Be free
February is the shortest month of the year, but not the least intense. For me it is my fifth month in Greece.
I continue to work and grow in many different ways.
Social life, for example, is becoming more intense and closer, and I enjoy many many things with people from different countries who have become good friends. Thessaloniki is the perfect city to achieve this because of the quality of the people and the leisure and cultural offerings that are available each and every day of the week: cinemas, concerts, cafes everywhere, walks by the sea…
Far from being monotonous, work is essential. The relationship with the boys and girls who come to the kyn every afternoon is increasingly intense, as well as with colleagues. Little by little this makes me feel more and more independent and I can do things on my own initiative, without supervision or help. We have a very good team.
Besides that, we are implementing circus workshops in different centres or places. We continue to work in the city’s parks, as well as in the centre for unaccompanied minors that I spoke about last month. The results are being felt. Also, we have begun to implement these workshops once a week in a center of the same nature “Pilea” and we are enjoying very much the great participation and laughter that we are getting from the children.
One of the strong points of the month of February, has been to begin to work in “Diabata”, refugee camp in Thessaloniki. We have a group of twenty-five children between the ages of nine and eleven. The work is hard and tiring due to the chaos it brings, but at the same time it is really rewarding to see how they laugh continuously, how they always want to keep playing and how we feel closer to each other.
The aim of our work, of the social circus, is to create connections, to get visual and physical contact, to look at and get to know the rest of the people who in this case live with you. Learning to tolerate frustration and to comply with the rules of participation, as well as coordination, balance, etc. All this and much more through play and circus techniques. Non-formal education.
The diverse experiences and the conversations that flow in the premises of the city or in one’s own living room, make that lately the biggest thought that surrounds my head is the freedom
and the fortune of being free. Free to have a passport and to choose how, where and when; free to express myself; free not to be persecuted by political parties that may imprison or torture you; free not to fear a bomb or a kidnapping; free to be able to visit my loved ones. FREE!
February is also the month of carnival, the festival of freedom, and this is how we are living and celebrating it.
