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Last Friday, on March 16, 2018, Eva Jašková and Pia Winter, EVS volunteers at HCA Vanadzor, held a Cultural Cocktail event at Anti-café Teynik in Vanadzor.

The Cultural Cocktail brought together foreign volunteers who presented the cultures and languages of their countries through engaging games and informative materials.

Besides foreign volunteers in Armenia, volunteers from different cities in Georgia joined Eva and Pia’s initiative.

Lithuanian volunteer Renata tried to teach Lithuanian to the youths participating in the event. She had also brought informative materials on the culture and history of Lithuania and showed the visitors the location of her home country on the map, half-jokingly stressing that “it is neither Latvia, nor Estonia; you shouldn’t mistake them.” Renata’s audience was large and cheerful throughout the entire event.

The Germans did not miss the opportunity to showcase the whole charm of their language either; they emphasized the peculiarities of the German language, i.e. the endlessly long words and their challenging pronunciation. Agnes had also designed a short questionnaire on the culture and history of Germany, but she did not manage to recall the longest German word. However, she tried to describe what it means.

The event participants at the desk of the volunteers representing Germany were also joyful; the visitors had the opportunity to taste German food and a variety of sweets.

Apart from presenting the Polish salad and delicious candies (by the way, the salad was quite similar to Stolichny salad, which is so widespread in Armenia, despite the difference in some ingredients), the three volunteers representing Poland had also created a Polish cultural atmosphere; Martina welcomed the guests in her national Polish attire, while Yakub sang Polish songs, playing the guitar.

French volunteers Lea and Céline presented their culture through interactive games.

Martin and Dasha representing Slovakia are volunteers in Gori, Georgia. They had joined the initiative with great pleasure and had come to support their friends living in Armenia.

The visitors at Dashka and Martin’s desk could taste chocolate and vegetable cutlet, parallelly studying the Slovak alphabet and getting acquainted with the sites of interest in Slovakia.

Belgian volunteer Floris introduced the visitors to the peculiarities of the Belgian culture and suggested exploring it through games. In response to the questions of the guests, he also touched upon the challenges of speaking three different languages in one country and told about the education and political systems in Belgium.

Sashka, who is of Armenian origin, helped get acquainted with the Canadian education and healthcare systems. She also told the visitors about the Canadian culture, state symbols and sites of interest.

Czech volunteer Eva and Austrian volunteer Pia had prepared for the event with a particular sense of responsibility. Eva had baked traditional Czech bread and pies and tried to teach Czech words and the sounds of the Czech alphabet that are particularly hard to pronounce.

And Pia highlighted the important events in the history of Austria and thoroughly explained through an informative poster where Austria is and what language and culture it has. She also jokingly “apologized” that Austria is not Australia as it has no connection with kangaroos.

The participants had the opportunity to check and broaden their knowledge on Austria through interactive games.

The representatives of the US and Israel also presented the cultures and histories of their countries to the guests.

All the participants in the Cultural Cocktail event got special “intercultural-interstate passports” signed by the representatives of different countries.

The Cultural Cocktail event in Vanadzor was a special opportunity for both the local youths and the foreign volunteers. They got the opportunity to learn about each other, to reassess their perceptions of different countries and, why not, to break the stereotypes and debunk the myths of those countries and peoples.