International Day preparations

In view of the upcoming celebration of International Day, myself, Ira, and Ilya found time last week to thoroughly prepare for the activity we were going to initiate. Primarily, we wanted to create a sombre atmosphere in the room to make the game which we were going to play, Mafia, more engaging for the students: we spent quite a while sticking up large sheets of sugar paper onto the windows to block out all of the external light; that way the room could be submerged into total darkness by switching off the electrical lights. The fact that the sheets were stuck together in a disorderly manner contributed further to the mood of the game since it was meant to reflect something secret and sinister. We also arranged the stools in a circle to make it easier for the participants to communicate to each other whilst playing:

The renovated room

In order to decorate the room, we chose to create A3-sized flags of the two countries we represented, Russia and Ukraine; we figured that hand-painted flags were going to be a more interesting addition to the interior of the room as opposed to ordinary flags made out of fabric. We kindly asked the art teacher to allow us to use the room and the materials available, and ultimately I was able to paint a rather attractive Russian banner:

The Russian flag

To fill in the remaining space, we chose a fair few images of our countries' leaders and various historical sites, which we then printed out and placed upon the walls of the classroom; that did indeed brighten up the place, and it also enabled the students to get a better feel of the two cultures since wherever they looked, their eyes found bits and pieces of the two nations, which graciously coincided:

Picturesque representations of our countries

Once we were done with all the preparations, the room turned from an ordinary school classroom into a rather dusky, malefic hideout. Although it may seem as if though we had abused the concept of a relevant, dark atmosphere, the rich images that covered the walls added a sense of joy to the surroundings, therefore making one feel both motivated to play and the game as well as interested in the  setting of the two terrains which we presented.