Ceva de Vară 2014

The first edition of our festival „Ceva de Vara“ happened last weekend, 19th of July in Intorsura Buzaului, and it was a great success! After morning preparations in the rain the weather turned out great and it was warm enough even for our Belly Slide and water balloon fights! Besides this a lot of activities happened in the afternoon, medieval workshops with bow shooting and medieval dancing, painting workshop, first aid workshop, Slack Lining, different sports like Football, Dodge Ball and Frisbee, where the last was a real success with a lot of people attending the workshop trying this new sport also as a team sport.


Children learnt how to make their own puppets for a puppet theatre and to build their own Kites and to fly them. Also a bicycle contest and an orientation contest were part of the program and had a lot of participants.


In the relaxing and adventure area, where I was with Maria people could try out different small games, lie in hammocks and swing on our self-made swing and seesaw. People could look at our self-made picture gallery from all our EVS experience and read promotional posters about EVS. Also the Slack Line workshops, the first aid workshops and the flower crown workshop happened there.


During the “Open Stage” in the evening a DJ showed his talent and some people sang and the children from the “Casa Familiala” in Intorsura Buzaului showed three theatre sketches in between the acts I practised together with them during the last 2 months, they were short but we put a lot of work in it all together and the children can be really proud of themselves for the performance and the courage to go up on the stage in front of all the people.


The concerts of “Fresh” and “Youvenis” and the musical jugglery from Jemery and Simon from France where a great end of the day and start for the night and also “Alizarina” (Simon) from France showed his talent and after jamming together on the clarinet with Julio from Spain on the guitar.


Stargazing and music at a big campfire until late in the night were the perfect end of “Ceva de Vara”.


While cleaning the next day you could meet very tired but happy volunteers! We hope it was not the last edition and not the last time we will have so much great help from all the volunteers, sponsors, partners, who supported us and held workshops at the festival!


Kathrin

Ceva De Vara '14

One day, one place, ONE AMAZING EVENT, which turned out to be a huge success.


For the first time in Mirakolix history, did we arrange a one day Festival “Ceva de Vara” in Întorsura Buzaului. We had a great time and everyone; partner, volunteers, participants and guests, seemed to have an amazing time.


We had a lot of different activities like; painting workshop, poppet dolls workshop, kite workshop, medieval workshop with bow shooting, handicraft, Slack Lining, different sports like Football, Dodge Ball and Frisbee. Beside this there were also two different kinds of contest, Mountain Bike and Orientation and especially orientation race turned out better than expected with more than 70 participants.


In the evening the music began and the area was filled with lovely music played by bands from Întorsura, FRESH and YOUVENIS, but also music and jugglery performed by two French Volunteers in Romania.


All in all, one incredible event, which ended with a big campfire and acoustic, before we together with the volunteers, began the cleaning the next day.


Kristine

Ceva de Vară- New vision of Mirakolix

Mirakolix has new plans! ONE big plan- a festival called “Ceva de vară” which will take place in Întorsura Buzăului on the 19th of July 2014. The idea came up to our minds a long time ago, while we were already working in different schools and an orphanage in Întorsura Buzăului, we also organized a board game evening in a bar there, so we already knew a lot of people in this community. To give a good final to the two European projects “PlayRide” and “Science Playground”, which hosted us 7 international volunteers for one year/ 7 months here in Romania, we thought a one day festival with people we worked with would be perfect. As we love to play with children and organize activities with teenagers we thought about different workshop areas where people can spend the afternoon, doing sports/ trying new sports, playing theater and music, trying bow shooting and other things. These areas we planned to build up as parts of a village, so to name for example the theater area “Square of curiosity” and the food area “market” and the playing area “Playground”. Also there would be a theater play performed by the children of the Casa Familiale of Întorsura. In the evening we planned the music part to start, so to have concerts of some local bands but also bands from Brasov or the EVS community who are willing to play for free to introduce different styles of music to the people. The music part would be moved later around small campfires with acoustic music.


