Palabras da man ao corazón: I Postcrossing Meetup (Ribeira): Report

Sunday, April 17, 2016

I Postcrossing Meetup (Ribeira): Report

Yesterday, April 16 2016, we were able to celebrate the first Galician Postcrossing meetup, here in Ribeira.

We met at 11.30 as scheduled at IES número 1. The scheduled activity was a treasure hunt around the city, but since it was pouring, we decided to go for plan B, which was visiting the Museo Etnográfico de Artes. Visitors came from different origins, Canada, Kansas, Monforte de Lemos, North Carolina, Outes, Santa Comba and of course Ribeira.

In Artes we first had a warming coffee while Luís Teira and Teresa Hernández explained about the joint postcard project their schools had last year, where they created some beautiful cards with QR codes giving information about the different landmarks or people from the area.

We were then received by María Lampón, museum guide and student at our sección Ribeira, who kindly explained a lot of details about the objects displayed and their history. Being from the area, her personal attachment showed in the enthusiasm she showed in her presentation.

María Lampón explicando a súa parte favorita do museo

Then, we had lunch at A Dorna, a local restaurant which is owned by an outstanding woman, Vicky Callón, who was also a former student in our school and member of the drama club Seize the Day.

No restaurante, aproveitando para escribir unha postaliña para a dona

Lunch was an opportunity to talk and mingle, and to exchange our impressions about postcrossing, what we do when our cards expire, the special cards we have received, or the pen pals we have and what makes them special.

Then, with some delay, we headed for the Biblioteca Pública Municipal, where Alicia Padín, council worker in charge of the Normalización Lingüística section, some journalists and postcrossers were waiting for us.

Foto de Alicia Padín

Teresa Hernández trouxo a súa propia colección de postais para mostrar

Puidemos contestar ás postais que recibimos durante o ano

We accommodated everything and prepared for our writing session, which consisted of several activities:

replying to the people that had sent us cards for the event
sending cards to our pen pals
doing the second part of the post-authorship creative writing workshop, that is, visually interpreting the texts that students in EOI Santiago had written
receiving anonymous messages that students in sección Ribeira had written some months ago and posting our reactions through social networks with the hashtag #snailmaileoisantiago

We were also really pleased to have two students from sección Noia attend the event, Laura and Fran, and we really appreciate their effort in driving here and participating actively.

I would like to thank all attendees for coming and fully participating. I do hope the activity met their expectations.

Finally, I would really like to finish this entry by expressing my heartfelt gratitude to my colleagues and partners in this project, Ana, Carla, Manolo and Mariló, for their full support of the project in general and this activity in particular.