Independance day (16th of February) in Vilnius

Independance day (16th of February) in Vilnius

Laba dienaaaaaaa, I came back from Vilnius where I stayed for all the week-end with some other volunteers, but it was not like every week-end, it was a longer week-end because we celebrate the Independant Day on Monday (16th February).

For this day, there were a lot of events. Here is the program :

8.30 Tribute to Signatories of the Independence Act of 16 February 1918 in Rasos Cemetery

12.00 The three Baltic States flag hoisting ceremony in Daukantas Square, Vilnius. Speech of the President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė

12.30 St. Mass at the Vilnius Cathedral Basilica

14.00 Commemoration of 16 February by the House of the Signatories of the Lithuanian independence

15.00 Premiere and presentation of the documentary "Give what you must to the Motherland" reminding of the circumstances of signing of the Declaration of the Lithuanian Liberation Movement of 16 February 1949 in cinema Pasaka

18.00 - 22.00 In Gedimino Avenue - 16 symbolic bonfires (from Cathedral Square to Vincas Kudirka Square)

19.00 Gala concert of the 16th of February at the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall (concert charges apply). Patroness of the concert - President of the Republic of Lithuania Dalia Grybauskaitė

19.00 Civic concert The Brothers of the group Skylė at the Concert Hall Compensa, Kernavės St. 84 (concert charges apply)

20.30 Celebratory civic event Yellow. Green. Red in the Cathedral Square

Unfortunately we couldn‘t see the speech of the President at 12 ;_; However, we went to the Signatarų Namai to see the exposition of the different signatures appened for Lithuania Independance.

In the end we participated to the lighting up of the 16 bonfires with the actual Mayor of Vilnius, Artūras Zuokas (French people know very well this man for his famous way to get out people in Vilnius who don‘t respect the parking time XD).

The 16 bombas the Mayor lighting up was those sort of wood/camp fire in Gedimino gatvė.

 

 

That was really interesting because we went to the last one before the Mayor reached it but someone else was already starting to make a fire, who was he? One of the candidate for the new Mayor election next month and a lot of the supporters were there to claim the future Mayor

There is also a new Mayor election in Panevėžys in March when we are invite to go to vote as we are in the Lithuanian register, but we don't understand the different Mayor programs haha ._. 

I was a bit disappinted because we couldn't see as much as I expected to see about the Independant Day events... Anyway it was a long great week-end :)



Emily





 

Su Valentino Diena!

A little late but still I wish you all a happy Valentine‘s Day! To be honest, that‘s quite an odd thing to do for me. I never thought I would end up writing about Valentine‘s Day. And that I would enjoy doing so.

See, I never gave a lot about Valentine‘s Day. I just dislike how exaggerated that whole thing is and how much it is in the end just about consuming and business. So it was a little peculiar for me when I experienced that Valentine‘s Day would be quite a thing at our „Panevėžio ‚Šviesos‘ Specialiojo Ugdymo Centras“. Last week it all started with the decoration of the school hall – a lot of hearts, cut out and coloured by the school‘s students – flashing from every direction. The absolute heart (what a pun...) of the whole event turned out to be the post box set up right after the school‘s entrance – of course for love letters to be put inside. For the whole week absolutely everybody amongst the children and youths was totally excited about writing letters and wondering how many they might get themselves in the end. Of course I won’t tell any names but somebody really wrote over 30 letters… But you see, those letters were not all about confessing love to somebody. The idea behind the letters was more to tell someone you like a few nice words, a small sign of appreciation for your friends, your teachers or your awesome volunteers (:D). And that was an idea that got me caught into it. I liked taking the chance of this day to show a little appreciation for all the people you like, in this small sweet way, and celebrate this occasion together.

After the first two lessons the whole school came together for some dancing and some games and talking about the meaning of love. There was a lower grade class from another school showing some dances for our kids and one of our school’s teachers moderated the whole event. In the end everybody danced together until the final and most important part of the celebration came: The delivery of the letters. And, oh my god, it was A LOT of letters The children and youths all helped together to deliver the letters to their owners but it turned out to be so much that they didn’t even get finished until the end of the celebration. Nevertheless, throughout the rest of the day everybody got theirs.

I really liked the experience of this day. I liked the atmosphere at the celebration and the calm, lovely mood all the children and youths were in. And of course I also liked the letters I got J Finally I also ended up writing some small notes, so you see, Valentine’s Day really caught me this time. In which way ever you spent it, I hope it was a nice day for you and if you’re also as objective to the day as I’ve been, maybe the story of our Valentine’s Day gave you a new view to the whole thing.

 

Iki pasimatymo,

Monika

Visit at K. Paltaroko Gymnazia

On Friday, February 13^th, 2015, Monika and I, accompanied by Kristina, went to the K. Paltaroko Gymnazia to present our EVS and countries to a 7^th class. Thanks to Kristina’s daughter’s initiative to ask her English teacher if a visit during one of her English lessons would be possible, the teacher had invited us to come. We had prepared a power point presentation with which we gave general information on what is EVS and showed pictures of events of our EVS, and each of us talked, next to giving basic information on our countries, also about specific topics, as Monika talked about music and sports in Austria, and I talked about Berlin and my former high school. Afterwards, the students answered questions from a questionnaire about our presentation in small groups. We enjoyed our visit a lot as all the students were very interested and also had a lot of questions for us afterwards. At the end, we took a group picture and Kristina’s daughter thanked us for coming and even gave us two valentine chocolate hearts.

