Today I was in the queue waiting for my lunch when with Beatrice, one of my Kenyan colleague we observed that today is "chapati day".
Chapati is a kind of bread made of whole wheat flour and cooked on a tava (flat skillet).
The "ingredients" look quite basic, but despite of that, Beatrice said that years ago they used to eat chapati only during Christmas . The family were quite big and even a simple dish like this one could be prepared only during special occasion, also because in average one family per village could own the tava. She told me that the life was really tough for here when she was young and that now there are still lot of families living with the same "standards" she had. She said that now she feel privileged since she can eat chapati every days if she wants and she uses to tell this to her kids to make them aware of the fortune they have: a bus is picking them every day in front of the door of their house, they can go to the school wearing shoes and they don't need to work on the field and prepare the food before leaving....she could not have all that.
She told me about "Memory", a video of one day of life of a young girl in Malawi and she said she uses to show this video to her kids to create their awareness.
The funny thing is that the guy behind us started to say "Memory? Are you referring to Memory?" I am the filmmaker of "Memory!". So, included, we had the history from the filmmaker.
I went to look for this history and I want to copy here the video.
Chapati is a kind of bread made of whole wheat flour and cooked on a tava (flat skillet).
The "ingredients" look quite basic, but despite of that, Beatrice said that years ago they used to eat chapati only during Christmas . The family were quite big and even a simple dish like this one could be prepared only during special occasion, also because in average one family per village could own the tava. She told me that the life was really tough for here when she was young and that now there are still lot of families living with the same "standards" she had. She said that now she feel privileged since she can eat chapati every days if she wants and she uses to tell this to her kids to make them aware of the fortune they have: a bus is picking them every day in front of the door of their house, they can go to the school wearing shoes and they don't need to work on the field and prepare the food before leaving....she could not have all that.
She told me about "Memory", a video of one day of life of a young girl in Malawi and she said she uses to show this video to her kids to create their awareness.
The funny thing is that the guy behind us started to say "Memory? Are you referring to Memory?" I am the filmmaker of "Memory!". So, included, we had the history from the filmmaker.
I went to look for this history and I want to copy here the video.
This is thus the history of Memory, from Malawi, but it could be the history of hundreds of millions of other girls around the developing world, as it has been the history of Beatrice from Kenya.
http://www.blip.tv/file/2787368
http://www.blip.tv/file/2787368
Tutaonana (arrivederci in Swahili),
Silvia
Silvia