We had a lot of discussions and came to the conclusion that if a lot of people would come to the festival we could not keep them busy with our activities for the afternoon until the music part starts. How should we do it then? We are only 9 people working on this! Of course by asking our amazing Romanian friends and local volunteers to help us a little bit with preparation. We changed the concept a bit, found and are still trying to find more big and easy activities like a water fight and a belly slide planned a relaxation area to be able to make more people enjoy the afternoon.


Organizing a festival- until now it seems already quite complicated, even just to agree on a name! Really, this was the hardest part and we where on the lowest level of our creativity, from “Hai la țară” over “Gratar extraordinar” and “Mirakomania” we ended up in just “Gata Festival” or “Mai Departe”. At this point we decided to ask our local volunteers at the first meeting with them for some creative help, a good idea also because they are Romanian speaking experts and very fast we came to the name that really everybody liked and that sounds really nice in Romanian- “Ceva de Vară” ("Something summery"). After having a name the motivation of everybody raised a lot actually! Also having fun with the local volunteers is motivating a lot. We found people that are willing to help us in anything we need for the festival, before and during. These people are helping us to find more or new activities and to improve the ones we already have. Without help it would be a lot harder for us organizing something big like this. It is great to see that we can fill other people with enthusiasm about our ideas and we also get a kind of confirmation that our ideas are not completely dumb. Thank you a lot for your help guys!


Now we are concentrating on finding sponsors for the event, motivating different musicians to play at the festival, finding more afternoon activities, practicing the theater with the children. We changed the idea of a theater play with the children from the Casa Familiale to smaller sketches or commercials that we will perform in the breaks of the bands in the evening. We will still have campfire music and also star gazing in the dark and story telling activities at the campfires.


Just now we are having the last activities in all the schools we worked in, because the holidays are coming. So afterwards our days will be only concentrated on the festival, we hope we will not get to frustrated by working at home most of the time and not to fall into another creative hole. But we will keep our motivation up and this festival will be amazing! Let´s do it ;) !!

Muzică este ceva de vară !

Hey...what is a festival without music? Not a festival, definitely. That's why for the upcoming Mirakolix festival: "Ceva de Vară", a stage will host during the all evening several artistic performances such as dances, theatre, jugglery and music !

As the musician volunteer, always to touch everything sound-related, I got in charge of the organization of this moment.


First of all the goal of the festival is to be open to everyone and following this idea, I thought about an Open-stage that will be the starting point of the evening. Everybody can express themselves through every kind of art they want to show. Already a lot applied...


Then, we focused on some local bands from the town where the festival will take place, Întorsura Buzăului and that became kind of famous in the region, even in the all country.


FRESH: Founded in 2012 with the help of the music teacher Dan Tohanean, Fresh is a bench of friends almost all studying at the Liceul Mircea Eliade. In collaboration with the Clubul Copiilor of Întorsura Buzăului, they could establish their project of covers with really nice arrangement. I felt them really fitting into the Line Up and people from the town already told me about them so they will open the concert session on the 19th of July !


YOUVENIS: From the same place, Clubul Copiilor of Întorsura Buzăului grew another formation, still encouraged by Dan Tohanean that starting to play some folk-pop in 2007.

After discovering Jazz Rock and mostly blues music, the group tended to compose toward those last influences. In february 2013, the ban won the first price of the year revelation at the Student Jazz Festival of Sibiu. It was the starting point of few other prices at the Fresh Jazz festival in Bucharest and at the International Jazz Festival Jhony Raducanu in Braila. Beside this, the band is performing all over Romania in different bars or clubs and was participating at the Jazz in Cluj Festival. I liked their music, it's kind of original and the compositions are nice. I'm sure those Jazzy young guys will put the stage on fire, at their home even more!


Between those two bands, a Musical Jugglery is planned. Me, and collaboration with another french guy will provide a bit of visual and audio poetry...


Also following this idea of musical freedom, a small Jam session will take place, with guitars and musicians that just wanna try to accord, listen and respect each other through some music pieces. Other EVS people should come as well to bring even more of diversity in this festival...


