Helping at the Easter Walk in Jelgava Palace park
Every year Easter in Jelgava is celebrated at the Easter Walk that is organized at the beautiful park of Jelgava Palace. The celebration offers a nice concert as well as a broad variety of fun activities for children and families, such as egg battles, egg rolling and even mini-golf. Because, during our previous successful collaboration at the Christmas Ball, I had proved myself as someone the organizers can rely on, Anita - LLU Student Union's coordinator who was responsible for this event - phoned me earlier this week offering the opportunity to help bring this joyful event to life. Of course, feeling both honoured and excited, I accepted.
My first responsibility, a day before Easter, was to make some colourful decorations that would later be hung in the tress throughout the park. Together with some LLU students that were also going to work at the event, I spent a couple of hours colouring blown-out eggs and gluing and binding imitative feathers to different surfaces. Although handicrafting has never seemed to be my piece of cake, I enjoyed the evening and did not even mind my fingers becoming sticky. Most importantly, I was satisfied with the result, for I managed to make a wreath, which was composed from eighteen eggs and too many pink feathers for me to count, and to decorate a wooden prism in colours that I associate with spring, that is yellow and green.
However, the main reason I was asked to help was the need of a cheerful Easter Bunny to stand by and control the egg rolling competition from 11 am to 3 pm. Therefore, with bunny ears on my head and quite a lot of bunny makeup on my face, I arrived at Jelgava Palace early on the Easter day. After successfully finding one of my handmade decorations already hung in a tree and the other - laid in the grass, I was assigned to bring the eggs, dyed in onion skins, from the kitchen and place them in several baskets. As I learned, these eggs were to be handed out to children who managed to win some additional eggs at the egg rolling activity.
I must admit, I was surprised for the organizer's certainty that the audience of the activity was going to be only children under the age of ten, for I saw no particular reason why some adults would not at least want to try. Perhaps only families with small children came to the event actually bringing their own eggs with them, but Anita was right - even if the oldest participant of my egg-rolling game was fifteen, most of the children were still in the kindergarten. Nevertheless, that made this activity a whole new experience, since all the previous projects I have been a part of have challenged me to work either with children school age or with grown-ups and I have rarely communicated with children too young to understand the aim of the activity.
Hence, I had to speak in a particularly friendly and even a little childish manner as I asked for their names, pompously shook their tiny hands and attempted to explain the task. In the end, even if some of them did not fully get the point of rolling the egg down the guttering, their innocent and joyous laughter made up for everything else.
Also, I noticed - most probably due to different teaching from their parents - not all children approached the activity with the same attitude. For instance, one very little girl won one egg in her first attempt and other two - in the second, the net yield thus being three eggs, which can be considered almost a rare success. Still, she continued rolling the eggs and eventually lost them all. I believe that if she remembers this day at all, the memory will keep her from getting involved in gambling. The majority of children already declined to try more if they got at least one additional egg to take with them. One such girl was Emily, but her prize accidentally fell to the ground cracking the shell, and - although the egg was boiled - I felt very sorry not being able to hand her another just because the amount of eggs was limited.
Yet, despite many times having to tell the children that apparently they were to leave empty-handed, this certainly was a very useful and fun way to spend the Easter day.
Here are some photos that I took.
(Hopefully, I will find some of myself later in the online news.)
one of the decorations I made
my handmade Easter wreath
the Easter Walk poster from afar
baskets full of dyed eggs
my workplace before the event
a girl, accompanied with her mother and father, rolling an egg down the guttering
children and families waiting in a line
my supervisor Anita - signing the CAS paper after everything was done and everyone - gone
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My reflections
Being asked to help with preparation and realization of the Easter Walk - the most important Easter event in Jelgava, I was more than willing to accept the offer, mostly because my collaboration with Anita, the head of the LLU Student Union, has previously been very successful. Although this time I did not initiate a separate project within the celebration, - apart from several other responsibilities - I got to lead an egg-rolling game, the main audience of which were children up to the age of ten.
While the oldest participant was fifteen instead of ten years old as my supervisor anticipated, I was genuinely surprised that no adult felt the urge at least to try. At the same time I consider the opportunity to communicate with very young children my most valuable gain, since all of my previous activities involved working either with grown-ups or with school-age children. Regardless of some of the children being no more than two years old, wherefore they were accompanied with their family members, I asked their names, told them mine and by shaking their tiny hands established a short-lived, yet mutually pleasant relationship. I must admit, I did feel somewhat insecure in the beginning, though the thrill brought by the sweet innocence of little girls waving as they left certainly made me more confident and thus - better at my work.
Still, despite the almost indescribable joy this activity brought, I encountered a couple of difficulties as well. Considering that at least a half of the participants of the egg-rolling game came with more eggs than they left with, many a time I had to tell the children that, unless they had another egg to sacrifice, they had to leave empty-handed. Thus, in case I ever get to do anything similar, I think I will rather buy some consolation prizes for the unsuccessful ones than look at their disappointed faces. Of course, not all of the children were saddened by their misfortune; what I found peculiar was that some enjoyed the risk so much that they rolled the eggs already won down the guttering until they lost them all. Watching some parents discourage their children from further participation was, in fact, quite funny.
Apart from leading the egg-rolling game, however, I got to prepare some of the decorations that were later hung in the trees throughout the park of Jelgava Palace. Not being a fan of handicrafting, I found working with glue and feathers and eggshells challenging at first, for I did not believe I could really make something that could later be exposed to the public. Nevertheless, after surviving the first half an hour, I learned to work faster, felt less clumsy and eventually made two decent decorations.
Overall, this activity allowed me to improve my communication abilities and meet new people as well as increase my awareness of taking the role of a grown-up when building friendships with children under the age of five. All of that might turn out helpful in the future, and therefore I am satisfied with my participation in this activity. I am looking forward to my next collaboration with the LLU Student Union and their amazing coordinator Anita.
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