Intercultural Education – Pathways to Peace

Participants: Roberto Ruffino (AFS Italy); Carol Bellamy (World Learning); Margee Ensign (University of the Pacific); Helene-Marie Gosselin (UNESCO); Vivien Stewart (Asia Society).

So Margee shares a funny but deep story. Do we know our world? Our nation? This is the story: Margee was in a plane, and the women besides her started a conversation, with that women-typical presentation "I like your purse". So Margee answered "Thank you". And then the women goes on, what brand is it? -she said-. It's from Rwanda. I don't know that brand -the women said.

This is it. Maybe Miss South Carolina should be an exemple on this. And then Sandra Bullock saying "... and world peace".

World Peace Forum in NYC

I just get here two days ago. Finally today the World Peace Forum at Columbia University, organised by AFS, has started.

Peace? Well known word, so badly understood. People is starting to talk about this word today. Just a word? a state of mind? a political position? a international convention?

Well, what you think about it? I'll keep posting through this journey.

Tube's buskers

In Mexico City is usual to see people singing in the subway or in the buses. Most of them only sings with a guitar and after finish each song they ask for money. They're students or new comers' people, who don't have a job or just need help for their studies. Their stories are like the result of the city's cruelty and violence, all of them tragic. They all have this speech that says: "as you may realise I'm not a great singer, but I'm trying..."

In London, the mayor promoted the initiative "Carling Live Underground Music" with the objective to avoid those "illegal" singers. So the organised auditions, selected those talented musicians and provide'em a small place in the tube. Each one is accompanied with an instrument, an amplifier and a microphone.

Most of the cities can be hostiles and cruel. The people that lives there, we're in a hurry, always with a few minutes to get around. We learn not to look the watch too much. Some people listen music with headsets, read books, or just pretend to sleep. The true is we don't observe what happens around us. London is not the exception.

But it is not my city, I don't live here, I'm a visitor. I found one of those guys playing the flute in Picadilly Station. I keep walking, I barely saw the guy. I get the tube again and I arrived to Baker St Station, I must change to Jubilee. In a long corridor, which is really more like a tube, I saw a girl singing with her guitar. Quite young, maybe 25yo. She's singing Shania Twain's "you're still the one".

I was about keeping walking, like everybody else was doing; like I'd do if I were in Mexico. But I stopped and stayed, about 6ft from the spot she was. I seated and I observed her, I listened to her song. She looked at me like she was happy, like being grateful. I accepted to be her only audience. How ironic! I really was still the one to give her some attention. When the song was ended I gave a shy applause that got lost within the people, those who never stop walking, like a Disneyland's parade. So then, I left too.

Yes. Cities are cruel and hostiles. But there's always somebody willing to listen, and so, we make it, and live our cities.