Finally, I will take the last part of the musical evening in charge, as Alizarina, in a project called "Clarinettomix" already presented in a bar in Brasov several times. Mixing Balkan music with electronic and a little bit of french touch, I'll try to make the people dance on a big variety of sounds, influences and personal compositions!


After that, night joining the party with her clear sky, a mystical star-gazing will be waiting for you... Shhhh....


Pfiou, kind of long monolog dear friends, I let you go!


Hope to see you there, it's gonna be an amazing day, and keep some energy to move your feet under a sunset full of good music!


And don't forget... Keep'n MoOoving !


Alizarina (Simon)

Summer, Festival, Stress, Fun - Mirakolix!

We are really getting into movement to make our Festival “Ceva de Vară” a great success! For us volunteers it is a busy but also funny time where we can learn again a lot of things! We try to promote the Festival as good as possible with playing afternoons in the parks of Brasov, but it was either rain or strong wind that stopped us somehow to make all our activities. Besides this bad luck for the weather (and we are sure that it will be great weather for “Ceva de vară”!), we are really optimistic for this Festival. We are working on getting as many sponsors as possible for the Festival, we are planning the schedule, coordinating the workshops and volunteers, trying to get resources as cheap as possible. For must of us it is a completely new experience to organise a Festival like this and the fact that it is in a foreign country doesn´t make it easier, but we wanted this challenge, we took it and we have great local volunteers from Brasov and Întorsura Buzăului that are helping us with preparation a lot and with the workshops and coordination during the Festival.


Vara este aici guys! Now we can really start feeling it, rain stopped almost, it is hot, people are wearing summer clothes and the mood and our motivation is better and higher!

Giant Catan in Holbav

Below are 3 stories from Coen, Maria and Kathy, EVS volunteers from Braşov that now occupy this blog :D


--------------------------------------------


For the International Children’s Day, the 1st of June 2014,we prepared a big version of the board game “The settlers of Catan” for around 100 people in the small village Holbav, close to Brasov. We promoted the event through the 2 schools there, where we used to do activities with the children of the primary school classes every week, so a lot of people knew about the event. Though the feeling when we picked up the people after church to go to the event place and the whole village seemed to walk behind us was strange and funny. After all the people registered we started with a picnic all together and with the explanation of the game. Afterwards I was together with one Romanian volunteer in a part where the people had to come to do different tasks to win the resource “Wood”. People seemed to enjoy the game a lot even if they did not understand the rules completely and it was messy in some parts. Children as well as adults were very excited about doing the tasks to win the different resources, to buy villages and cities afterwards at the board, to compete with other teams and were running and jumping around, sometimes shouting for the resource they needed at this moment. So it was a lot of fun also for us as volunteers but also stressful sometimes to keep the people calm and waiting if suddenly five teams wanted to get wood at the same time. This was also more messy than planned because we had to do the event in an inside location and not outside on a big field where the teams have more space to run around and to do the tasks.


It was nice to see different families working together, adults coordinating their groups, helping the children to understand the game and children enjoying doing the tasks. Of course it did not all work like we planned, but is this ever the case if you do not know how the people are and how they get the game, the most important thing is that everybody, especially the children enjoyed the game a lot, that was our aim!


Kathrin


-------------------------------------------------


The 1st of June we celebrated The Children’s Day in Holbav. We tried to organize a huge event with all the kids with whom we’ve been working all the year in the schools. It was not so easy, so until the same day we didn’t know how many people we’d be. When we saw all the people coming from the church we were sharing thoughts between excitation and pleasant fear with the other volunteers. We were more than one hundred people trying to play Coloniștii din Catan! We adapt the game for a large number of persons and instead of rolling the dices they were able to get the resources passing some tasks! We also wanted to introduce a little bit of History and we present the history of “Țara Bârsei” where Brașov, Holbav and surroundings in the cards we made explaining some characters of the time, some events that happened and we made a special big board with the shape of the ancient country. The families were playing together and they really had fun! And what is it better than learning history while playing? I was in the board and it was really nice, with another volunteer we were trying to coordinate all the teams, counting points when the teams were building and sending the real thief to the resources when they got the soldier card! It was also really stressful at some moments, because all the teams were coming together to build villages, cities and roads. Some of them also were buying some development cards and bringing the thief to the other teams and stealing resources! It shocked me to see how the parents and grandparents were involved on this. They were playing the same than the kids and trying to make the kids understand the game. It was amazing to see 2 grandmothers running together to the “Lemn” spot and sending the kids to some other places in order to do it faster. I’m really happy how the game was because I could never imagine that three generations of people could play together and have a nice Sunday like this. It was a really nice day where parents and kids from Holbav could play together and enjoy a nice time with the family. And for us, the best way of saying goodbye to one year full of emotions on the village schools with all those kids.


