k o m c Magazine c n v e i s d o n i a In this month magazine you will read: Stories about the youth exchange in Poronin Poland
Content 1.My impressions from the youth exchange in Poronin, Poland 2015 By:Nade Zevairovska 2. New places, new people, new experience…an updated view of life By:Darko Iliov 3. MORSKIE OKO (essay) By:Katerina Krstova
Thanksgiving Day Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated in Canada and the United States. It was originally celebrated as a day of giving thanks for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Several other places around the world observe similar celebrations. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated in a secular manner as well.
My impressions from the youth exchange in Poronin, Poland 2015 Travel. It leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller and that’s my point in writing this article, to tell you my story, my impressions from the youth exchange “E(art)h for youth” and hopefully at the end of reading this you will be motivated and inspired to travel, to take risks and chances, to go out there and explore the world because the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page so I wish to all of you and to myself to read a lot of pages. My advice to you is to go on the facebook page of Association Pavel Satev Kocani, read about the next training courses and youth exchanges and apply, you won’t regret it, I promise. I’ve been to 14 training courses and youth exchanges in the past 4 years and I love the memories, the experiences and the things I’ve learned and did there, the way I blossomed and grew and broaden my horizons and I feed from all of that and I see how changed I am after every single project that I’ve been to, how I fall in love in life itself after although always a part of my soul is left in those countries and with the people
I met there and I feel so blessed to have friends all over the world and for the experiences that I had. . I travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape me, so when I want to feel alive I travel. Travelling is my drug of choice and I needed badly a fix so I’ve never been to Poland before and that was a good start, but at the same time I knew that I wasn’t 100% healthy because I hurt my leg, distortion of the ankle to be precise, a year before and still it wasn’t great but I learned through the years that life begins at the end of your comfort zone, that life is either a daring adventure or nothing and at the end we regret the chances we didn’t take so I decided to take this chance and said yes to this youth exchange The topic included artistic (painting and drawing), photography and theatrical part. Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer and actually in this youth exchange, as almost all the others from Association Pavel Satev Kocani, we didn’t have to pay anything for travel cost because we travelled with our van that we are calling Bamboocha and in Poland the hotel and the food were paid by the European Commission who is founding the Erasmus + program and this exchange
So on 16 September in the morning the Macedonian team picked me up with our Bamboocha van and the adventure started. We travelled for almost 20 hours and it was a fun ride although I slept almost the entire way and we had a few hiccups on the way, to switch Hungarian borders then the application for navigation stopped working so we were waiting for one hour for the new one to upload and of course bathroom breaks. We arrived at 2 in the evening in Poronin so unfortunately we missed the welcome party but we had plenty of parties on the next days so we didn’t miss a lot. We slept for a couple of hours, by the way I had a room with a huge balcony and with an amazing view and my roommates were one Romanian and one Spanish girl then we had breakfast and we met the other participants from Croatia, Romania, Spain, Germany and Poland and we had energizers, name games, we got to know each other, had a city game where we learned some interesting things about Poronin and took some pictures and the last activity for the day was to write our hopes, fears, expectations and contributions . At night was the Intercultural night for Poland in the work room where we saw some promoting videos and had an interesting quiz
regarding Poland with interesting prizes (shots of polish alcohol) and of course we tasted some traditional food and drinks. After the official part we headed toward our place, our villa or mountain hotel, whatever you want to call it and there we had like a big living room with a lot of dining tables and chairs and a kitchen that in the future nights we turned it into a dancing floor and a party place when we turned the lights of. So that night half of the group went to sleep and the other half including me stayed there where almost all of them had a few beers and me a coca cola (I’m not into alcohol) and the conversations started to flow more easily, there were a lot of jokes and laughs and then we went earlier to bed (compared to the following days) because the next day we had a planned trip to Tatra mountains. Unfortunately when the organizers told me that there will be 4 hours of walking to get to the lake uphill I knew that I couldn’t go so I spent the day sleeping and resting my leg and having a bath. The others arrived before dinner and they showed me some pictures where I saw how mesmerizing and magical were the Tatra mountains and all of them were so exhausted and with pain in their legs so I was like a doctor and pharmacy in one giving them Fastum gel, Cold gel, Fervex. I had plenty of energy that night but the
