The last weekend of the month, April 27 and 28, was reserved for new gathering of students of Slovenian language and culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the 23rd in a row. This time the host was the Slovenian association "Ivan Cankar" from Sarajevo.
The gathering were attended by students attending classes in: Prijedor, Banja Luka, Slatina, Kakanj, Tuzla and Sarajevo. Students from the "Triglav" Association Banja Luka: Nikša, Stefan, Julijana, Miloš, Milica, Sofija, Marija, Katja, Nastja, Milica, Srećko, Nina and Maja, 13 of them in total, who traveled accompanied by teacher Barbara, and parents: Lenka, Robert, Oksana and Mladen, had an interesting and useful stay in Sarajevo. The socializing started on the bus that transported the participants from Prijedor, Banja Luka and Kakanj. At the beginning, we decided to take the initiative into our own hands, so with the support of the host, President Verica Džindo, who tried her best to make our stay in Sarajevo as pleasant as possible, we organized a visit to the National Museum, which students coming from Republika Srpska do not have the opportunity to visit very often. In the National Museum, due to the limited time, we split into two groups and while the younger team visited the natural history exhibits, the slightly older ones visited the prehistory department and the archeological exhibit, which is really worth a visit to Sarajevo.
The accommodation and venue of the gathering was at the "Saraj" hotel, which is located in an interesting location in Sarajevo, between Bentbaša bank on the Miljacka river and a steep limestone rock, at the foot of the old "Jajce" barracks, and close to the old city center itself and Baščaršija. Immediately after lunch and settling in the rooms, the dance workshop began with Danijela Hočevar, a well-known and dear Slovenian lady from Venezuela, who is also a member of the Associaiton for the Development of Voluntary Work from Novo mesto. After stretching and trying to coordinate body movements to the rhythm of the music, a more static part followed, but certainly an interesting meeting with a colorful group of countrymen from Prekmurje. Namely, the Slavistic Association from Murska Sobota presented itself to us, who tried to bring us as vividly as possible their activities in the field of literature and publishing, they even sang a little in the Prekmurje dialect, and the greatest sympathy was gained by a young actor who portrayed Ivan Cankar from young days.
After dinner, there was an evening tour of Baščaršija, which was repeated the second day before returning, so that everyone, even the youngest, for whom this was their first visit to Sarajevo, could experience and feel that incredible bustle of people and cultural colorfulness, which only the great ones possess. Surely, some souvenirs were bought as a memory of the visit to Sarajevo.
On Sunday, we participated in the second part of the dance workshops led by Danijela, which were complemented by interesting social games that everyone enjoyed, and we also had the opportunity to have fun at the mobile phone weaning workshop, led by Saša Risić. The general impression is that at the 23rd gathering of students there was a friendly atmosphere and that the acquaintances started in October last year in Banja Luka were strengthened and that a deeper connection was created between the students of supplementary classes of the Slovenian language in BiH, from different places, which is really a great success of the Encounter project and encouragement for further joint activities with young people.
Mladen Lunić
