MY EVS IN “Zeimuļs”

Evs Project “Creative Youth” 11/14-11/15

name: Tamara Cafa’
age and date of birth: 24 years old, 14/10/1990
country: Italy! Pizza, spaghetti and Mafia?..NO, Italy is something more.
current occupation: Volunteer for EVS Project in Latvia, Rēzekne “Zeimuļs”.
bachelor’s degree:  History, I love everything connected with History, from ancient history to contemporary.
hobby and passions: Music. Everything connected with music. Books. Poems. Documentaries. Movies. Nature. Sun. Summer. Snow. Travels. Friends. Chocolate. Latvian fries. Latvian snow. Latvian lakes. Cooking.
activities in Zeimuļs: Italian lessons, presentations of culture and traditions of Italy, ukuele lessons, Italian foodworkshop, creative workshop for youngstairs, outdoor activities, educational movie evenings, collaboration with Youth Council..and more..2/12/2015

    „Viaggiare significa aggiungere vita alla vita”
„Traveling is to add life to life”
Gesualdo Bufalino
 NEWS FROM ZEIMULS.

Hello everyone!
I hope that this little profile about me will help you to understand what I am doing here in Latvia during this period of 12 months.
I arrived 3 months ago in Rezekne, and I will stay here until the next November.
When I was looking for informations about Rezekne I was particularly attracted by the beautiful architecture of Zeimuls, and now, it’s a pleasure for me to work in this place.
But..What did I experienced during these 3 months in Zeimuls?

Decemeber was incredible magic here in Latvia! During the last 2 weeks in December, in Zeimuls, with youth council organized Charity Market, the proceeds went to the children hospital. When I started to work with youth council I realized how many things we can do together. I like to work in a team, put together ideas and waiting for a good result.

January in Rezekne was dominated by cold. I come from Sicily, the big island in the south of Italy, and I live close to the see, and I am not use to this kind of cold. Sometimes in Sicily, during winter, when the temperature is good, you can also swim in the sea, because it is not so cold. But I am getting use to the long Latvian winter, for sure, I will never forget!
Anyway, in January we had a lot of activities. We started movies evening, it was a good time to share our ideas, we watched the movie about the street artist Bansky, and it was interesting to see how different can become art with a strong message for the society.
We had Italian foodworkshop: Parmigiana, special sicilian food and Tiramisu. The tiramisu foodworkshop was very animated and hunted, the result was great as you can see in some pictures!
One of the most special things that made me happy was to make „Arancini” with the students of the Secondary school Nr 2. „Arancini”  is the most tipical sicilian food with a very special taste. The preparation of Arancini is difficult, but together with the students, we had a great result, and it was an amazing experience to share with them some Italian traditions and culture.

And.. February! February probably for most of the people is dominated by Valentine’s Day, but I love this month becouse in Italy we have a big celebration for Carnival. So, with the youngsters of Zeimuls, we are working for the creation of carnival paper mache masks. I hope that the result will be great.

This is just the beginning. We have a lot of ideas for the next months, and I hope that you can join us in Zeimuls for these activities.
All these activities are provided by European Union, and you can find more information in this website, or just come to visit us in Zeimuls, in the second floor. And if you are interested to know something about Italy, language, traditions, culture, funny things, I will be happy to share with you everything about my country.

Thank you for reading this article.
All the best! Tamara.

 

Pirmdiena ar jaukiem bērniem, itāļu ēdieniem un karnevāla maskām.

23 February 2015. Monday morning. I am in “Zeimuļs”. It’s almost 11 o’clock.
I am going to get out of the elevator to the second floor when suddenly I started to hear fresh and joyful voices coming out from the Ustoba 2.10. They are here. About 12 beautiful little boys and girls 7 years old. This is our first meeting. All of them are ready to start this adventure through the Italian culture and kitchen. Joy and positive charge are in the air. We go to the kitchen.
When I start to explain them what we have to prepare they are so surprised and exclaim together, like in a movie “oooooh “!!!

