A NUMBER of Form IV students attending St Joseph School, Blata l-Bajda, were looking forward with eager anticipation to the start of this scholastic year - a trip abroad being the highlight of activities for the first month of school.
Last October, Leontine Fabri, Lara Portelli, Bernadette Vella, Elena Zammit and Mariele Zammit, accompanied by Ms Michelle Vella Gobey and Ms Sharon Grima, teachers of Maltese and German, set off on a one-week visit to Romania to meet up with their German, Italian and Romanian project partners as part of the EU-funded Comenius project "Migration in Europe".
Their destination was Iasi, one of the country's largest cities. The trip to Iasi was indeed an adventure in its own right! The group first flew to Milan where they made the best of their five-hour stop-over by touring the city centre also visiting the famous Duomo.
On arrival at Bucharest airport at midnight, the girls and their teachers bundled themselves, bags, luggage and all into a small van for what was to be an exhausting eight-hour ride to Iasi. Finally, at Iasi, they met the families of the Romanian students and teachers who had graciously offered to host them.
There was certainly no time to be wasted that week. The Romanian, Maltese, German and Italian students gave an update on the work carried out during the past months in relation to the topic of migration.
The visit coincided with the Traditional Week festivities celebrating the patron saint of the town. The girls were able to experience this vibrant and colourful spectacle, complete with traditional music and dancers in costume, fireworks, open-air market and stalls exhibiting traditional arts and crafts.
The group's intinerary for the week included visits to the Jewish synagogue, the Armenian church, which now lies abandoned, and also to five Orthodox monasteries, where members of the clergy work the surrounding fields to produce their own crops. The girls also met members of the German community who made Romania their new homeland.
To conclude the working sessions, each group presented their project "Impressions of Romania" and the Maltese also gave their friends a taste of Maltese folklore by dancing, in full costume, to the lively tune of Il-Maltija. It was then still more fun for all at a disco party organised by the host country to mark the end of the visit.
The Maltese girls and their teachers were particulary impressed by both the cordiality and the simple life of the Romanians. But, more poignantly, they witnessed how this community was still striving to improve living conditions after years of hardship under Communist rule.
This experience must have left its mark on the girls, even prompting one of them to declare: "From now on, I will not take for granted anything I have in my home or in my country!"
The work of the Maltese students does not end here. In fact, all the fourth formers will be working on three themes relating to migration: Migration from Malta in the Fifties and Sixties; Illegal immigration from Africa to Malta; and Present-day migration from Malta to Europe.
They will all be looking forward to April, their turn to host their partners for the next Comenius meeting, giving them the chance to showcase our island and to strengthen lasting friendships that have overcome physical and cultural boundaries through an adventurous and truly educational experience.