Friday, December 5, 2008
Hello dear students from Aprender para Ensinar, Corposinalizantes! We’re here in Slovenia, in a meeting with groups from different parts of the world that work with art and education. The meeting was promoted by a Slovenian group called Radical Education.
We came here to show the work The Rebelion of the Children from the Contrafilé group, of which we are part. Besides showing what we are doing with the children of São Paulo, we decided to create some meetings to learn about the reality of this place that is so different and distant. We met an educator called Adela, who is the coordinator of the Education department in the Modern Gallery of Ljubljana, the main museum here. She develops a very interesting project called “School on the River” which is part of a bigger program, “Museum in the Street”. On of the actions of the project is to create encounters with immigrant children of several places from Eastern Europe and Asian. Most part of these children came with their parents, escaping from unemployment or war situations.
Adela invited us to participate in a meeting with some of these children. We invented an activity to find out a little bit about how it is for these children to live here. Each one would have to show an important place in the surroundings of the school and the others would have to guess why this place was so important to this person.
¹Neighborhood where the immigrant children study and live.
²House where 3 immigrant families lie. Among them, Almina’s family, who participated in the activity.
Tugs, a girl from Mongolia, and Almina, from Bosnia, were present, as well as the educator Adela, from Slovenia, and everyone from the Brazilian group Contrafilé (Cibele, Jerusa, Joana, Peetssa and Rafael). In the beginning, the girls were a little apprehensive. They would say: “We also are tourists here. How are we going to show you a place that we don’t know?”. To us, it was a surprise. We didn’t expect it.
Tugs, Almina, Adela and Contrafilé introduce each other. Each one tells the story of their name.
Almina and Tugs.
To break the ice, Adela was the first one to choose a place that was important for her. She picked a place in the river where the boats are anchored – in Ljubljana there’s a very beautiful river. Tugs thought that Adela had chosen that place because it reminded her of some romantic story. Tugs asked: “Have you ever traveled with your husband on a boat?”. She answered yes, that she was born, grew up and met her husband in the city and that they had traveled together on a boat many times. She also said that this river is very important because it crosses more than one country: it starts in Serbia, crosses Bosnia and Croatia, goes through Slovenia and ends in the Adriatic Sea.
Joana asked if Adela had chosen the river because it connects different people and places. She said that this was a good idea. Then Jerusa said: “I know! You made an education project called ‘School on the River’! That’s why!”
Then, Adela said yes and Cibele commented: “I thought this river idea was very nice because it crosses many rivers naturally, without borders. Such as birds that migrate from one place to another without any barriers, prohibitions, police, passport and prejudice…”
Adela takes us to the river and each one raises a hypothesis to find out why she chose that place.
Almina was a bit weird. She would look at the boat, go near it, would stir into something, then would come back, listen to the conversation a little, and would go back to the boat. We thought she wasn’t paying attention. Then she blurted: “It’s the first time I see a boat in my life!”
Wow! That was amazing! We asked what she was feeling. She said it was a bit scary, that it was too big, that she was a little fearful. We were impressed because she’s been living so close to the river for six months and had never gone there.
We were preparing to say goodbye when Almina said that she wanted to show us a place. First, she showed the Mercator (supermarket) where she and her family would shop. Then, we realized that behind the supermarket there was an evangelic church. She pointed to the church and the first thing we thought was: this must be the place where she exercises her religion. But there was, again, another surprise.
Almina started to tell us that she is a Muslim, as well as the rest of her family. And because of that, she could never – and didn’t even wanted to – go inside that church, which many of her schoolmates frequented. She explained that in her religion there isn’t a church, there a mosque. She and her family pray to Allah five times a day.
In Mongolia, there are three religions: Catholic, Islamic and Buddhist. Tugs told us that she and her family are Buddhists and that, together with other immigrants, use a house there in the neighborhood, where they all meditate together. The main practice of Buddhism is meditation.
Jerusa told about Shamanism in Brazil, a ritual that admits people from several religions. It was a very important talk. Almina said that even with the religious differences, outside the church – in the street and at school – all kids play together.
Almina telling about her Muslim religion.
Cibele and Joana
Photos: Peetssa
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