Europe Goes to School

Finally, the day had come to tell the children of Achill some interesting facts about Germany and Sweden. In the morning, we went through the programme which we had planned earlier this week. At eleven o’clock we headed for the school of Dooagh, where we met the principal Irene who was really helpful and together we decided to split the children up into three smaller groups instead of what we first planned; one big group. So after a slight change of plans in the presentation programme the first group of children in the ages 11-12 years old arrived. The next group was the children from 6-7 and the last group was in the age between 8 and 10.
The programme started by presenting ourselves and then we asked the children if they knew something about our countries. And they did! They knew about the ice hotel in the north of Sweden and also some Swedish football players. Their knowledge about Germany included old houses and that Germany, France, Russia and China are “friends” and not to forget the question: is Hamburg the place where the hamburgers originally come from?
After some general and facts about our home countries, like about the German carnival and that the Swedes like to eat “raw fish”, we went on teaching them some words. The words were hi, bye, thank you, you’re welcome, my name is… and I love you. The children were really talented and they pronounced the words correctly which is more than you can say about us, when they tried to teach us the Gaelic version of the words.
Then we continued with singing the song “Are You Sleeping Brother John?”. First we sang it in English and than both in German and Swedish and the children all joined in.
This experience was one we will all remember. The children really paid attention to us and seemed to be very interested. We are really thankful that we could come to their school and I believe that a sign of their appreciation was the last question when one of the students asked if we could come out and play football with them on their break.
At one o’clock Lili came to pick us up and we really wanted to stay longer, but as some of us had lecture we needed to get back. The last thing we saw of the Dooagh School was the children running after the bus waving at us. What a nice memory…

Marie Nilsson

This morning like all the other mornings, everyone in the group worked with the tasks they have been assigned. It is always interesting to read what all the other groups are doing in their workshops, looking and choosing some of the pictures taken and combining text and pictures. If one would come and see when we are working, they would be met by people who is working with several
computers and everyone is busy with their task.

At first when I thought of this workshop I did not think that it would be so much work with the travelogue, but there are many small things that have to be organized and planned ahead. We have to check if any of the workshops are doing something special and interesting that they can write about. First it was a bit difficult to combine all the different opinions and thoughts about how the work should be done, but at this moment everyone in the group knows what has to be done and who has to do it. So the communication among us students has proved to work.

I think that this travelogue is going to be an interesting final result of the week we have spent here together on Achill.

Viktoria Åström