on low heat about 15 minutes, until the semolina is thick. For making cream of wheat/samolina the porridge should not be too thick. Pour the mixture into a larger bowl, let cool down, and then whisk until it is fluffy and creamy. Serve it with or without a cold milk.

 

 

 

                                  

Happy World Food Day!

Today is World Food Day! Congratulations if you ate something today! 🙂

World Food Day 2014 is dedicated to family farms and to the food that comes from them. Family farms are important as they are great examples of sustainable farming and they play an important role in saving traditional crops and agrobiodiversity.

Below is an interesting infographic from The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that tells more about family farming and important facts on the topic.

Many of the foods in this blog come from family farms. You can see great examples of students getting to know local food crops on small land patches here and here.

Still often we forget about where our food comes from and who grew it. Today is a great day to say “Thank you!” to the farmer who gave us our food.

How much do you know about your local family farms?

2 in 1: Dramatic play and creative learning method

Teachers! Creative learning method for students!

Dramatic play – MILLET
African people have always had festivals at the time of harvest. In Africa the festival is of a religious nature and has lots of dancing and music. Dancers wear costumes and each dance tells a story. The stories range from a good ghost who looks after their crops and scares away the bad ghosts who try to spoil the food. It is important to celebrate the harvest. The students from Zanlerigu Junior High School performed a dramatic play about millet.

Creative learning method: „A video storyteller“

This is a creative learning method using African students’ dramatic play about millet.

Instructions:

• Watch the video about the performance of Zanlerigu Junior High School students once
• Using your fantasy, imagination and the words given below, think up a story for that video.
• Write it down.
• Teacher/classmates choose 1-3 most interesting and unconventional stories for telling others.
• Tell your story while watching the video once again.

Tips for a successful storyteller:

• Pay attention to the time and movements!
• The story must be interesting and complete (with proper introduction and ending aswell) and fit in to that video.
• Try to be as much as creative as you can!
• Speak clearly without rushing.
• Balance your voice tone!
• Remember that the dance needs a specific story too!
• Answer the questions: What they are talking about? What’s the situation? Why are they singing, dancing? What’s the point of this story/performance?

10 keywords you should use in your story:

• millet,
• gods,
• advice,
• celebration,
• family,
• food,
• dance,
• harvest,
• national,

You can start like this:

Once upon a time in October 2014 there lived a family in Zanlerigu. One day Father …

Wish you a lot of fantasy and useful minutes with this video!

Read all the posts by Zanlerigu Junior High School
Read all the post by students from Ghana.