that night but the others were so tired that we only stayed for an hour or two in the kitchen and then we all went to bed even though I didn’t want to. The 4 day started with some energizers then we had a brainstorming session where we gave ideas for the flash mob that was planned for the next day in Krakow and we selected two ideas, to “dance like nobody is watching” which was my idea and the second one was called “Wi-Fi”. We started preparing the flash mobs in the two groups, at first the both teams were all over the place but slowly we collected our thoughts and ideas in one and agreed what precisely we are going to do. My group decided that we are going to dance on a song called Tunak Tunak Tun from Daler Mehndi (check it, it’s a really fun song) where we had freestyle parts and choreography for the main parts
We had so much fun and laughs while preparing the choreography and practicing it and we were so excited to show it to the other group and the people in Krakow. Later that day we gathered in the work room and shared our work process and the end results. There the Wi-Fi group told us that their flash mob will be sending a message to the citizens in Krakow about the reality of how people are becoming zombies and at the end of their performance they will show this message “Imagine if trees gave free Wi-Fi. We’d all be planting like crazy. It’s a pity they only give us the oxygen we breathe.”
Before dinner we had the reflection session in our national groups where we shared how we liked that day, do we have some complains or do we want some things to be improved and that tradition continued before every dinner on the following days. After dinner the Macedonians and Croatians started preparing for their Intercultural night and back then we didn’t have a clue that night would turn out to be the best night there(at least for me). The Croatians started the official part in the work room with a power point presentation about their country and it brought back so many beautiful memories for me seeing pictures from the cities that I visited before and their hometown where I’ve been on an exchange 4 years ago. We, the Macedonians, showed some of the promoting videos for Macedonia Timeless to the other participants and they were mesmerized by its beauties and then our leader and president of our organization Blagoj read some interesting facts about Macedonia like one of the 12 survivors from Titanik that the other boats came back to save from the water was Macedonian called Stojko. We continued by showing one Macedonian traditional dance while one of the Macedonians, Goran, was playing on the guitar “Makedonsko devojce”
and all of the Macedonians were singing and we taught the others the dance and after we invited them to our table to taste the food that we brought with us (ajvar,smoki,resani‌),some juice and alcohol of course (different types of Macedonian beer and Rakija). The other participants really liked our food and drinks and then we took some pictures and played some Macedonian and Croatian songs and we danced for a bit but the real party happened when we moved in our place downstairs in the kitchen when we discovered that the tiles on the floor and the empty space around could serve us as a party place.
We had so much fun that night and we bonded on a deeper level by talking, joking, laughing, dancing, singing, hugging each other in a circle and singing in one voice “Moje zlato� from Milica Todorovic which in the next days will become our anthem and every single participant will know the chorus of that song. As the hours passed by the group was getting smaller and smaller and at the end only the Macedonians and Croatians stayed and we started playing only Balkan music and we couldn’t stop the party even though we knew we had to get up early to go to Krakow. The last ones standing were one Macedonian, Alex, and one Croatian, Nikola, and me sitting at the front door eating Smoki and we almost fell asleep there but we somehow ended in our beds.
I slept for an hour and half and I was so tired but I was saying in my head my motto that I have for seminars which is “you can’t create amazing memories with sleeping” and I was repeating that and rewinding the night before for the 2 hours in the bus until we arrived in Krakow. Firstly we visited the National Museum and then we headed toward the center where we did our flash mobs very successfully although was raining a bit but nothing could stop us in achieving our goals, then we had lunch and some free time which we used for sightseeing and the city was so gorgeous especially the old architecture, buy some souvenirs, drink some coffee and take a lot of pictures and watched the beautiful Krakow’s sunset sitting tired on a bench but very happy and satisfied how that day turned out.
