Cheswardine Primary School staff have described their experience of visiting Romania as part of a European schools project.
Staff members Jill Mackintosh, Mandy Blank, Ruth Argyle and Rebecca Powell spent a week in the southern Romanian village of Marsani earlier this month.
It was the fourth part of the school’s two-year Treasures project which is funded by the British Council and aims to encourage cultural and educational links between European schools.
The group from Cheswardine were joined by children and teachers from Italian, Polish and Turkish schools, along with teachers from London who visited Cheswardine as part of the project last November.
Jill said: “It was great to have the chance of seeing a country that little is known about because Romania is a newcomer to the European Union.
“The whole village came out onto the street to welcome us and all the schoolchildren were dressed in national costumes.
“Some of us were taken into the village by horse and cart, which is their main form of transport, and it was very much an agricultural community.
“The school itself was quite a shock because we didn’t really see a book or pen, there was nothing on the walls and no heating except for an open fire.
“But it was the friendliest welcome ever and the children came across as being really happy, maybe because they haven’t got things to argue over.”
During their one-week stay, staff also visited the Romanian capital Bucharest and spent two nights in Transylvania – the fictional home of Count Dracula.
Mandy said: “I didn’t know what to expect because it was the first trip I’d been on like that, but the main thing we took back was how lucky we are.
“Because we stayed in Transylvania, the children were asking us ‘did we get bitten?’ and we told them how pretty a place it was.
“The shock of that school and how little they had humbled us but they more than made up for it with their friendly attitude and happy faces.”
A group of 10 pupils and staff from the school will travel to Italy in May for the final part of the project and Jill said they hoped to maintain the links established over the last two years with European schools.
By Winston Brown