Fine

Sports competition: Aš noriu laimėti! (I want to win!)

For February 11^th, one of the gymnastics teacher of our school, Birutė, had organized a sports competition that a team of our school, but also other schools for mentally and physically disabled children and teenagers, took part in. The competition took place already the 18^th year in a row and consisted of various relays the teams completed at the same time. Our team included 4 students of the 5^th developmental class and 1 student of the 7^th/8^th developmental class, and from watching I could see that they all had a lot of fun. Additionally, our whole school sat in the audience and during the breaks ours and the dance teams of other schools performed dances in the middle of the gym. The atmosphere when everybody was clapping and cheering and not few of the students watching joined in dancing at the sides was amazing. As Birutė‘s physiotherapist students supervised the different teams and helped implementing the event in general, they also had prepared a dance for everybody before the certificates were lend out to the participants. Even though the competition was called „I want to win“, and there was a first, second, and third place, the intention to win was not the focus of the event; it was rather coming together from all over Lithuania and doing sports and having fun together.
 

Fine

Day of Restoration of the State of Lithuania (Lietuvos valstybės atkūrimo diena)

On 16^th of February the “Act of Independence of Lithuania” from 1918 is celebrated all over the country. This act once announced the restoration of the independence of Lithuania, having been partitioned by Russia, Prussia, and Austria until then. Even though this act could not come into force until the Russian Empire slowly lost its power and Germany lost the First World War and Lithuania soon afterwards was under the regime of the Soviet Union, the currently effective Lithuanian constitution is still based on that act as it proclaims the country to be governed according to democratic principles and Vilnius to be the Capital.

As the 16^th of February is a national holiday, our school celebrated the Act of Independence already on February 12^th. On that occasion, all classes gathered in the school’s foyer and students from the Panevėžio Vytauto Mikalausko Mewų Mokykla gave a little concert, singing songs accompanied by their music teacher on the piano. Afterwards some of our students read out quotes fitting to the event. Additionally, they had painted pictures of sights and symbols associated with Lithuania’s independence, as the Gediminas castle and television tower in Vilnius and the Lithuanian flag which were put up in the school’s hallway.

On February 16^th and the days before there were a lot of celebrations throughout the country and the president of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė, gave a speech in Vilnius. Panevėžys was decorated with paper hearts resembling the Lithuanian flag and Emily brought paper flags from Vilnius that said “Su Gimtadieniu, Lietuva” (Happy Birthday, Lithuania) on it.

Fine

Fasching, Fašing, Fashing?!

You knew that just now the craziest time of the year was happening? Well, at least it was in Austria and Germany. Starting from the 11^th of November (11.11) at 11:11 the so called Fasching is going on, ending with Faschingsdienstag (Tuesday of Fasching) which was this year at the 17^th of February. In this time all over our countries a lot of different traditions are happening, usually very loud and colourful ones. The original idea behind these traditions was to get rid of the winter and to have a last loud and hilarious feast before the calm time of Lent starts for Catholics.

Especially on the countryside in Austria you can witness a lot of astonishing events and traditions at that time of the year. I can only recommend you to go there to see it once. The rest of these traditions, that’s still the most wide-spread, is a big party on Faschingsdienstag where it is common for everybody to dress up – usually as something colourful and funny like a clown. Since this is usually the most fun for children, Fine and me decided to organize an event for Fasching. We invited the dormitory’s children and youths to celebrate with us and called the event – adapted to Lithuanian – Fašing. So after putting up our invitational poster we got asked A LOT of times what this Fašing (or Fashing?) is.

 

 

We started our event by explaining the children and youths a little about this tradition in our home countries. And since I already explained that you’re supposed to be dressed up for this party, putting on some make-up for everybody was the first and most important step of a very nice evening. Altogether we played some games that Fine and me had prepared as well as we did some games that the children and youths had to face in groups. I supervised a game where they had to try to eat some small muffin as fast as they can – without using their hands! Quite a mess but also a lot of fun. After all the games we shared some cake with the children and youths that we had coloured in different, bright colours, suiting to the evening’s theme. In the end we danced altogether, some dances that I probably would never dance as a private person but you know, it was for the children… Sometimes the evening might have been a little chaotic but if Fasching is one thing out of all then it is chaotic, so actually everything went as perfect as it could be ;) It was quite something to do for Fine and me but I can tell you, seeing how much fun the children and youths had throughout the evening is the best payment we could have wished for for all our effort. It was a very cool experience to set up this special event for them and of course it’s always a pleasure when we can work together on something J I guess we will have to find even more occasions to organize such special events for celebrating together with the children and youths.

 

balloon dance game

Bolognaise - traditional dance for Fasching

 

 

Iki pasimatymo,

Monika