Presentations:
At first we introduce each other. It’s really hard for me to remember all their Latvian names, but for sure I have remembered  Loretta – really nice little girl and Marta – very smart one. I have asked them if they understand English, but most of them didn’t, only one little boy amazes me. I did not expect that a child of only 7 years could speak English so good. All the time I tried to speak some words in Latvian, and to teach them some words in Italian, and this funny experiment was amzing. At the end of the workshop they could say „grazie”, „bellissimo” „mi chiamo Marta” and they could count until 10… „uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove e dieci.”!!
Now we are ready to start this morning to discover the most famous Italian foods: Tiramisu’ and Pizza!
1) BAKING TIRAMISU’.
At first we made together Tiramisu’. The first thing to do was to  split the yellow part from the white one of the eggs and quickly they learnt those two colours in Italian: giallo (yellow) and bianco (white). For a long time we have mixed  the white part. Then they put biscuits – savoiardi into the coffee. For me and the kids it was the funniest part. And the result was amazing! They did a good job and they liked it so much!!!
2) Making Pizza.
After Tiramisu’ we did Pizza with Salami. It was so interesting to see how happy they are to participate in the preparation of Pizza, and how did they enjoy the eating!!!
The most beautiful thing when I work with children is the spontaneity of their actions and the enthusiasm that they put in all the activities.
3) Making Masks.
One of the most important part of this morning was to create carnival masks. According to the traditions of the Italian carnival during February, I wanted to share with the Latvian children in the way of the creation of colorful masks. Actually it was very easy to do. In this way they could experience the emotions of carnival!

 

March 2nd. Creative activities with children in the leasure time room.

On Monday, March 2nd I started to make activities with children in the room 3.8 – the leasure time room. Usually in this room kids spend time playning  several games: billiards, air hockey and tabele games.
Every Monday I will be with them from 15.00 to 16.00. The aim is to try envolve them in creative activities, for exemples: drawing, painting, handcrafts. Also it would be good if during these meetings they could develop skills in team games . In this way they can spend some time using creativity and learning how to play in  team, and in the same time they can give me energy and power with their smiles!
This Monday we played some games, and I split them in couples, they had to draw the friend in front of them, it was a nice experiment.
We are waiting also for spring and the good wether, so finally we could go outside, and play games outside, and enjoy the spring and summer.
You are welcome every Monday, in the leasure time room 3.8 from 15.00 to 16.00!

March 12th. Foodworkshop with students from Rezekne Catholic secondary school.

March 12th 2015, Thursday.

What is the best way to start one shining day like this?
Well, I can tell you that the best way to spend a shining day like this is to share it with people and make something fun and better also eating some good food, especially PIZZA and TIRAMISU’.

One of my favourite activities in Zeimuls is Foodworkshop with students. During this activity I can share with them Italian culture and traditions, speaking with them, creating a connection and of course preparing Italian food together. What I like more is to create a connection with students, trying to speak, to understand what they like and know about Italy and Italian culture, what they want to do in their life, their dreams, their ambitions, which countries they want to visit. Of course the main activity is to show them how to prepare a good Italian pizza and a good homemade Tiramisu’. Trying to create a good contact with 15 students sometimes is not so easy. This time, I was with students from Rezekne Catholic secondary school, they are about 16 years old. Spending some time with them reminded me how it was, when I was in a high school in Italy and I was 16 years old. In this time you have the opportunity to imagine whatever you want in your life, is the best time to dream, and in this time you can really dream everything you want, and during the next years you schould be able to realize those dreams. Usually when I speak with them, I like to ask them if they want to travel out of Rēzekne, and where they want to go. And most of the time, they said me that for sure they want to travel in Italy, because for them it is an  amazing country full of history, full of traditions and good food. And clearly this makes me happy and proud to be Italian. I really appreciate this opportunity to share my country with Latvian youngsters. I hope that they enjoyed this day, and you can also read students’ opinion.

Gatavojām, diskutējām un baudījām

12.martā Rēzeknes Katoļu vidusskolas 9. klases skolēni kopā ar klases audzinātāju apmeklēja ARPC Zeimuļs, lai piedalītos radošajā darbnīcā Itāļu ēdienu gatavošana. Skolēni kopā ar brīvprātīgo no Itālijas Tamaru cepa picu un gatavoja tiramisū. Skolēniem bija dota iespēja ne tikai aktīvi iesaistīties gatavošanas procesā, bet arī iepazīties ar Itālijas kultūru, ģeogrāfiju, valodu, tipiskajiem itāļu ēdieniem. Tamara ļoti aizrautīgi stāstīja par savu dzimto pusi, iespaidiem par Latviju un Rēzekni. Skolēni bija ļoti gandarīti par pavadīto laiku, garšīgajiem ēdieniem, iegūtajām zināšanām un pieredzi.