Maria Frías Corrius


-----------------------------------------


It’s 1:30am in the night and I’m packing a bucket full of stones. The kitchen is a total war zone of scissors, cardboard boxes, papers, paint that still needs to dry, prepared boxes of other resources and 1001 other things. In less than 7 hours we need to be in a car to Holbav to do one of our most prepared and biggest events in the whole project: Giant Catan.


For those of you that don’t know what Catan is, it’s a turn-based board game where you have to collect resources like wood, stone, wheat, wool and clay to build settlements and cities and gather points along the way. The first one to reach 10 points wins. More about this strategic game can be found here:http://www.catan.ro/faq.html (in Romanian) or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers_of_Catan (in English)


Based on the board game we decided to create a life-size version of Catan. The game works mostly the same, except this time the resources are spread out over a large playing field and groups have to do tasks to get the resource. So in order to get wood, for instance, they need to hit a nail all the way down in a block of wood. For stone they need to guess how heavy 2 stones are. The “building” of settlements and cities, as well as other rules of the game, stays mostly intact.


The amount of work that came out of this is unprecedented. So for all of us it was a big moment: what would the weather be (it had been raining all the days before and even on our big day it looked like it would be rainy weather), how many people of the 140 sign-ups would actually show up, would they get the game, would the tasks be easy for them, etc.


At around 10am we started to prepare everything and soon the volunteers, who we recruited to help us, came as well. Food was being prepared in the kitchen, balloons were blown up, resource-points were setting up and tables and chairs were positioned for everybody to sit on.


After the community of Holbav came back from church around 12:30pm, more than 100 people came at the same time to the event. “Yelp! There’s a lot of them!” we said to each other. The people were received in the main room and soon we started with the introduction. We decided it would be best to eat before the game, so in came the food we prepared.


With all bellies filled up with food, the game started. We made teams of 12-15 people (it was quite hard to create balanced groups with equal members, we discovered) and started explaining the rules of the game, and also the variations of our game, because most people had never even heard of the game. It was hard to keep their concentration and this lead to a bit of a mess in the beginning as all teams were discovering how it is supposed to work.


My position was at the stones resource together with Andreea. It… was… madness! Big groups would come at once and scream “Piatra! Piatra!” (Stone! Stone!) and we had to verify that they indeed could do the task, for how many people, what colour their team was, what task was available to do for them and then do the task, give them back their resource card and give them a stone resource (or 2 if they had a stamp on the back) if they were successful and then reset for the next group. Phew! And for those that know the game a little, somewhere halfway the game, you could be craving for a lot of stones because they are necessary for building cities. So at some point we had 4 to 5 groups lining up.


But I loved it. It was a pleasant chaos all around, everybody was busy, the parents and grandma’s had sometimes even more fun than the kids (great to see) and some teams were really into it and racing all over the place. There were minor improvement points that I could see. For example the distribution of people on the resources could be dynamic the next time, to prevent a huge queue build-up at wheat and stone later on in the game. The explanation of the rules could be done in advance or in a more interactive way perhaps, so the attention is not lost and teams can start sooner with the game. Finally, the information point should be mobile, or a team captain could go with each team at all times to assist where necessary.


Overall I think we did a fantastic job and the objective of delivering a nice family day in Holbav was reached. The next edition can hopefully be completely outside, as this would solve the crowdedness and would make it a lot more impressive immediately.


Thanks to all our wonderful volunteers for helping us, without you it wouldn’t have been possible that day! You are awesome!


