The Sunday before last, 25th of April, we visited the old Rauma church, which was built in the late 15th century, and happened to meet our first participant by chance. He introduced himself as an engineer from France working on the new nuclear power plant just north of Rauma. We can't exactly remember how the conversation started, but we were admiring a particularly beautiful wall on an annex building and he happened to join our conversation.
We asked him if he might like to participate in our project about nostalgic objects by sharing something he had brought from France. He invited us to his apartment and offered a few postcards that he was willing to part with since he was returning to home for a vacation and did not need them. Over some tea we learned that in fact he was from the Congo and immigrated to France to escape the poor economic situation. He knew that by leaving home he would have more opportunity, but also greater responsibility. His story began to detail a clear division of his salary, fifty percent went back to France and his family, twenty-five percent to a home in the Congo, and finally the last twenty-five percent towards medical supplies for his village. He told us that at least once a year he makes a visit discretely home, not wanting to upstage the effort, or lack of effort, of the politicians. He pulled out a small handheld camera and narrated about 30-minutes of video footage, which included visits to local hospitals to hand out clean water.
We had no idea that what started out as simple postcards from home turned into a multimedia humanitarian presentation brought from hundreds of miles away.
 |
| From Rauma Blog |
No comments:
Post a Comment