Paldies ARPC Zeimuļs jaunatnes lietu nodaļas darbiniecei Ilzei Ontužānei par pasākuma koordinēšanu un Tamārai par mums veltīto laiku, dalīšanos pieredzē.

 

Rēzeknes Katoļu vidusskolas

Creative Workshop in „USTOBA”:

preparation of Carnival Masks in the techinique of papier mache.

One of the most famous and important celebration in Italy is Carnival of Venice. Probably some of you know abut this big celebration that we have in Italy every year in February. For one week Venice becomes the stage of an amazing parade of all of types of carnival costumes: artigianal homemade costumes, costumes of kings and queens of the eighteenth century, costumes of famous characters from movies and cartoons,  costumes of important historical figures. For one week Venice turns with a magical atmosphere where everything is possible wearing a mask. Among the most important carnival masks handed down over time we Harlequin and Pulcinella.

The  Carnival of Venice was started from a victory of Venice  against the Patriarch of Aquileia in the year 1162. The people in the honor of this victory, started to dance and to celebrate this day in San Marco Square.
During February in Zeimuls, I wanted to share with youngsters this amazing tradition, and we made carnival masks in the technique of Papier Mache. We had 4 meetings to finish them, and the result was really good. I want briefly explain the process that we used for the preparation of these masks: 1) create a shape of paper similar to your head, Fix this shape to the bottle filled with water as support, trying to give shape to the cavity of eyes , the prominence of the nose and eyebrows and wrap it with transparent scotch. 2) cut small strips of paper and stick them on the shape of newspapers with plenty of glue in  3 layers, and other 2 layers with medical gauze and glue, let dry for 24 hours. 3) remove the shape from the support that we used and wipe over liquid plaster to smooth the surface of our future mask and let dry for 24 hours. 4) color your mask as you want using tempera paints or acrylics. You can see our result in the attached pictures. Enjoy! And Happy Carnival to everyone!

10th  March. Karaoke evening in USTOBA!

Every Tuesday in room 2.10, called  „USTOBA” we have creative activities. This time, we wanted to dedicate some time to the music, to express ourselve by singing and playing international songs. We spent more than 2 hours singing famous songs of all genres: rock, pop, metal, romantic, rock and roll. We had a big moment with Latvian music, singing songs from Prāta Vētra, we had an epic Italian moment singing „Felicita’” from the famous Italian singer Albano, and it was amazing to listen.  All the guys sang this song perfectly, they knew the lyrics better than me. We  also danced  Macarena. And towards the end we started to sing rock songs from Red hot chili Peppers, Green Day, AC DC, Beatles, Sistem of Down, The Doors. This experience was interesting to understand that music is a common and universal language and in every country we sing the same songs and we feel the same feelings by singing those famous songs. Every Tuesday don’t miss our meeting in USTOBA at 18:00. We will wait for you!!!

19th March

On Thursday, April 19 we had an interesting and dynamic day in Zeimuls. Probably because the spring was starting!  At 10 a.m  I met some students from the art school with their tearcher for starting our Italian foodworkshop. During this foodworkshop I wanted to show them the ancient way of making pizza dough. When I was a child, I was usually looking at my grandmother how did she prepare pizza, and she had this original style of making the best pizza ever. Certainly when she prepared pizza, she put a lot of passion and dedication, and probably this is the secret of preparing a really good pizza. I wanted to share what I learnt from my grandmother with those students, because I like to think that traditions are handed down from generation to generation, and only by sharing traditions they can survive. During the preparation of Pizza and Tiramisu‘, we spoke about Italian culture and Italian geography, about Etna – the active volcano located in Sicily, which crowns the city of Catania. It is the biggest active volcano in the European continent, currently 3,329 m (10,922 ft) high, though this varies with summit eruptions. And finally the time came for eating pizza and tiramisu‘ -probably the most yearned moment. While we were eating  we also enjoyed music –  we were  singing a song and I was playing the ukuele.
After the meeting with students from the art school, it was the time for  the „Youth Council“. During this day, they had to attend the Team Building training.  After the hard team work they were ready to spend some time in Italian atmosphere. And coincidentally this day was also Amanda’s Birthday, so we had also celebration!
Enjoy all the pictures of this amazing day with youngsters in Zeimuls!!!

