Europe Day/ Food Festival

Today was the 9th of May known as Europe Day or a day to celebrate Peace and Unity in Europe. I thought today would be the perfect day for a Food Festival at my school because it is a perfect chance for my students to learn more about the other countries in the union Bulgaria is a part of, and what better way to learn about a different culture than to take a look at their food. I (along with the 11th grade English teacher) started planning for this Food Festival back in February after I told her about my idea for this project that based on a very similar project I did when I was in high school. We broke the project up into different parts hoping to make the workload more bearable, with each part being due on a weekly basis. The first step was to create an information presentation about their countries (in English), topics like general facts, history, economy, etc. The next step was to create a travel brochure,  followed by bringing in some-sort of souvenir, and then to make a flag. The final step, of course, was the actually Food Fair. Their job was to make three parts of a meal, appetizer, main course, and dessert, as well as a beverage. We gathered some four people willing to judge the groups on several different things, such as a short presentation about their food (in English and Bulgarian), decoration, taste, and so on. The mayor of Parvomay, the school director, and education minister for the Parvomay municipality, and a staff member from the Peace Corps.

After all was said and done I was so impressed and blown away by all the hard work they had done and they made me extremely proud to be their teacher. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed seeing them present something they worked hard on as well as how much I enjoyed their tasty food. I hope they learned something new about these places in the process because the more they know about the world around them the more they will feel like a part of it. I am planning on doing this Food Fair again next year and maybe this will be something that will continue on after I my service ends. 

First Place

Second Place (he worked alone)

Third Place