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Published: August 15th 2006
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Eafit sponsored and hosted an amazing AIESEC event.
Aiesec Eafit invited over 40 international trainees from 15 countries present at the time in Colombia and they all put together 15 stands, each with their national flags, traditional food, books, leaflets, pictures, laptop presentation etc. For a few days Eafit premises looked indeed like a small global village. All the trainees wore their traditional outfits and proudly represented their countries! Everybody was so excited, it was a major international event! There were trainees from Germany, Mexico, England, South Korea, New Zealand, Romania, lots of press, cameras and reporters interested to broadcast and write about the event.
I wanted to do something typical Romanian, a traditional dish...but what?
SARMALE? well..unfortunately I lack any cooking skills whatsoever!! Let's get serious! me and cooking! we just don't speak the same language! But I had to do something! I couldn't just go empty-handed! So I sort of adapted a Romanian recipe to what I had handy and improvised with what I could find in the local supermarket. In Romania we enjoy eating
mici cu mustar si paine( pork or beef minced small sausages with mustard and bread) served with bear. First of all, there was
GLOBAL VILLAGE
global village a No alcohol policy on school premises and secondly, although they are delicious, it can be time consuming to cook them! So I had to think at something else. At the countryside Romanian peasants enjoy eating
slanina cu usturoi which is a special Romanian home-made bacon/lard served with raw garlic! ( Sorry Mom, I know you spent a lot of time writing and explaining how to make
sarmale, but it would have been traumatic to try make such large quantities!)
The good news is that
'Global Village' made the front page of some local papers and they all mentioned the Romanian garlic, as a very unusual curiosity....
I had to work from 10 to 12 in the morning and my classroom had a view over the stands. As the windows are always open, we could hear the music and the murmur of the festivity taking place, and I didn't quite feel like teaching. I couldn't wait to take my place at the stand, the only one deserted and unattended all morning. After class, I rushed home to cook and a very helpful Dutch trainee gave me a hand. He was definitively a better cook than I was and
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chocolate hunting...yummy....yummy... we finished with everything in an hour...The Aiesec-er who was assigned the difficult task of helping me throughout the event did a brilliant job! He downloaded the Romanian hymn and some Talisman songs, also printed some pictures and information sheets of Vlad Tepes and the famous
Dracula legend and where it all originated.
Oana who is doing her traineeship in Manizaels sent me some small flags and more pictures, as she couldn't get to the event on time. So I had literally created something out of nothing in only a couple of hours! We were doing great, so at 2 pm when students began to gather, my stand had everything, from food, pictures, traditional songs, a few basic phrases hand-written to teach them
Hello and How are you in Romanian.I even used some garlic cloves to decorate my stand! Let's not forget I was born in Transylvania, so where I come from Garlic is a symbol! Why not make it the theme of my stand?!I am sure I can work it to my advantage, to have a unique storey to tell :P ...
At 6.00 pm I had to go to class again, so my helpers had to
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USA,China,Romania,New Zealand take charge and be the ones to explain about the food, Dracula and answer any other questions. The event had a few hundreds visitors and they were all enthusiastic about the concept, tasting a variety of food and getting information about remote and beautiful lands. They took photos and asked questions, vividly impressed with the multitude of cultures, the traditional outfits and the stories. All the trainees did a wonderful job representing their countries and we loved sharing different aspects with the press. The party that took place afterwards and wrapped up a successful event was everything we expected and more! Because we were all tired, but excited to have a wiiiild night!
I would love to share more things with you, but I have to grade some papers by 6.00 pm and plan my classes for tonight, I am also taking Spanish classes and I don't know why on Earth they bumped me up to a level 7 (out of 9). Heaps of homework, grading and planning.I am feeling tired, but cannot deny I'm enjoying all my activities!
que vacano!!😊 I will try to do my best with the time I have left here in Colombia, improve
global village
ROMANIA, BRAZIL my Spanish, have lots of fun and keep an optimistic attitude!
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Sarah Stafford
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love the pictures! such a fun weekend :)