Atsauksmes par itāļu kultūras pēcpusdienu kopā ar Tamaru Cafu  2015. gada 5. maijā.

6. vidusskolas 7.A klases skolēni

 

Tā bija ļoti interesanta pēcpusdiena. Es gribu pateikt “Paldies” Tamārai par kopā pavadīto laiku un jokiem. Es gribētu ar viņu satikties vēlreiz. Ja Itālijā visi cilvēki ir tādi, tad tā ir labākā valsts pasaulē. Maksims.
Man ļoti patika sarunāties ar Tamāru un es sapratu, ka gatavot ir ļoti viegli un es pati varu kaut ko pagatavot. Turpmāk es gribētu pagatavot tiramisū un picu saviem vecākiem. Paldies par ļoti garšīgo 5. maiju! Julianna.
Pirms vakardienas es pati vēl neko nebiju pagatavojusi ,un man arī negaršoja pica, bet tagad es pati pieliku roku picas gatavošanā un pica sanāca ļoti garšīga. Paldies Tamārai! Ilāna.
Man ļoti patika tas, ka mēs ar Tamāru varējām saprasties angļu valodā. Viņa ne tikai mācīja mums gatavot tiramisū un picu, bet arī nedaudz pastāstīja par Itāliju un iemācīja dažus vārdus itāļu valodā. paldies. Viktorija.
Gribu pateikt lielu “paldies” par interesantu, saturīgu, izzinošu un garšīgu pēcpusdienu. Skolotāja Vita Laizāne

5 th May. Foodworkshop with the students

from Secondary school Nr.6.

 

We can describe this day with this metaphor: even if we put all the time the same ingredients to make pizza or tiramisu, following the same process, using the same quantity of sugar and salt, the result will be all the time unique and different from the previous and also from the next. It will never be the same pizza or the same tiramisu. Also, according to this metaphor I could say that all the time that we are having this foodworkshop activity is unique and different. Because even if we are going to bake pizza and tiramisu most of the time, the atmosphere  changes according to the company, to the difference between the students that come in Zeimuls for this kind of activity.
This time, I would say that we spent really great time together,and this foodworkshop was kind of unique because the people who participated. At first, we spent some time for presenting ourselves. They were students from secondary school number 6, and they were approximately 13 years old. They said their names, age, favourite food and  hobbies. I was surprised and happy that many of them like to play some musical instruments and to dance. From the beginning I understood that they were full of positive energy. They were smiling all the time and very open to learn something about Italian food and about a different culture. Than we started with tiramisu, and after the first explanation of the process they continued to bake it by themselves in a very good way. After tiramisu, we continued with pizza, and it was very funny moment, because also here, I let them bake pizza after the first explanation, and the result was amazing. During this time, we were learning some words in Italian language, for example, how to say „come ti chiami?”, or „bongiorno, arrivederci, buono, grazie, prego”.

This was also really shining day, and we decided to go outside in the balcony of the kitchen, and you can see some pictures as well, of those smiling guys. We laughed and cooked together, we shared our opinions and ideas and at the end we ate together. This was another unique result with unique students in Zeimuls.

23th July 2015. One day in “Zeimuļs” for Youth Exchange hosting by „BAZE”, Gulbene’s Youth Centre.

For those who wants to know what is going on during the Summer Time in Zeimuls, today I want to write about some good events that we had.
I will start to tell you about the 22th July.
In Zeimuls,  we had the pleasure to have more or less 40 young people around 20-28 years old, from different European countries: England, France, Poland, Italy, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania, all of them were partecipants of the Youth Exchange, that is taking place during these 2 weeks in Gulbene, in the Youth Centre „BAZE”.
We welcomed them with a colorful and active excursion of the big structure of Zeimuls , showing them all the activities ‘ and rooms, organized by my mentor Ilze Ontuzane. Another activitiy was concerned on a small digression on traditional Latvian symbols. I got inspiration for this small lesson about symbols from a very interesting latvian book, which explain all the meanings of a lot of Latvian symbols, that who is living in Latvia, can see often in the daily life in Latvia, on forniture, jewerly, clothes or buildings. Even Zeimuls has in the two towers the symblos of Laima, that in latvian means happiness, lucky, fate. The main task was to understand the meaning of each of these symbols, and discuss about it, choose one and draw it on a little card, so all of them took a piece of this big cultural heritage of Latvia.
My experience has Evs Volunteer in Rēzekne made me discover all these beautiful elements about latvian culture and traditions and mythology. Every countries has a big and unique heritage and it is our responsibility to make alive, and don’t forget our origins, and what make every countries unique place in this world.
Tamara Cafa’.