Coen

E.V.S. Activities 2

Salut prietenii!!


Flying over toRomania, a country I have never been before, a country which sounded quiteexciting, different and strange to me, for one whole year, not knowing whatwill happen or which kind of people I will meet and I will have to live with,was a big step in my life. Just finished high school this year, did not knowwhat to do with my life, so I came here, but for what reason? To get my lifeinto order? To get more self-confident? To get more open-minded? To learn aboutdifferent cultures, habits and people? I think a piece of all of these reasonsand a lot more pushed me to go away from home, from my “comfort zone”. I likeunknown situations in life, it helps me developing myself enormous and I hopethrough all these little processes I will know at the end of the year somehowwhat I want to do in my life, at least what will be my next step. If I had anyfears about how the people that I will be living with and my coordinators are,they all disappeared in the very first second when I met them, my new friendsdin Lituania, Spania, Franta, Olanda, Cehia si Romania sunt foarte frumos!


I like learning aboutso many new things, I am the youngest in the team, so I think I have a lot tolearn, even if I think that it is not always depending on the age what you canlearn from people. I love sharing opinions about different topics, learningabout why and how different people see things differently and being able toshare feelings, what is sometimes really easy for us, because we are all in thesame situation, living in a country where we knew nobody from the beginning. My(not so big) prejudices about Romania also disappeared and I started to havenew impressions about the country and the people here. I just love thelandscape; Brasov is so beautiful surrounded by perfect mountains. I started tolove hiking and in winter probably skiing and/or snowboarding.


I like to improve myEnglish, I am definitely more confident to talk in English now. I like to takethe challenge to learn a new language, mysterious Romanian!


The European VoluntaryService (EVS) is a great opportunity to develop yourself and to meet so manydifferent people. Since our on-arrival training with 85 volunteers from allover Europe who are volunteering in all over Romania, we build a great networkof very interesting, open-minded people, which we can visit during the year.Spending one week all together in Predeal, partying, eating and of courselearning about EVS was unforgettable, so many new visions, new impressions, newfriends. We already saw many of our new friends every weekend since then.


In termsof our project - we have/ will have a lot of work to do to achieve our aimsuntil the end of the year.


We are tryingto get to know some communities in rural areas on our “explorations” and westarted to work in the primary school “Floroaia Mică ” in Întorsura Buzăului,as well as Milda and me are working in the “Casă Familiale” every week there.We decided to have for November all our own class in “Floraia Mică” in order tosucceed with our topic of the “Lună de Toleranţă ”. The 12 children in the“Casă Familiale” are always very glad when we are doing free time activitieswith them, like drawing, board games, theatre or team games.


In orderto promote EVS and our project we went twice to a high school in ÎntorsuraBuzăului, where we met many interested teenagers, which seem full of energy toshow us around in the area and to do activities with us. We also did variousactivities for them for the 11th of October, Non-formal-Education-Day,like chemical and physical experiments, a theatre workshop and a drawingworkshop.


I justshared my feelings how they came into my mind, hope you liked it and you are upfor the next posts!


Kathrin

E.V.S. Activities

Here we are, November, the beginning of winter. Winter I said? Not really, in fact.


In Braşov the temperatures are still quite warm for the season and the winter cannot be felt right now. That’s why we continue to workoutside with Floroaiă Mică School, as soon as possible.





Now we also started to explore Braşov area, which is really a good thing because we can see the countryside surrounding Braşov, sometimes really poor.


I went to Dumbrăviţă by bike with Coen. For me it was tiring like hell (25km to go, the same to come back) because I am notuse to bike so long. Arrived in the village we met the mayor, who wasn’t speaking English… So we went to the school where we met the English teacher. It was nice, she told us that Dumbrăviţă’s lake wasn’t used at all, that’s interesting for the future if we want to organize some events near a lake! Then we discussed with a woman from the village who told us that Gypsies were livinging the village and Hungarian were living somewhere 2 km from the center. Moregenerally, the village looked quite rich with the big pink church in the middleand a nice football field. Curious thing: There are no hostels there, even if this is one of the only lake in the region! After a quick look to the gypsy village we rode back to Braşov, as soon as possible in order to be in time forthe Romanian lesson. We took the shitty way: the high-speed road. At the end,we arrived just 30 minutes late.


