Stories from Svogerslev

Tonight we were in the fields, waist deep in grain, and suddenly, thirty metres away there was a young deer, bucking and leaping through the wheat. I yelped "ET RÅDYR" which is how you say it in Danish, and stooped and sprinted along the tractor path, thinking I could catch it up and surprise it. Unfortunately a leaping deer is faster than I am and it got away. Still, it was a beautiful moment, the sky of milk being pierced by a disappearing cardinal sun and the wind mills whipping and our movement making tracks of crushed cereal stalks. It was always gonna be beautiful, but the addition of a solitary leaping deer? I mean, come on.

Also there are hundreds of very very large slugs, often in clumps.





The school we are staying in is peculiar in that it has a Lord of the Rings theme, and has meeting rooms with runes on the wall, and hallways with murals on the walls which depict different bits of the story, kind of like a Catholic church might have depictions of the twelve stations of the cross. At night local kids play on the sloping tin roof and spy on us through the skylight as have our discussions. While exploring the adjacent forest today I found a series of paths which lead to a mini climbing wall in a little clearing in the trees, on which I plan to hang a white sheet, and to which I will run a very very long electrical cord to power a projector and computer and I will take mattresses and couches and citronella lanterns and tea lights in brown paper bags and set up a little outdoor cinema. This I will do in secret and then I will lead the other participants to it in the dark, and we will come to the clearing and they will be shocked and enchanted. There we will sit and we will watch the film Voces Innocentes which is about a very good film about child soldiers in El Salvador and then we will be discuss child soldiers and everybody will be very engaged and interested and even emotionally affected. But shhh, I said it´s a secret.

I leave you with a humorous company logo from the side of a plastic food delivery tray.

On Escaping

Behind the school where we are living, over the little hill and across the road, there is a vast wheat field, the stalks waist high and shimmering yellow. In the middle of it all, three vast turbines, whooshing mechanically, and a tractor path running under their shadows. It’s half past eight, the sun is getting lower on the flat horizon, and we are enjoying the magic hour, the four of us, which is to say me and the three people I like most in this project – Maggie (Sweden), Jo (Canada) and Ghassan (Lebanon). We are lying here, hidden by the sea of crops, feeling good because we have escaped for a little while; we are vagrants, camped out and cautious of farmers with shotguns, we are five minutes from the camp but it feels like we are in a John Steinbeck novel, somewhere in California, or Nebraska, or Saskatchewan. We are giddy with laughter and there are ravens in the sky, and flat white clouds. The stentorian whomping of the turbine blades, the gentle rustle of wheat husks, the glow of the sunset on the faces of these people that I have recently met and recently come to love.

We started phase ‘two’ of the project today, which means that working with the kids in the refugee centre is on hold while we devote time to discussion, research, activities and exploration of the project theme (human, and specifically children’s rights). This does not suit some in the group, those who came here to act, to plunge themselves into the lives of some confused kids with confused futures, to do something for a couple of weeks so as to return to ‘normal’ life feeling as though they have achieved something – who look shocked and somewhat horrified at the suggestion that this could in fact be a learning experience for themselves first and foremost. I guess I understand this almost desperate desire to be of use, to stop talking and start acting, but for me this is in no way the venue for that, and we are not the right people – and I disagree greatly with these people. On the other hand most of us are excited and engaged by the switch into discussions. Having seen first hand the impossible awfulness of the situations of these children I feel like I owe it to them – Burhan from Kosovo, Omar from Iraq, beautiful doe-eyed Shamsa from Somalia – to know as much as possible about everything (every declaration, every policy, every arrogant or ignorant decision) which has led them here. Then I owe it to them to work, with every one of my actions, with every one of my thoughts, with my life, towards change. That this is not a reaction shared by some of the other equally well meaning people I am currently sharing a bedroom with is…interesting to learn.

The last day with all the kids at the centre was the easiest so far in terms of running activities and dealing with the kids – but it was by far the hardest emotionally. I think this is the first time I’ve cried sad tears from watching children laugh and smile – brought to surface by the overhanging realisation that their score has been well and truly set, that we are only masks, smokescreens, three minute long funfair rides, that we are powerless, and that next time I hear of death in Iraq, I will have no idea which of these kids are there now, and which are still trapped in the green, leafy purgatory of Avnstrup.

The other day, in the sunshine, a moment worth sharing: Muna from Somalia was playing djembe (she plays really well), while the other girls (Kurds, Persians, Albanians, Roma girls) clapped and trilled their tongues and sang together the song "Ah Wa Noss" by the Lebanese pop singer Nancy Ajram. I sang along too and attempted to dance, which inspired the Kosovar boys, who busted out some break moves in the long grass. There was a butterfly, and I remembered the name in Danish. The world seemed so small in that moment, and incredibly beautiful, and in that moment, just like in the wheat today, and in the fields of daisies with M and S yesterday, it felt as though escape (from reality, from everything) was really still possible.