THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: For the children in the city to experience the kind of Easter celebration kids of their age have in Germany, the German cultural centre Goethe-Zentrum organised a one-day programme for their summer camp students on Wednesday. Keeping in mind that Easter day is yet to come, the Centre had taken the initiative of having the celebration a few days prior to the day of Resurrection. The programmes were guided by two Germans- Jan Lange and Luaks Bosch, cultural studies students at the University of Tübingen in Germany. They are here at the Centre on a three-month internship. Eighty-three children in the age group of 6-10 and 11-15 were divided into two batches at the Easter celebration programme. As the theme of their summer camp was ‘My Creative World’, the celebration also made creative programmes a part of it.“Through the activities, children were made aware of how Easter is celebrated in Germany with Easter eggs, ‘kresse’ dolls and with games like egg hunting, egg boxing and egg race,” said Sudha Pradeep, Head of the Language Department at Goethe-Zentrum.‘Kresse seeds’ were brought from Germany. “For making kresse rabbits, a glass is taken around, on which they stick the face of the rabbit they painted with whisks made of woollen threads. Within the glass, swabs of cotton are placed along with the ‘kresse’ seeds. Some water is poured on it and keeping it for three days, the seeds would have grown into plants,”said Luaks. By then, it looked like a rabbit with a green hat. The most interesting game of the lot is egg boxing. Boiled eggs are hit against each other and whosoever breaks the egg will win the game. The children of the second batch had an exclusive game, the ‘newspaper dance’. To give the celebration a religious touch, the participants had the ‘Breaking of the bread’ signifying ‘The Last Supper’, followed by Easter songs in German and English. Little ones were found busy amidst water colours and paint brushes, painting eggs. Nine-year-old Ridha P had her egg painted with Prussian blue, vermillion and other primary colours. Collin Bobby preferred to have the egg painted like a football and Ananya Nair with flowery red eggs. “Finally, we’ll give the children chocolates from Germany and German pancakes baked by us,”said Jan and Luaks.
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