After Dumbrăviţă, we explored Holbav. I joinedMaria and we had a lot of fun, exploring nature instead of really talking withpeople. Indeed, up the hills in Holbav, the landscape is amazing. I finish theexploration with my shoes full of mud (more lucky than Maria, “muded” until theknees!) making acrobatics in the main square of the village with 30 bigchildren eyes starring at me!


Now is the time to write shortlymy weekend, a lot of “weird fun”. My friend Maria and me decided to go untilGlodeni, a gypsy village near Târgu Mureş, where you can sleep for 50 lei (Tzigania tours). We hitchhiked (itworked really well) until Dumbrăovără, a small Hungarian village. Then, wewalked for 3 km and we reached the gypsy part of Glodeni. People came to us andbring us to the house where we were supposed to sleep. Because it was the firstof November, we saw the traditional candles rite. We eat in the house, and wemet Noam and Yula, two Israeli people who were as us, tourists in the village.We had a party with the gypsies, dancing like hell on Manele music… Funny atthe beginning! At the beginning, yep! The next day we moved around 11 – 12o’clock in the morning; Maria came back to Braşov with our new friends (notgypsies, Israeli) and I chose to pursue until Baia Mare. I met some EVS guysthere, we had a great party and I was really glad to meet them again.


After that, I came back to Braşov.We started to work in Holbav, in two schools. Holbav-sat (from “satul”= villagein Romanian) which gather mainly children from the village & Holbav-deal(“deal” = hill in Romanian) which gathers children from the isolated houses upto the hills. It’s good to have new plans for other places! I made team withCoen and Milda, Kathrin & Michal will work together there.


At the sametime, we decided (agreeing with the teachers) to work alone in Floroaiă Mică.Each people took his own class. I took the 4th one, Coen the 3rd,Michal the 2nd Milda the first one and Kathy the pre-school. It’s nice;we started a “Lună de Toleranţă” (Tolerance’s month) until the end of 2013!Children in the gypsy school are really nice and cooperate A LOT. We are allgood in our class, even if sometimes they are only 4 instead of 20!


In Holbav, both schools, I startedto play theatre with the kids and they were really good! It was so nice to seethem becoming lions in 1 second! The bad thing during this week is that I gotsick. I decided to take the weekend to refresh myself, sleep and re-energize mymind. I stayed in Braşov and it was a good choice. I finished an electronicsong that I started 2 months ago for my friend Germain. The one who came herein October. I am truly glad to have done this! It came after some hours infront of the computer but it’s not for nothing I guess.


The next week, we continue the month oftolerance in Floroaiă Mică, always a pleasure to work there. In Holbav wecontinued the theatre exercises and started to use board games! It’s quite hardto explain in Romanian so it was quite messy. This week, I feel really better in theproject. It seems clearer and I like the way of working, we are always busy…maybetoo much sometimes and we feel a bit that we are doing everything…


In order to calm down and have fun this weekend,I went to Cluj with Milda, Kathy and Coen to meet other EVS volunteers. We hada great party, playing music and so on! It was really a pleasure to see themagain!





After this weekend, we canfeel that winter is coming… The first snow appears in Braşov. Like usual, weworked in Floroaiă Mică, where the children of my class were not all there. Ithink the snow was a part of the reason why they didn’t come. In Holbav weworked only with the school in the village. It was good; we played some rhythmsand sang together! The others made some board games. For Holbav –Deal, we onlyobserved the “choir” organized for the 1st of December celebration.It was quite a chaos and I tried to make them be more calm, not fighting eachother during the class but it didn’t work at all… This school is reallydifficult…


At the same time, we’re preparing acommunication plan in order to find local volunteers. It’s a huge work, becausewe don’t know the high schools in Braşov, we have to make the promotionalmaterials and so on… But we have some ideas like some cultural evenings,Christmas traditions evening and we already took a picture of my gypsy face fora flyer. Coming soon!