Rēzekne, 7th September 2015.
My Spring and Summer time in Latvia.

Sveiki visiem! Kā jums klājas? Es ceru, ka Jūs labi pavadījāt vasaru! Šajā rakstā es gribu jums pastāstīt kā pagāja mans pavasaris un mana vasara Latvijā.
After a long winter, finally in May, Spring arrived in Latvia, in the most beautiful way that I have ever felt in my life.
In May, Rezekne started to become greener and all the nature woke up bringing new colors and smells of spring. Lakes, trees, streets and the sky, everything shone the sunlight and days became longer and longer. May, June, July and August have been really full of activities for me in Zeimuls, in the town and also out of Rezekne, and I enjoyed so much this amazing weather, doing a lot of new experiences, meeting new people, participating in a lot of cultural events happened in town.
Below, I reported some of the most important events in which I was involved this Summer.
Also, at the end of this article you can find some pictures of this time.

On 15 th May I visited Ikšķiles Brīvā skola, and I participated at the international day presenting Italy. This event was organized by other volunteers who were working there.
On 28 th May I participated with the other volunteers from Jacis – Clemence and Paul at  the Talent Music Show Manc Akord 2015, in Jorik, playing one song.
In May, in Zeimuls, during the time of Radošā Darbnīca, with a girl from Germany, Lara, we made our own kaleidoscope. It was rewarding creative workshop. Thank you, Lara, to be present in those meetingsJ.
On the 29th May I was involved in one of the most interesting cultural event happened in Rēzekne – Seven Hills, Mākslas un Mūzikas Festivāls. Three days of performances of art and music with groups of people from different countries in Europe.
At the beginning of June, in Zeimuls, we had summer camps for children and I organized for them outdoor activities and games and also some creative workshops indoor.
On the 5th June I was also playing music during the Baznīcu Nakts, at the Evangelical Lutheran Holy Trinity Church of Rēzekne, sharing good moments with my friends from Latvia, USA and Germany.
 On the 14th July I participated with Zeimul’s Youth Council at the Sporta nedēļa, and in this day we went by kayak for 24 Km along the Rēzekne’s river.
From 15th to 19th July Rēzekne hosted Starptautiskais folkloras festivāls “Baltica” 2015, in which I participated by listening and getting to know better the Latvian folklore, with a huge participation of people dressing traditional costumes, dancing and singing traditional Latvian songs. It was a beautiful moment when the Minister of Culture of Latvia had the speech in front of thousands of people in the Festival Park, explaining that the biggest power of Latvia’s dwell is in its traditions, and it is a big responsibility in Europe for Latvians to take care about this unique cultural heritage. I will never forget this speech.
On the 22nd July in Zeimuls we hosted for few hours youngsters from the youth exchange in Gulbene, and as I wrote in the previous article, I made a presentation about the Latvian symbols.
On 1st and 2nd August Rēzekne celebrated the 730^th anniversary of its foundation. On the castle hill  took place a lot of events and concerts and there was also available  typical Latvian food.
On the 7th and 8th August I with the other volunteers from Jacis visited Russia, cities Pskov and Pechory. It was really interesting trip that I will never forget. Thank you to the Russian culture organizers we visited interesting places.
The end of August was a little bit hard in Rēzekne, volunteers from the Youth Center Jacis finished the project and returned home. I spent a lot of time together with them in Rēzekne, and we shared amazing experience that we will never forget. But, I had to say goodbye to them, and continue my adventure in Rēzekne, as a volunteer.
During the last week of August I wanted to enjoy the last part of summer, so I went to visit Cēsis, the Gauja National Park, and Jūrmala, and I realized how beautiful is the Latvian nature in summer.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and my experience of these past few months. Latvia had given me a lot of interesting time that I will never forget.
Summer is finished, but we have a lot of good activities in Zeimuls to do together for this autumn! Come and join to us!!! J
Tamara Cafa’.

