Wendy´s experiences :)

Next week many Polish children will be overjoyed, as it's going to be the first week of their summer holiday! Two months of freedom, playing with friends, swimming, devouring lots of ice cream, bothering mama and tata 24/7... Until September, they don't have to go to school - and neither do we. So, before the summer holiday begins and before we will organize different kinds of activities, out of school, I would like to share some of my recent experiences with you. What's it like to be a cultural ambassador of the Netherlands?

Basically, in Polish schools the volunteers of the Multicultural Language Cafe carry out two different types of activities: workshops and cultural presentations. The workshops, about human rights or intercultural education, are meant to be highly interactive. Participation and freedom of thought and expression are important human rights values, and therefore these kind of workshops should be organised in a consistent way. For this reason, we usually conduct workshops in pairs. Cultural presentations, on the other hand, are carried out alone. (It would not make much sense if a volunteer from the Netherlands shows aspects of Ukrainian culture, for example.) These presentations also tend to be less interactive than workshops, although asking and answering questions is an essential (and often the most interesting) part of it.

The first time I went to a Polish school, twelve days after my arrival in Wrocław, I had to give my cultural presentation to five classes in a row, from 08:00 until 13:30. Five classrooms full of teenagers who do not speak your native language and you do not speak theirs... Now that's what I call a trial. But I succeeded, although my cheeks were glowing after the fifth presentation - not because I was blushing all the time, but because I was not used to speaking so much for so long!

Up until now I've had a lot of opportunities to improve my cultural presentation - and my 'speaking muscles'. The audience does not always consist of teenagers, so I had to adapt my presentation several times. So far I made four different versions - one for kindergartens, one for lower schools, one for gimnazja (middle schools / lower high schools) and one for homeless people. All these versions differ slightly from one another. For example, the kindergarten-version contains almost no written text in comparison with the other versions, and the one for homeless people does not mention typical Dutch food or alcoholic beverages. All versions are still not finished: sometimes I change something because of the feedback, or because I stumble upon something that's even more Dutch than what I found already. It also prevents the task from becoming a tedious routine - no matter how much I love the Netherlands, after a while it becomes quite boring to share the same information over and over again.

Because of the feedback I got after my first presentations - "Do you smoke weed?" - I added one slide to the gimnazjum-version of my presentation. Personally, I believe this tolerant/liberal part of my country is more essential to its identity than cheese and windmills (and that teenagers know this - even if I don't mention it), but initially I didn't talk about this topic because I didn't want to upset anyone. The second time I went to a gimnazjum, I mentioned it, but this led to commotion and negative responses every time. For instance, after mentioning same-sex marriage one of the students clearly showed a 'thumbs-down'... Not the kind of feedback I was hoping for. Hopefully there's a way to mention this topic without creating an uproar.

Within less than two months I learned a lot. I improved my cultural presentation, I know more about the Netherlands than ever before, and I heard many times what people from Poland and other countries think of my country and the people who live there - in a nutshell: Dutchies are crazy and open-minded people in a country full of tulips, windmills and weed. As I mentioned before, the volunteers of the MLC also conduct workshops about human rights and intercultural education, but this is an area I do not yet feel familiar with. During the summer holiday, besides organizing other activities and eating lots of ice cream, I hope to get a better insight into what it takes to give effective workshops. Let's hope the summer will be long!