Pfiouu, hope you were notbored.


Enjoy the picture to link to those words !


Keep moving!


Simon the Hatman.

Because every journey has a beginning...

Hello ! Nobody ? Well...


Okay, I think there's not even one good way to do this entry in Mirakolix's last and new blog. So, in order to do it in the best condition we could, I decided tonight - and for sure it's late - to show you this video. What is it ? Usually a video is like a film. But this one is a first sight on what is Mirakolix (but you should know a bit about this now) and especially a first sight on these new volunteers coming from all europe to Cluj-Napoca ! Yes you're smart, as you already guessed I'm one of them... So without tellin' you so much about us, because we'll have the whole year to know better, and better medias too, we give you pleasure to bet our names according to - what a surprise ?! - our faces. So, back to class :


- Who's Gary in this class ? (it's me, sorry to start = alphabetical order requirement).


- Who's Helene in this class ? This one is easy...


- Who's Ieava in this class ? One clue and I won't repeat myself : it's a girl. I'm not joking.


- Who's Peter in this class ? Easiest, he looks exactly like him ! Don't you know ?


http://vimeo.com/53351451

Rumor has it...

Lately some strange things went on in Cluj: Rumours have been spread, legends have been told, myths arouse and hymns have been sung - anyway we are glad to announce now, that we are NOT dead after all!


Yes, it's true, we have to admit: We started this year without big fanfares. And we actually feel kind of guilty for that. But now, after weeks of office work and dry theoretical preparation (just imagine how pale we looked like after less then a month - you should be glad, that we didn't post any pictures during this time), we are back to life!


And actually the spirit of Mirakolix seems to be closer to us than ever: he last weeks we spent preparing our own games for taking them to all the schools, we have already been visiting. The mission: Present some aspects of our home countries. And Jeez!, some countries are really to be told about. Serious surveys brought to light, that for example Denmark seems to be seen as a country full of mystery and dark magic here in Transylvania (by the way: no, it's not true, that Danish people kill a dolphin on their 18th birthday). Let alone the "it's-not-the-same-as-Lithuania?"-homecountry of Ieva: Latvia.

Craciun Fericit cu Florile Dalbe !

http://youtu.be/NjIw0VT-YxU


My commentary is waiting for yours...






Sing with us !Scoala gazda din patut - Florile Dalbe - Si ne da un colacut - Florile Dalbe


Ca mamuca n-o facut - Sita rara n-o avut


Pe cand sita o capatat - Covata i s-o crapat


L-o sfadit mama pi tata - Di ce s-o crapat covata


Cand covata o lipit - Cuptiorul ni s-o rastit


Cand cuptiorul o tocmit - Anul Nou o si sosit

Belgrade on hitch

Pam pa ram, recently we've began exploring Romania through hitch-hiking. It's a great way to practice romanian, to meet people we otherwise probably wouldn't get into much contact with, and of course to go to places relatively fast and cheap.


And hitch-hiking in Romania is really not hard - one often sees people of all ages on the roadside trying to catch a ride. It depends on how much you are ready to be dependant on a coincidence – maybe wait a while on the roadside, get a bit bored or tired, but that's why it's nice to have somebody with you. And a coincidence is who you are going to meet on the way - a jazz lover coming from a festival, a chair designer from Satu Mare, a forest manager, a silent couple...








Our last driver Alexandru who took as right to our street in Cluj


For us it's also an amazing feeling to discover that after two months here in Romania it is possible to understand and maintain a conversation with somebody – in romanian! Even if we understand each other like cat understands dog (one of our driver's expressions)...... In our first longer conversation in Romanian with a driver we even discussed politics! got manele lyric translations! as well as drank coffee and saw some nice family pictures :)


Last weekend we had our first longer distance trip - we went to Belgrade, Serbia and hitch was our main means of transport. We split in pairs and stayed overnight in Arad with our volunteer-friends. And - wait for it – a film about our trip is very much in progress! :) There are a lot of nice shots and moments to remember.