We came back to Poronin for dinner and had a free night which we used for playing some games like Samantha which is a drinking game and we had a lot of funny moments and we continued (half of the group) to party on commercial and Balkan hits. I slept for 2-3 hours (and half of the group as well) and by now I got used to it and it’s so funny the amount of energy we had the next day even though we slept so little and an eagerness to work and create something great as we did that day. We started with team work activities (which I love because I think these are the activities that bring us close to each other, not everybody is partying till the morning and connecting on that level) where we were separated in groups and we had to choose an activity connected to drawing, music, photography or video. My group chose music and we got to write a rap song* on a classical music and I thought no way the 3 of us girls could do that, but I was so wrong and I loved the song at the end and even wished we had more time to perfect it. We performed it and they really liked the fact that we included interesting things that happened the days before and that we had a sentence in there for every one of them like for example *The rap song will be in the next number of the magazine
“Nikola is our hero from the sky and Emir is like a fly” or for our Macedonian leader “Blagoj is a timeless temptation, when he sees Samantha he becomes our inspiration”. The other groups created a photo that was white things on white surface, sing a song on language they didn’t speak, filmed an interesting video, draw a picture with their hands and created a song only with noises. After the coffee break we started the next session with an energizer that I proposed and executed called “Here we go with the big fat pony” and then we had a workshop about improvisation theatre. We had a free night so you could guess by now where we ended and what was happening and that it was great. The following day was scheduled for workshops prepared from the participants and we started the day with half of the Macedonians including me teaching the others a harder Macedonian traditional dance called “Pajdusko oro” then we had a workshops where we singing with the Spanish girls, dancing on a song with choreography with Deea from Romania, blindfolded games with Paty from Poland, learning to play on the guitar with Goran from Macedonia, some cooking lessons from the German guys, playing some traditional games outside with Lana from Croatia and so on.
In the evening we had Romanian, German and Spanish Intercultural night where we tried their traditional food and drinks (the Sangria that the Spanish girls made was great), learn new things about their countries and danced on their songs and then moved to our place on our own dance floor firstly dancing on songs from their countries and then of course on Balkan songs.
We ended the night in the hallway (7-8 of us maybe) sitting and talking and playing truth or dare (we only did truth) and also 4-5 people that were sitting outside watching the stars (the sky was magical filled with a lot of stars but it was freezing outside) for 2 hours joined us.
The last day was reserved for presentation for the Erasmus + program, finding out who our secret friend was, evaluation time where we shared our thoughts about this exchange, the work we have done and the experience we had gained, got Youth Passes and a surprise trip to Zakopane. I loved Zakopane and I enjoyed exploring it although it was pretty crowded with tourists, the upside down house, the unique Polish Karczma’s, the narrow streets filled with small wooden shops that had an enormous choice of souvenirs and stuffed toys especially sheep’s.
When we came back to Poronin we had a barbecue as our special last dinner, outside of our Bata Karczma and then we had a Farewell party and after singing and dancing we ended hanging out around and on the stairs waiting for 4 a.m. to come to say our first goodbyes to the German boys. We hug them and said our goodbyes and when they started living we sang “Moje zlato” and they we singing it with us on the street and the rest of us made a small tight circle where we hugged each other and started singing under the stars and we were locked in that embrace for a half an hour even though it was cold but the love that we had prevailed and we didn’t feel a thing. I slept for an hour, packed my suitcase, stepped on the balcony to see my last Poland’s sunrise and went to have my last breakfast there. Then we put our things in the Bamboocha and the sad part came and even tears were shed. We gave our last hugs and kisses over and over again and we didn’t want to let them go but we left them with a promise to see each other soon. We slept in a hostel in Budapest and we walked through the city for a bit and then we went to sleep and the next day I was home.
I slept for a day because I was so exhausted and with no aunts of energy in me but that’s great since that is the feeling you want to have at the end of a seminar because you used all the time and energy in creating new memories, experiences, friendships, partnerships, developing and working on yourself and learning new things and now when everything settled in I’m so glad and happy that I went to this unforgettable exchange and I feel so privileged that I was part of it and definitely if you are willing to take the chance, the view from the other side is spectacular and it was beyond spectacular for me and even the leg feels better now. I’m ending this story with a quote from Hans Christian Andersen “To travel is to live” and with the hope that I will have plenty more stories to share.
