Water and bread

Last Thursday the 4th Grade went on a school trip to Akovos, a small village near Kalamata. We were very lucky because the day was sunny and warm.

Akovos is built on a mountain, in an area with a lot of springs and fresh water.
There is a small elementary school in the village but there are no schoolchildren any more. Just a few old people live there now. The school opened again last summer, this time as a folk museum.

Two young people, Theodora and Alexandros, work in the museum and were our guides. They talked to us about the history of the village. It took its name from the fresh water which is in abundance in this area (aqua= latin word for “water”). They asked us to close our eyes and listen to the water for a moment.

Theodora showed us the museum exhibits, explaining what they were. Alexandros took us to the nearby spring and all the students filled their buckets, clay pitchers and bottle gourds with cold, fresh water, and then carried them back to the museum “the old way” (watch our video to get an idea!).

After that, in the old school’ s yard, a lot took place: ploughing with a wooden plough, sowing, a “carnival” for good harvest, reaping with scythes, threshing with animals, winnowing, grinding with a hand mill, kneading in a wooden tub, and finally taking the bread home to bake. Every student got a role and all the roles were significant.

There was so much to see and do that we all came back to school excited and a little tired!

Thank you Theodora and Alexandros for the great experience! Keep up the good work!

MoMA

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world.  The museum's collection offers an overview of modern and contemporary art, including works of architecture and design, drawings, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated books and artist's books, film, and electronic media. MoMA's library and archives hold over 300,000 books, artist books, and periodicals, as well as individual files on more than 70,000 artists. The archives contain primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art. It also houses a restaurant, The Modern, run by Alsace-born chef Gabriel Kreuther (from Wikipedia)

If only we could go to MoMA, stay there for ... a few days (!) and admire its collections! Wouldn't that be wonderful? Lucky those people who live nearby, and those who can still afford to travel! If you are neither, don' t worry! There is the museum' s site which you can visit and get an idea, and there are also some nice (and strange!) Youtube videos of artists´ works displayed there, like the one that follows: