"Street in colours" - getting know Spain

"When I joined the Erasmus+ project called Street in Colors, considered the fact it was an intercultural exchange with Spanish I had expected mainly getting to know another European culture and typical Spanish habits. My expectations of traditional behaviour of Spaniards (and other south European states) as very easy-going, not exactly strict and punctual and endless waiting for somebody because of their bad time-keeping skills were fulfilled. But then I realized that I was focused only on negative aspects of their culture. After few hours of being among Spanish people and observing their behaviour, both other young participants of the project and regular citizens living their normal life, I saw also lots of positive things. They were very friendly, generally happy and the main positive I saw in their hospitality. I was thinking about my own culture, how Czechs are generally always complaining about everything, they rarely answer the question "How are you?" with the words as great and perfect and it's almost a miracle when, for instance, in shop or restaurant the sales assistant or waiter smiles at you. A lot of people just naturally consider their own culture as the best one and while they are comparing it to another, they are not accepting cultural differences and they just criticise strange habits. The project made me think about another cultures in a different way. Not to always compare different habits and criticise them, but really try to understand the differences and accept them as well as accept the own ones. No culture is perfect, everyone has its pro and cons. To sum up the whole project, it fulfilled my expectations and gave me even much more. I would recommend it to anybody who wants to get to know new people, culture, practise languages, learn some new skills and at the same time have a lot of fun. It was an amazing week and the biggest thanks belongs to the organizers of Change it – Tomas and Barbora."

Jana Zákravská

Gallery