Trainee weekend - Easter and Christmas reception

Try to imagine, that you are just waking up or sleeping yet and some strange people come to your flat with many plastic bags full of some stuff you can not descry. You want some more sleep and the only thing you are thinking about is- Gosh, what is going on? I think this is how our trainees must have firstly felt.
We (Terka, Jane, Mia, Honza and me) came to trainee’s flat something about 1 p.m. and we started to prepare our show about Easter. Terka and Mia brought lot of things from home, like painted eggs, postcards with Easter motives, magazines, straw hare and they made some short talking about Easter in the Czech Republic. Honza took care about advertisement and me with Jane were baking the Easter cake called the cross bun in such a small kitchen J

Firstly the situation was little bit peculiar we didn’t know how the trainees will view it. But after 30 minutes so many people came and they were really interested in what we prepared for them. After some trifling trouble with oven we succeeded in baking two beautiful cakes! We were discussing all topics connected with Easter, painting eggs with onion water and wax, drinking hot tee and eating, what we have baked J Two weeks before Christmas we spent a pleasant Easter afternoon!

Helca

Then Christmas team came – The Bestsellers (Vieros, Mickey, Martin, Marťa and Roman) and we started to prepare the real Christmas atmosphere with candles, carols and some Christmas biscuits. In the beginning we said something about traditional Czech Christmas customs (and mentioned mainly those, that were for some reason funny or mysterious) and then trainees described customs in their homelands. All this was very nice, just imagine, no lamps but candlelight, about 20 people from all around the world in a tiny room, in good mood, sharing what they do home during the Christmas. Then three of us started to cook the Christmas Eve’s dinner and I with trainees was trying to predict the future from shapes that hot wax made in the water. This part was especially funny, because the most used sentence was: “Look, this is a baby!” J Another Christmas tradition was decorating of gingerbreads with kind of white icing. Also, we distributed empty postcards and said everyone to write there something in his/her mother language.

After this, girls decorated the Christmas tree and when it was finished, the long-awaited dinner came. I am sure that everyone who tasted it must admit that it was delicious J

In the end, we gave everyone a small present – chocolate figure and after collecting all postcards I randomly distributed it again and we tried to guess who had written it.

This Trainee day was very nice and I hope we will meet in the trainee flat soon to have such a good evening again!

Martin

Global Village 5.12.2006

Hmm, I guess that everybody of you has just imagined his/her last conference with all the food and alcohol tasted there... but this GLOBAL VILLAGE was special ONE!
It was organized on 5th December at our school (VSE-Zizkov) for everybody interested in different countries and cultures. All the students, teachers and visitors passing around could not only taste various menus but also get to know something new from foreigners from all over the world. The fabulous event started at 12.am and the funny and pleasant atmosphere continued till 4.pm.

The stalls tried to present their countries as creative as possible because there was a competition. Coming people awarded their favorite stalls with clips, that they put on the string belonging to each stall. And what do you think - who got most clips?... BULGARIA....(congratulations:) Maybe because Bulgaria had most presentersJ They offered typical Bulgarian bread – homebaked!- and red vegetable sauce. Special attraction was dance in traditional folk clothes on traditional folk music.

But other countries didn’t stay in shame. Mexican boys showed leather bookmarks with beautiful ornaments and typical cigarettes and tequila, of course. Asian inhabitants brought some scampi chips (really deliciousJ, spring scrolls with vegetable filling and gingili sweets. Canadians prepared pancakes with maple syrup. Russia attracted visitors with wooden figures of various sizes known as “matriošky”. Ukrainian girls served “pirožky“(turnovers). Many people were standing also around Indian and Romanian table, enjoying their nutritious dishes. Yaya from Mali cooked sauce from peanuts with rice. Africa was supported also by Erik from Camerun. Slovak students made success with various types of cheese and chocolate delicacies. Chocolate fans went directly to Chris from Germany and his marvelous ginger bread with raisins and fruit pieces inside. Nobody could overlook interesting postcards with Greek sea and mountains. And which country came with “gulash“? Obviously, Hungary. For those interested in Armenia there was an interesting virtual presentation at laptop.

Do u miss any country? Don’t worry - Czech republic took place there,too. Who knew the Czech celebrities from picks got ginger breads, potato crisps or “utopenca” (a sausage with onion). Their neighbour was AIESEC stall with materials about our activities, pens and balloons.
Even though Global Village is an annual occasion, this time there was a little surprise : there was a colourful map where all the visitors stuck the dots on the places they come from or they visited and fell in love with.

GLOBAL VILLAGE changed the hall in “Rajska budova” into rush crowded place. We had a lot of fun and felt the spirit of international environment. Not only OCP Mia Ambrozia with her team was really satisfied how great the event went out. I recommend all of u to come and enjoy it in next semester again. Or maybe become a part and show the others secrets about your country.

