On the 16th of October, “International Initiatives for Cooperation” (IIC) organized a new cultural night for the community in Razlog. The main topic, this time, was Bulgarian food and folklore.
The volunteers of “Community of Open Learners’’ (COOL) and “Volunteering 4 change” projects, funded by “Erasmus +” Programme, attended the event together with their local friends from Razlog and Bansko, who were also the choreographers for the night and wore typical Bulgarian costumes for the occasion. Special guest from the event, a Bulgarian orchestra played and singed during the whole evening and let everyone dance to the rhythm of horo, the typical and beautiful Bulgarian dance.
For more than three hours, a joyful atmosphere pervaded the International Initiatives for Cooperation office. It's really true that music and dances get people closer. All the volunteers joined their friends from the local community and tried to learn how to dance horo.
Also this time, food was an important part of our intercultural night :-)
Typical Bulgarian dishes (everything homemade!) were protagonist for the night (“musaka”, “banitza s pras”, “tulumbi”, “tikvenik”, “pitka”, “lutenitza”, “turshia”, “funiiki”, “oriz s manatarki” and of course, rakia). Also, the volunteers prepared traditional recipes from their countries (“tiramisù” from Italy, “tortilla”, “crema ali-oli” and “natillas” from Spain).
This night was very special for the volunteers, because they got closer with the people from Razlog and experienced, once again, the warmthness of Bulgarian people. Another important lesson that they all learnt is that sometimes one just have to push apart the stress and forget about his busy schedules and worries, and let the music flow to feel better.
Words won't be enough to express our gratefulness for the beautiful time spent together – we just want to say: ние обичаме България !