 

Bruschette Foodworkshop, 07.09.2015

September has arrived. The schools started, holidays are over. Summer is gone..
Maybe we are a little bit sad for this, but don’t panic, a new year of activities in Zeimuls has just started!
We thought that there is no better way to start something as  with preparing  food in a good company 😀 Do you agree with me?
On Monday, the 7th September, in Zeimuls, with people from Youth Council and also with new participants we spent very good time by cooking „Bruschette”, one of my favourite meal from Italy.
In Italy we use to eat Bruschette as antipasto, like snacks that you can have before the real dinner or lunch. It is a very simple way of preparation. All you need is: sliced bread, fresh tomatos cutted in very small pieces (we had fresh tomatos from Eleonora’s garden J ), garlic cutted also in very small pieces, olive oil and basilics (the most important ingredient that we had also fresh from Ilze’s garden J). Before covering the pieces of bread with this mix of tomato, garlic, basilics and oil, you need to brown the bread in the often for few minutes. Now than everything is ready, you need to put the tomato mix on the bread and eat in a good company with  friends!
This is what we did on Monday in Zeimuls. We were approximately 13 people: some Latvians, 2 guys from Germany – new volunteers in Zeimuls, me from Italy, with the opportunity to talk in many different languages in one room.
I really enjoyed this time with all the participants. We did also a little game. Each of us had to pick up an object from the box full of different objects. This object had to reflect our personality, and after all together we shared why we have chosen one specific object.
In this way we had the opportunity to get to know each other better, and assimilate the point of view of other people!
Tamara Cafa’

 

17th September 2015, Rēzekne.
Food Workshop in “Zeimuls”  with students from Rēzekne Secondary School Nr.6 form  3^A

Yesterday in Zeimuls I had the opportunity to spend some hours with 22 young pupils, 9 years old, from Rēzekne’s Secondary School Nr. 6. This time we prepared Pizza, all together. I started to show them some pictures about Italy, and to teach them some Italian vocabulary. And than I showed them the traditional way of preparing the dough for the Italian Pizza. There are three basics steps:

• mix the flour with warm water and the dissolved yeast, a little bit of salt and a teaspoon of olive oil.
• knead the flour well until dough is firm and soft.
• let the dough rise for about 2 hours.

When the dough was ready we started to stretch the dough with a rolling pin. I showed them how to do it one time and after that they continued to do it by themselves. Than we added other ingredients: tomato sauce, mozarella, olives and salami.
And the last step was to put the pizza in the oven and wait till it is ready. It was very funny to see some of them observing the pizza baking through the glass of the oven. They were so excited to taste it. In totally we made 4 delicious pizzas. After the pizza workshop they have earned the official certificate of participation in this activity. Now all of them are ready to become Professional chefs of baking original Italian Pizza!
Tamara Cafa’

 

Activities of the week: what happened on Monday 21 & Tuesday 22 September in Zeimuls?

On Monday 21 September, from 17:00 until 19:00 in Zeimuls we had another beautiful day with the youngstrairs of Rēzekne. Last week we began this idea to spend Monday, the beginning of the week, together in Zeimuls with the youngstrairs of the town who would like to join us discovering the Itāļu virtuve. And aslo this Monday we spent a great time. We were unexpectedly many people, more than the previous Monday. This time we cooked Pizza! Which officially everyone likes  J! The result of this day was great, a lot of people from different ages were together talking and sharing ideas about where Pizza was born. Someone said in Napoli, Italy, someone in China, someone in Usa. But we arrived at the conclusion that Italian Pizza is the best J . I really enjoyed this heterogeneous and colorful atmosphere because also some other volunteers that are working in Rēzekne but in other organizations came to visit us! See the pictures below J
We will wait you for the next time!
On Tuesday 22 September, from 16:00 until 17:00 we had another colorful activity. This time my initiative was to have a creative workshop for painting on glass. It was very fun and we discovered that is possible to use old and unused jars for making your penholder or toothbrush holder or holder for candles! See also the pictures about this activity!
Tamara Cafa’

29th and 30th September 2015. Pizza Foodworkshop in Zeimuls.

