The Cultural Organisation Kistarcsa – KIKE – pays special attention to non-formal education. First and foremost we try to provide adults with as many possibilities as we can to enable them to learn. One of these possibilities is the "Deáktanya" lecture series, which has been held weekly since the foundation of the organisation in 1993, which reached its 900th session last year. When we organise these evenings we strive for variety so as to raise the interest of a wider circle. Sometimes we devoted more time to a certain topic and we held some thematic series which consisted of 12 lectures. Although the evenings are interactive, the relationship between the lecturer and the audience remained academically distant.

A winning tender
For those members who wished to be more active, we planned to start handcrafts courses. Since we couldn't afford to do this on our own, we wrote a tender. During the years, we gave a try with many topics (gastronomy, basket-making, embroidery etc.), but we didn't win. Thanks to our connections spreading throughout Europe, we were contacted by a Greek organisation – which we didn't know, but they'd heard of us – and they invited us to be their partner in a program planned by them. The proposal surprised us a bit – ceramics and mosaic making, but we decided to join. Our first attempt was rejected but in the second round we were given the support we asked for. Our Greek partners come from the city of Giannitsa which lies northeast from Thessaloniki. In accordance with the joined local government system the village Pella also belongs here as well, on the boarder of which excavations have been taking place, since the beginning of the 20th century. The modern excavations began in 1953 and they found more and more of the centre of the ancient Macedonian empire. Alexander, the Great grew up in Pella and when he was 19 he set out for his conquering journey never to return. The treasures of the settlement were transported to Rome by the invaders. The city was destroyed by an earthquake in 180 and the surviving inhabitants moved away from this sad territory and built a new village nearby. From the excavations we can see that the city was designed to be a port, but now it lies 35 km away from the shores of the Aegean-sea. Regular blocks of houses, wide streets and water channels are just a few of its characteristics. Its central square the agora has a territory of 200X181 m – but if we add the surrounding atriums than 262-238 m.The devastating earthquake ruined a lot of things, however some wonderful mosaics remained intact. These floor mosaics had adorned the inner yards of houses and palaces. The architects found a lot of crockery most of it in the ruins of shops. Thanks to the fine work of restaurateurs many of them can be seen in the local museum. This great of history of crockery and mosaics had a great effect on the locals so these arts are still popular today. The courses organised in the town hall of Giannitsa are visited by ardent amateurs every year. That is why the local leaders though they should go international. We wrote a tender from 5 country to the "life-long learning" program of the Grundtvig learning relations project organised by the European Committee, but in the end only three of us gained the support.

A field trip
We advertised and realised a ceramics and mosaics making course. One essential element of the tender is that the participants should get to know each other's work and work together. We travelled to Italy with the ceramics makers for this reason. Our partner's, the La Meridiana Organisation's headquarters are in the city of Certaldo in Toscana. Their main profile is the organisation of ceramics courses. The area was famous for its ceramics as early as time of the Etrusks and even today many inhabitants earn their living from crockery. Heading for our lodgings from the airport of Firenze we stopped in Montelupo, where there happened to be a ceramics festival. In the early afternoon the streets were empty, but we could visit the local museum – for free, because of the festival. You can buy the nicest vases, dishes and utensils along the main street. Some masters came out to work in front of the public and naturally they brought their tools with them, so one could see all kind of pottery tools, from the furnaces to the potter's wheel. We and our Greek partners had lodgings in 3 so called farm-houses, which were built – following the local traditions- some ten minutes walk apart from one another. The host organisation is situated in one of them. They sustain themselves from the tuition fees; the learners can live and eat there as well – for a nice sum. People come to the 2 week courses from all over the world, but the most frequent guests are Americans. We used the little time we had to prepare the common project. In the evening of the arrival we only get to the theoretical plain. The Italians were ready with the idea: in order to get acquainted with the terra sigillata method we should prepare a 3 meter high column with a diameter of 30 centimetres. They provided us with the found and the technical equipment, but they trusted the guests with the motives. We came up with the idea of a life-tree, the Greeks with something we couldn't even imagine. The other morning we started to work with clay, Hungarians and Greeks separately. Everybody got a piece of clay from which we had to form a sheet and then to decorate it. All the Greek works were non-figurative: prints of gravels and shells, straight and curvy lines. We created leaves, trees and animals. What shall become of this? In the afternoon, while the Italians were preparing the parts of the column – ten 30 cm high cylinder jackets – we made a trip to Volterra. The city, which once was the centre of the Etrusk empire has been the beloved target of tourists for a long time, but for us the most interesting part was the Etrusk museum. Next to the stone carvings and the ceramics we saw a bronze statue of a boy's body, which was entitled the Shadow of the Twilight. This gave us an idea for the main motif of our totem pole, because it has local connections and it's longish, as well. After some negotiation we decided on the division of labour: the Greeks created the form of a boy twined around the pole – which will be of a smooth surface, thus demonstrating the terra sigillata method- while the other parts will be made by us, but without figurative motives. We had to face a lot of difficulty because of the size of the work and we slept little during the nights. In the end we managed to finish the great work, which unfortunately we saw only in parts because they were burnt and put together after we had returned home.

Kereszti Ferenc