Mickey

DO IT adventure

Are you curious what was DO IT about? YES… So just enjoy the reading!

Are you not, but do you wanna win special Swiss prize? We suggest you to read as well :-)

Now seriously, I was thinking how to deliver our experience in attractive way… And I decided not to tell your whole story minute after minute how everything was cool, great and unforgettable... I rather tried to point out moments which I liked, when I realized something, what impressed my mind…

Anyway, what is DO IT actually about…

Biggest Swiss conference – 350 delegates, 25 countries, 4 days
Beautiful mountain site in the heart of Alps, near Italian border
Many sessions delivered by UN thanks to its close cooperation with Swiss MC

Travel to Swiss – Everything is changing so fast

Wednesday, 24:00: Our journey just began at Florenc bus station… 12 hours ahead of us, not enough space for legs my mobile just discharged and we have ½ hour delay… What a romantic beginning :-)

Thursday, 14:00: We are in Cisaplino express. We just left Zurich and the dream about wonderful Swiss countryside begins… Beautiful lake on the left hand, meadows on the right and first alpine peaks directly in front of us… Wow, how I wanna marry and live here J

Thursday, 14:03: Train stops. Michal in on the toilet, I am just finishing my lunch when Ondra Fiser says: “Hey, we are already in Arth-Goldau, we should get off now, next stop is on Italian border…!” OK, absolute mess begins, I am throwing rest of my “Bageta” to my bag, and Michal is just running from the toilet… Hope, he managed to finish everything… But finally and luckily we overtake it and left the train on time. Nevertheless, I had to challenge my braveness and return for my suite which I forgot in train when we were leaving in haste.

The Site – Luxurious barracks (kasárny)

I was quite funny… When we arrived to the site, we have seen soldiers all around… Afterwards, I realized that the site is normally military barracks and tutorial camp… But its fine, it looks good and moreover we could feel safe here J

Me as a delegate – Do we listen to internationals?

DO IT is Swiss national conference. I felt for the first time how is it to be international delegate. I felt that I have things to share, things we already experienced in Prague. I joined Swiss LCs in discussions, but it seemed to me that they are not so interested what I am saying and felt rather disturbed by my presence… And I dare to say that I have points which could help them. Anyway, it was quite huge key learning point for me. Sometimes we don’t realize how internationals could be beneficial for us. We have probably gone through problems we are now facing, set up new things we have never thought about… And we sometimes don’t listen to them although we even don’t know what they could bring us.

One more thing, it was interesting to see the difference between MC and LCs in Swiss in this area. On the other hand MC was really open to new ideas and listen. I think it’s different in the Czech Republic and I hope that we won’t ever “achieve” this gap.

Me as a delegate – Cool external perspective

What I really appreciated at DO IT were external sessions. I think it would be cool to establish such cooperation with UN as they have in Swiss. We had interesting discussion about Energy and sustainability, HIV… Moreover, they invited very inspirational professor from the university who told us about Matrix planning structure… I have never heard about it before. We had also very interesting training delivered by founder of the company Brainstore… company which is the factory on ideas working for BMW aso.

Me as a delegate – Is it good to have homegroups only because of having homegroups?

We should work in homegroups at this conference. The goal was to develop our leadership skills. In fact, we have 3 sessions together and I even couldn’t get to know people there. The result was that only 4 people out of 10 came to the closing session. I didn’t really envy to Tony who was our faci, I think he is really interesting guy and he has things to pass to people, but he didn’t get space for it.

Me as a delegate – “We love you OC, we do…”

I realized really interesting thing at DO IT, but I think it’s valid for whole AIESEC network. Let me describe it. Closing plenary just finished and the train will leave in 1 hour. OC has to pack all the things – 5 people. Michal and I decided to join and help them. Chris, MCP, joined us and helped us to transfer all the tables and stuff. The rest of the people were packed and were only chatting and smoking outside…That’s why I am asking: “Do we mean the sentence honestly?”

OK, let’s go for the competition now. 2 first right answers will be rewarded :-)

1)In which canton did DO IT take place?
a) Appelstruddel
b) Aargau
c) Wallis

2) What is it the symbol of Bern?
a) Bear
b) Beer
c) Bojko

3) Swiss national flag consist of…
a) Red and write colours
b) Blue and yellow colours
c)Pink colour

Please send your answers on: radim.quittek@gmail.com till 10^th February 2007

Sorry for such a long text... Hope you enjoy the reading and I wish you visiting DO IT as well :-)
Radim & Michal

PS: That’s all from me, you can get to know more about DO IT, just check our video http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4966425301226465532 :-)