New places, new people, new experience‌an updated view of life Imagine this in your head: forty people, each one born in a different place; each one with a different background; each one with a different mindset; and most importantly, each one having a unique story of their own, cross their paths for one week in the very center of Europe, Zakopane. Imagine having a conversation with each one of them individually and getting to know a little portion of each of their stories. What does that make you? The answer is quite simple: it makes you richer in terms of experience, richer in terms of friends and richer in terms of ways you look upon life. In a world governed by money, we, the people, tend to feel pleasure whenever we spend it (the money). We buy things in order to feel happy and we do feel happy – for a short period of time. New things make us happy and excited at the beginning, but we get used to them and then bored by them later
In reality, we get used to things we possess and we get used to the happiness they cause us to feel. On the other hand, the happiness we feel as a result of seeing new places, learning something new, meeting new people and sharing our experience with them, actually, grows as time passes. This is exactly why my Sony Playstation stands on the shelf collecting dust just like the most of women’s high heel shoes; and my traveling experience is, actually, a part of my identity. Zakopane, the town famous for its excellent conditions for winter sports; and Magiczny Krakow, the city where various styles of architecture meet (Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque, ‘Communism’, Modern) taught me that people can just urbanize the nature without harming it; and the nature’s beauty, Morskie Oko or ‘the mirror lake’ (as I like to call it) is the place which confirmed to me that Nature is the most beautiful when intact.
The famous saying “It doesn’t matter where you are, but with whom you are” is the most suitable thing to say when having fun. And I had fun. I had fun 7 days in a row. For seven days my brain wasn’t thinking about work, about my master’s thesis, about my internship. And this was all thanks to my 39 new friends and, let’s be real, a little thanks to alcohol. Ouzo, Mastika, Rakija, Wine and Vodka can really work their magic if you know how to properly use them. And if you don’t know… well, the Polish people can easily and gladly teach you. I would like to end this essay with a word or two about the project’s main theme, ecology. It is extremely hard to speak about ecology in a world where the entire human race, while trying to make life easier by continuously inventing new things and using the nature’s resources in the process, actually destroys its own home, the Earth. Our Mother Nature has already warned the humankind that this madness has to stop right here and right now.
The Hurricane Katrina, the great tsunami waves in Indonesia, the Haiti and Japan earthquakes, as well as the countless ecological catastrophes which happen every single day across the world are only a fragment of the Mother Nature’s force. She (Mother Nature) is just waiting for the moment when we, the people, will cross the last line in order to hit us for one last time, knocking us down for good. People who made this exchange what it was (in alphabetical order): Adrian, Alvaro, Ana (Miladinova), Ana (Milutinovic), Angelika, Angelos, Antonio, Blagoj, Christina, Dimitris, Dorian, Eleni, Federica, Filip, Gabriele, Georgia, Giulio, Iliana, Ionna, Katerina, Kiriakos, Lidia, Lola, Lucas, Luigi, Maciek, Mariusz, Megane, Pawel, Pierre-mickaÍl, Przemislaw, Rosa, Sofija, Susy, Thalia, Tomek, Valeria, Viktorija, Wiola
MORSKIE OKO (essay) The peaks that surround the lake rise about 1,000 meters above its surface; one of them is Rysy (2,499 meters), the highest peak in the Polish Tatras. Beside Mięguszowiecki Summits (including Mięguszowiecki Szczyt Wielki, 2,438 meters), farther away and slightly to the left, is the distinctive, slenderMnich (“Monk,” 2,068 meters). Many Swiss Pines also grow around the lake.In the past, Morskie Oko was called "Rybie Jezioro" ("Fish Lake") due to its natural stock of fish, which are uncommon in Tatra lakes and ponds. In the clear depths of the water, one can easily notice trout - so called "famine" trout - that live in the lake. The name "Morskie Oko" ("Sea Eye", "Eye of the Sea") is derived from an old legend, according to which the lake was connected to the sea via an underground passage. The hut of the Polish Tourism and Local Lore Society (PTTK) stands on the moraine that closes the lake from the north. The hut is situated 1,405 meters above sea level and belongs to the oldest Tatra chalets. The hut is named after Stanisław Staszic, who explored the lake in 1805. It is a point of departure for hikes to Rysy and Szpiglasowa Przełęcz. Nearby is the Stare
Schronisko ("Old Shelter"), originally a coachhouse. Both buildings have been granted historical status.
