From different sides of the world 

The world is like a garden full of endless diversities

                                                                               (M.Mian)

It was 9th of August 2008. On the playground near Hugon Kołłątaj Primary School, 148, we could see a magical tent called Baju Baju and hear African and Indian sounds from the speakers. The photos of Children from different parts of the world were around the fence and there were also some colorful stands with “African design” jewelry, paper production, Arabic alphabets or African “djembe” drums.

“What is this?” “Why?” “What is happening here?” – The passers-by were asking one another. And they were surprised seeing around Africans, ladies in Hindu dresses and Indian dancers.

For sure, we can say that this day the school playground has changed to “a garden full of endless diversities” where each of us got the chance to see that the world is something more than only my class, my school, my room, my city. At the same time it was a good opportunity to see other cultures, their richness and diversities. But first of all the Multicultural Picnic has closed this year’s travels and discoveries around the World by Simba within the project “Summer in the city 2008”.

In spite of the shy sun emerging from behind the clouds, the youngest residents of Wola district with their parents visited the school compound where they could listen to some stories from different parts of the World in the magical tent Baju Baju. Mr. Michał, the founder of Storyteller Museum in Konstancin Jeziorna (www.storytellermuseum.org ), was telling the stories with passion and the children were listening attentively and with their eyes wide-open. Each of the stories ended with a moral that stirred their imagination and thought them something new.

Equally, Adriana, Aleksandra and Alicja, the Nataraja group dancers, aroused a big interest among participants of the Picnic. Their colorful traditional Indian costume amazed all! When they started dancing, children and parents held their breath admiring the professional and interesting performance. Later the dancers invited the eager children to take part in the dance and after some time all children and dancers were showing the story “Look, how beautiful this is!” by the Indian dance.

And really, it was beautiful! Nobody complained when it started raining although it changed a bit the organization running of the events that followed. Then all the stands – “World of jewelry” where Gabriela was helping children to prepare necklaces, “Arabian World” lead by the polish organization Arabia.pl and “The face painting corner” – found their places under the tent. Luckily, it has not disrupted the musical part of our Picnic that included the concert of the African group called Bongo Bongo, that invited kids to take part in the concert by clapping hands and playing the Africans drums. After there was Ali Bodoti from Uganda who was singing in the Luganda and Kiswahili languages.

During the brake between the concerts children and parents took part in drums workshops. Krystian, Konrad and Maria started teaching them how to play “djembe” drums from very simple exercises first off all explaining how to hold the drum and how to hit to get the best sound. At the beginning it was difficult to call ‘this’ music. But with each passing minute the melody started to sound like African music. Later the most patients students together with their teachers gave a short nice concert of African drum music. And they were very proud of their small success.

At the same time but in another corner of the tent Patrycja from Simba Friends Foundation was fulfilling the youngest participants wishes. In this way on their faces – apart from smiles – diverse colorful patterns like Dalmatian, butterfly, superman, tiger or cat - were appearing. Colorful and very satisfied children were going home saying that “they won’t wash their face at least till tomorrow”.

We are sure, all who attended the Multicultural Picnic went home after the day full of attractions and with the feeling that there are still many things to be discovered. Who knows, maybe somebody will join the Indian dance group or will start learning how to play the Africans drums in the future?

Let’s hope that this unusual meeting with the oriental cultures will sensitize all of us to build a tolerant and open society which understands and reacts to present-day problems of our world.

We invite all of you to see the photos from the Multicultural Picnic with Simba, remembering that “Looking at the world, it's impossible not to be surprised” (K.Prutkow).

We are very grateful those who were involved to prepare the Multicultural Picnic and we thank all, who accepted our invitation and enjoyed the time spent together with us!

The project was a big success, thanks to the financial support of the Wola district council - city of Warsaw.