The trip to paradise - Part VI (Inter-Cultural Nights and Conclusion)

Well first of all I have to apologize for the long absence. I quit my old job since the first of September and it has been a very busy week since then with all my relocation preparations and a 4 day family trip to the beach.

So I promised to talk about inter-cultural nights, standard issue on all EuroMed youth exchange projects.
The idea is that as a participant in a group representing your country, you get one day allocated for you to try and make all participants "visit" your country. The aim is to provide a glimpse of your culture, including everything you can think of, uniforms, songs, a national dance, national food or drinks, basically anything you think represents part of your national culture.

So on each project, each participant group gets one day to hold the cultural night representing their country for the other groups. On the particular project I was in, local visitors were also allowed (and rather encouraged) to attend the nights, to learn a thing or two about the country.
And it's such an experience, both as an organizer and as an attendant. You have no idea how creative the groups make it. No one night is similar to the other, and each group creatively works on ensuring that their night is as much fun as it's educative.

The options are endless, we had games being played trying to identify popular national personalities/events, we had a typical Italian dinner on the Italian night (magnifico!), we had a candle-lit maltese night in the open air park complete with bonfire and an amazing video clip being played on a projector. It's amazing how much you learn effortlessly when it's so much fun. And after each night, I really did feel that I have visited, even if for a very short while, a part of that country.

All in all, the whole experience was just amazing. So much fun, so many lessons learnt, so much experience gained, so many friends made from all around the globe, and so so many good memories to cherish.

During the exchange, I've had my closest encounter with real diversity. I have always believed that diversity is beauty, that one should respect diversity. But let me tell you, it's one thing to "believe" rather theoretically, and a whole other thing to experience practically. I've learned I should have no prejudices about people whatsoever by seeing how wrong they could be. Never judge a book by its cover as they say.
I have learnt that human beings are incredibly creative. How I've come to that conclusion maybe rather funny. I just thought about the vast differences between what I'm used to eating at home and the different things we ate during the exchange. We'd sampled food from each of the 6 participating countries and you can hardly tell that it's all made with the same basic ingredients, just vegetables, rice, meat, etc.

I have also learnt through all the conversations and activities we'd had that even though people could live thousands of miles away, have vastly different cultures, seem to have almost nothing in common superficially. Human beings do indeed share the same "core". I've been in more than one (informal) conversations where the topic being discussed or the questions being asked have been previously thought of before by me and many other participants. It is amazing how an Italian, a Polish, an Egyptian, a Maltese, a Lithuanian, and a Jordanian can maintain a conversations discussing issues that are relevant to everyone.

Now when I go to bed at night and begin thinking about a topic or searching for answers to questions in my mind. I know that I am not alone, and that a thousand miles away there could be someone else, in a different time zone, wearing different clothes, leading a very different lifestyle, but still thinking about the very same topic, and looking for the very same answers.
And it makes me feel better, I guess.....