At the beginning of March, this year, Noemi Lusi went to Romania to meet her Comenius partners. For several days they worked together on planning the further project activities. In this article Noemi tells us about her trip, partners and the hosting country, Romania.
When you go to a new country, you always wonder about what you will see and what your feelings will be like when you are there and once back. It is very hard for me to describe what Romania has meant to me.
Being the European Coordinator of Comenius 1 project: “European Maritime Exhibition – Water connecting Europe”, I went there for a teachers’ meeting and arrived conscious I was going to meet with good collaborators I had already had the chance to talk to and work with online. Once on the spot, the outline of their profile became more precise to my mind as a whole series of images began to compose the frame that made me fully participate to their concept of life.
Timisoara was the first city I saw, the place where I landed. Too many words would have to be spent on a city that, being of ancient origin, has a historical background that dates backs far away in the past and sees the intermingling of many a dignified culture. No less can be said about Drobeta Turnu Severin, its Roman ruins, its heritage….
From Timisoara to Drobeta by train: kilometres and kilometres of land, which I saw at night time, given a special spark by the light of a full moon embracing the whole landscape with a wonderful blue, enchanting light, leaving place for shapes of hills to get a feedback from the absorbed mind and at the same time opening full space to personal imagination.
The next day was at school, Liceul Gheorghe Titeica. A whole world where everyone welcomed us with sweet hospitality, warm friendship and great competence. Headmistress Florina Ianculescu made it possible for the atmosphere at the premises to be favourable to the intermingling of experiences and cultures and my conversation with the project’s students in the ICT lab underlined that they all had worked with the strongest of wills.
While the TV was shooting some images of us for the local news, I kept talking to those teenagers, trying to communicate to them the happiness I felt for being there. At first the reaction was that of a general, shy attitude. I underlined they should not be afraid of talking in English as the vehicular language since any mistake is to be considered a “window on their knowledge” considering it gives us the clue to what they do not know, making it possible for them to improve, step by step.
As shiny as the moonlight I had seen the previous night, their eyes started to glitter and gradual participation led to communication. An even nicer landscape opened in front of me: a whole generation of students who are willing to do their best to show what they can do and the competences they have, with the modesty of people who know how to build things without hurrying, but also without ever stopping.
The next day, a delegation of students and teachers wanted to share with us the festivity of “Dragobete” (a local St. Valentine’s Day), a day of friendship and love, by meeting us in front of our hotel and giving us sweet envelopes with greetings for the day, a bunch of flowers and six pink, heart-shaped candles as a present. We shook their hands and kissed them on the cheek, wishing future cooperation to go on and thanking them for the wonderful thought.
The teachers’ meeting carried on as satisfactorily as usual in a harmonic and balanced atmosphere where partner countries showed great capabilities, solidarity and cooperation in interacting. But going back, from Drobeta to Timisoara, before flying to our home countries, our hearts were not only full of future, common projects, but also of many a sensation and many a remembrance we shall never forget.