Like on Friday when we got out and said goodbye to the nice driver Marius who took us from Cluj to Oradea, it was sunset and dark clouds coming, a rainbow and heavy rain and lightening in a minute, sky getting darker and darker. A bit too much for me, is sfarsitul lumii coming?


But after a while a very nice couple invited us to have a ride with them until a town some 30km away. Matei had big moustache and Gizele was dressed in colourful skirt and scarf on her hair. At some point she turned to us and said – you know? we are gypsies! It was not a long ride, but turned out to be a very memorable one.


We met some nice people on the way, with different stories, cars and destinations. And sometimes you don't even need to talk much. Though maybe sometimes it is good to state that nu avem bani to pay for the ride :)


Also the border guards on the entrance of Serbia were very kind and nice. The romanian one adviced us not to buy serbian cigarettes – they might be cheaper, but ones in romania are way better - and reminded the amount of spirit allowed to be taken back in the country. Serbian one gave us a stamp and said he's sure we'll have a nice time. And it was true!








A serbian restaurant in Belgrade, yeahhh - us with our couch-surfing host Milan in the middle


Looking forward to more trips like this one, even if snow and cold makes it a bit harder to hitch hike ( it's the first snow day in Cluj:)


PS: OUR NEWEST GAME TO PLAY IF YOU'RE WAITING FOR A CAR AND BORED:


1) Imagine a number! The other person asks questions answered with yes or no and must guess!


2) Imagine something you see! The other person asks questions answered with yes or no and must guess!


3) Imagine anything! The other person asks questions answered with yes or no and must guess!


Does not that sound like fun? :)

Christmas Bazar in a school ! What could be more strange ? Oh ! I found : Making a film about it with a french accent.

It's a book we found telling a boy's story in which the called boy discovered he was all alone on a webpage. Indeed, he was lost. To himself and to the world ! But YOU, reading this sentence believe me : when you really don't know where are the others, It's impossible to evaluate how fare you are from them, and so, yes so, where is yourself. Actually, this is what happened to this pretty young boy who tried to find his bodies on this webpage. Thereby he went to this precise left border's webpage you still can see - on your left, and desesperate, felt into nothing, digest by the invisible spider.


But, tonight something came from the darkweb, one of this boy's artefact, a video dated from last saturday. To the one who can see I write this story ; to the one who can hear please the one who can see read this story to the one who can hear ; to the one who can act please do the same you who can see.


http://vimeo.com/54382117

"I have a dream" in which each event had his own poster !

What's happening on december the second ? A huge event ! One on these that happen only once a month max ! And the last one of year 2012...


It makes think a lot - Yeah too much too deep in fact. Stop right now. - so well.


What can I tell about this poster ? Hard to say, but for now, this is the main tactic to drain people as you in events- I'm not looking for trouble. But TAM TAMTAMTAM, this one opens a new era ! We have now a new and wonderfull weapon which will impress and interest people beyond Romania's borders. Do you know what(who) is it(...)? It's a bit tall, yellow, girlish and german... Eighteen years ago, during the 20th century, some people had the good idea to call it (her) TAM TAMTAMTAM : Helene.


Too beautiful to be real ? Well, come on december the second, you could see her in blood and bones. Romantic you thought french men were : you can't imagine how much you were right ! Didn't I just attest it ?













They printed it ! Ah yeah ? You recognize some kind of wallpaper on this poster. You must be confused, there's no link between it and this blog, not one bit. And you know what ? What did I already say ? Stop thinking right now. Farewell.

We haven't been presented yet ? Watch us in action !

I won't repeat the video hic et nunc, you just have to watch it to know it... Will you dare ?


As we're slow to present ourselves in any original way, and because you deserve what's best, we post this short film about one of our many activities (and I mean a lot of many many). So all you've got to know is in it. And if you're conscientious - you know us ? I guess there's no doubt you are so - you could on this film's end swear who's who in EVS band ! Really. Interrested ? I can see it on your face ! For sure you could : two of us are named, one boy one girl, so if you join these informations to the previous ones, you will discover the truth.


And do you know what's best ? Once you'll know who's who, we will present ourselves. Useful you say ? Let's be modest, only suitable.


http://vimeo.com/53842417