Sveiki! I want to tell you what happened yesterday and today in Zeimuls in the kitchen! Now I can say that  the Pizza Food workshop is one of  the most successful activities that I am doing in Zeimuls! I am very happy for this. Every time I have a new Pizza food workshop with students, it is a new adventure, and they are satisfied all the time.
Yesterday, on 29th September students from Malta’s Secondary school class 3b came to Zeimuls to cook Pizza with me, and it was very nice time. I explained them the steps for baking Pizza, and after we played some games, and when the Pizza was baked finally we ate it. We had really good time. And also today morning was very good workshop. Good time and good students. Today the students were from the same school but from the class 5b, from Malta. All of them have deserved the certificate of baking traditional Italian Pizza, with an original Italian volunteer!

 

“Focacce” Monday Foodworkshop in Zeimuls, 05 October 2015.

Labdien visiem! I am glad to write this article about the activity of yesterday in Zeimuls, because it was another good meeting with a lot of people and interesting recipe.
Since September, we are organizing these meetings every Monday in Zeimuls, to start the week together discovering special Italian recipes J.
This Monday I decided to prepare one typical Sicilian recipe: “Le Focacce”.
The original Sicilian name of this meal is “Scacce”. The origin of this meal took place in Ragusa, my Province, long time ago, and now it is famous in all Italy. When I was a child I saw often my grandmother baking in our countryside this typical food, and now it is a pleasure for me to share this important part of the Sicilian traditions in Latvia!
I believe that every European citizens  should be open to learn others culture and traditions! Because in Europe we have so many beautiful things to discover and share!
What do we need to make this delicious meal? At the beginning we need a lot of patience and time and help of other people, because we need to prepare a lot of things.
We started from the dough. Basically to make it we need the same ingredients that we use for the dough of the Pizza. So after this, we need ingredients to put inside. We can have two types of Focacce: 1) tomato sauce, potatoes and onion; 2) tomato sauce, eggplants and cheese! Of course we need to cook all this ingredients before putting on the pasta. So, we cut in slides the potatoes and we fried them with oil. The same with eggplants. We cut them in small pieces and we fried them with oil. And of course we need to prepare the tomato sauce 1 hour before.
So now, that everything is ready, we can put the ingredients in the middle of the past that we stretched with a rolling pin, not so fine. And we need to close them like a wallet, in the middle. And everything is ready now, we can put our Focacce in the oven and wait 30 minutes!
During this time we played some games, we shared stories, we met new people!
The result was very good! Thank you to all the people that participated to this other Foodworkshop! J
Tamara Cafà

My last days in Latvia.

Like the blink of an eye this year in Latvia is coming to the end.
These last days in Zeimuls has been full of good moments and activities. I would have so many things to say, so many stories to tell you about this incredible year in Latvia, but probably I can only say a special thank you to Zeimuls, and to the people who partecipated to all my activities. All of you gave me the opportunity to learn a lot of new things, and to delevop my skills and myself, and have fun. Briefly I want to tell you what happenned in my last working days in Zeimuls.
On Monday 19th October I had “Spaghetti time”. The Last fodworkshop about typical italian recipes, and this time I choose one the most famous meal, Spaghetti. Easy, tasty and fast meal for a good company.
On 20th October I had Pizza food workshop with students from Secondary school N.6 class 3B. And also this time was very good, and they cooked very tasty pizza.
On 27th October, one special events happenned in Zeimuls. After one year of Italian lessons, I decided to organize one last special lesson with all the students that came to my lessons during this year. We spent such a good time all together. The students read an Italian poem and sing an Italian song, “Bella ciao”. And I also did a little presentation about Sicily, my region. And thanks to my mother , we had some tastings of typical Sicilian food in Zeimuls!
Thank you to everybody for partecipating.
On 28th October in the morning I went to the youth center of Ozolmuiža, to have another Pizza Workshop with the youngstairs of the center. And during the afternoon in Zeimuls The Youth Council organized a goodbye party for me, and it was very nice moment.

I will have all these good memories with me anywhere I go. Thank you Rēzekne.
Enjoy the pictures below.
Tamara Cafa’

 

 

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