Morskie Oko is one of the most popular destinations in the Tatras, often receiving over 50,000 visitors during the vacation season. It is reached by foot in about two hours from the nearest road that allows motorized access. Many other tourists opt to take the journey by horse-drawn cart, a large number of which are operated by the local Górale inhabitants. In winter, a short section of the journey is in an avalanchedanger zone, and the area can remain cold and rainy even in summer. In the advent of its popularity, visitors have been forbidden from swimming in the lake or feeding the trout.The earliest documents in which Morskie Oko is mentioned date back to 1575. In 1637, the Polish king Władysław IV granted Wladyslaw Nowobilski the right to use the pastures adjoining the area.
In 1824, during Partitions of Poland, Morskie Oko became private property for the time being, when Zakopane estate, including Dolina Rybiego Potoku, were purchased from the Austrian authorities by Emanuel Homolacs. At the end of the nineteenth century, a boundary dispute arose between Galicia and Hungary over property rights to the lake and adjoining area (the so-called "Morskie Oko dispute"). The Court of Conciliation in Graz ruled in favor of the Polish side. The decision is credited to Oswald Balzer, who represented the Galicia government. Morskie Oko was "rediscovered" for tourism by Dr.Tytus Chałubiński in the mid nineteenth century; the first shelter was built there in 1836 but burned down in 1865. A second shelter, built in 1874, burned down in 1898. In 1902, a road from Zakopane was completed and named the Oswald Balzer Road. Since 1933 following the return of sovereignty, the lake has been owned by the Polish state.
Morskie Oko is arguably the most beautiful of the Tatra lakes, and it is certainly the largest. It covers about 35 hectares in all, stretching some 860 metres in length, and 566 in breadth. The lake is entered through a small pass, and once inside, you are entirely surrounded by the mountains. It is very much as if you are in a huge crater, and hence the name, the eye of the sea,Morskie Oko has delighted travellers since the region was first discovered one hundred and fifty years ago, and it remains amongst the most popular places to visit in the Tatras. It is also one of the most easily accessible, with a swift route from Lysa Polana (accessed by bus) followed by a walk of about one and a half hours. There is now even an asphalt turf running along this short stretch - a reality that will leave many hikers feeling crestfallen. However there are other routes, and the final goal is certainly a marvel of nature‌The lake itself is fifty metres deep and it is the only one with a natural stock of fish, in this case river trout. The prospect of the surrounding mountains is stunning. The most captivating peak is Mnich, which literally means 'the Monk'. It is called thus as its sharply pointed peak resembles that of a monks habit. Only the hardiest climbers can scale these heights, and you need a special certificate from the mountaineers association before setting out.
Concealed above you to the south lies the magnificent Czarny Staw (the Black Lake), which is raised on a high escarpment. Heading west you could then follow the blue trail to the Valley of the Five Lakes (Dolina Pieciu Stawow). Alternatively you could do a loop back to the Mickiewicz waterfalls, and then follow the green trail on to the lakes. Another option would be to press on to Mount Rysy, the highest peak in the Tatras. This is a five hour hike that would involve an early start.Morskie Oko is the largest and fourth deepest lake in the Tatra Mountains. It is located deep within the Tatra National Park, Poland, in the Rybi Potok Valley, at the base of the Mięguszowiecki Summits, in Lesser Poland Voivodeship.Surface elevation: 1,395 m Area: 35 ha Length: 862 m Width: 566 m
The magazine was created in cooperation with EVS volunteers in Association Pavel Satev- Kocani and eWorld Community Association Pavel Satev- Kocani Karl Marks 64 2300 Kocani
November 2015
http://organizationpavelsatev.blogspot.com/ pavelsatev.org.mk Editors Sara Gorgieva Filip Vojnovski