Today’s entry is an account from ‘home.’
We have been allowed insights into the daily activities and musings of this group of volunteers, their many encounters, emotions and narratives that shaped their entire experience. We know they worked at Chtoura and Majdal Anjar in Lebanon, and we know the names of some truly inspirational people they met, not least of which was their hosting family – a family that provided them with a ‘home.’
We could google the places they’ve been and the sights they’ve seen, but everything seems unfamiliar when it’s not home. Following someone’s genuine experiences through a blog post or camera lens, doesn’t bring this ‘home’ any closer. If anything, it just goes on to show how incredibly unfamiliar it all is, and how incredibly distant we all are.
And yet, often and ironically-so, it takes great distances to understand, or even acknowledge, what is within reach - what is much closer to home. What else can a group of volunteers, who had already paid for their return flight, be doing in remote places like Chtoura and Majdal Anjar (or the hundreds of other voluntary-work destinations, for that matter), if not to rediscover the value of ‘home’ – of belonging. Certainly not to drastically change anyone’s life for the better, no matter how noble and altruistic the thought. If anything, the only real change occurs within – within the person who sets out in search of the other.
Reading the blog entries over the past two weeks brought back fragile flickering images from yet another PoléPolé project which took place last summer in what was once ‘the Jungle’ refugee camp in Calais. The camp which once held an escalating 9,000 (plus) individuals, several make-shift shops, restaurants and classes, is no more. The open wound at what was otherwise a sunny sea-side resort, was quickly, but painfully stitched up. It was completely raised to the ground. Temporary homes dismantled, communities shattered, dreams more transient than ever before. That is what was at stake. But the ability to hold on to a dream was swept from beneath their feet because whatever security the camp may have provided them with was unsolicitedly snatched away. If any of them dared to dream, to continue their journey in spite of all the odds, it was only because of the memory of the home they had initially left.
Our memory of home – remembering where it is that we came from, and who we left behind – pushes us onwards, onto new things that were initially born with a dream, a desire. That is its intrinsic value, and that is why, when one project (or dream) happily or sadly comes to an end, or gradually fades away, we find ourselves returning to our roots. Being home is an option, but dreaming is a necessity. My experience in Calais and the Lebanon project, as far as I can tell, proved to have that in common: the true measurement which determines how distant one is from home, is the ability to dream. And as the group of volunteers returns today from one home to another, that is all we can really do: dream, and see where that takes us next.
Giulia Privitelli