"Pandemic" Easter with international students

  • Michal Stoklasa
  • 19.04.2021
International students got to know Easter again virtually.

Czech Easter was different again this year. Meetings were limited to 2 people or members of the common household. Therefore, we had no choice but to meet our international students and their "buddies" at a mass online event. An entertaining program was prepared for the students and the students also learned how to colour the eggs.

The joint meeting took place on Maundy Thursday, which fell on the 1st of April this year. Students learned in the form of a short presentation that Easter is a moving holiday in the calendar. In the Western Christian tradition, Resurrection Sunday falls on the first Sunday after the first spring full moon after the equinox, that is, the month of March or April. Easter is one of the most important Christian holidays. Besides, it is also a period of folk traditions of pagan origin, associated with the welcome of spring and the awakening from hibernation. Did you know that church bells and organs would ring for the last time on Maundy Thursday during the liturgy, which would remain silent until Easter? The bells are replaced by various ratchets, rattles, and cog rattles.

At the end of the presentation, we prepared Kahoot! quiz for the students. Our Indian 1st-year student Ayub, who had already scored in the quiz during Online Welcome Days, became the greatest Easter expert. His effort and determination were rewarded with a gift in the form of a faculty T-shirt. Subsequently, we all started blowing eggs and decorating them. Students from Turkey, China and India created their first Easter eggs. The natural technique of colouring hard-boiled eggs with red onions, plants, lard, and stockings was a challenge for all international students. Most of them preferred to stay with the decoration of blown eggs.

We believe that the students from this year's Easter took away not only pieces of interesting knowledge and their own products, but also nice memories, which they will remember thanks to the photos.