A week in Athens with The Play Cafe Project Team
Author:
Iffah Humaira Eri Tantawi, University of Edinburgh
Roaming the streets of Athens, under the scorching sun, I was thrilled and excited to be in the city of historical and mythical stories and legends – a smell of a Mediterranean identity, a city rich in its beautiful streets and people. It was a trip I was looking forward to for this Summer, as we would be having our first Play Cafe in Greece with the Network for Children’s Rights in Greece. As I had my very first tour with our Research Assistant from Greece, Aggeliki, the walk around the different neighborhoods in Athens, has welcomed me warmly, with a sense of awareness on the different lifestyles, environment and especially play opportunities children are provided with in the city. While we see Athens as a touristic destination, rich for its views and rooftop bars across the Acropolis, there is this notion of a beauty in its warmest colours and light sounds of laughters and appreciation in the little streets of Athens.
Athens in a different light
Like any other cities around the world, Athens portrayed beauty in various forms. As we dived deeper into the corners and streets of Athens, away from the central light, we entered a world beyond the promoted touristic places of the city. In various corners, an echo of wondering souls and darkness envelopes the highly deprived neighbourhoods of central Athens with limited space and outdoor opportunities for children, where low income Greeks, migrants, refugees and street children live next to brothels and groups of drug addicts openly using narcotics.
The vast difference between where we were a few minutes and steps before us, was a drastic portrait of poverty, a street of roaming addicts and a glamourous amount of hazardous polluted air due to the intense density of the city and streets, the packed cars and transportation on the sideways – blocking the walkways and hindering any spaces where children could play and be at. As we walked further into the end of the roads, pieces of glasses and unfinished constructions were seen, scattered and left untouched and ignored – with sharp edges of gates cut open (probably (as we were told), by youths and young children for them to enter and get access to the only left spaces they could make of). While this does not paint a bigger picture of how the city is, this creates a problem for the children and young people to be at. It is seen in many dense cities around the world such as Jakarta and Dhaka where children make use and practice full agency of the spaces they are living in and are left with (such as the streets, underneath the expressway, in little dark corners between dese buildings, unfinsihed construction sites and many more). But it becomes problematic when the safety and rights of children are simply eliminated from their day to day experiences and public life.
Our Secret Play Cafe Garden
We held our very first Greek Play Cafe in what we jokingly call a ‘secret’ garden, near the Network for Children’s Rights. The trees and the bustling sounds of birds and cars across the road, lead us to this magical space amidst the dense city filled with buildings and ruined gates of the community.
μεράκι.
It was then that I met our two Greek Froebelian Practitioners for the very first time. Both Vasilki and Effie, are two lovely angels who have brought their Greek spirits to the Play Cafe. A wonderful and creative pair, they have taught and shown me the beauty of Greece, more
than any tour guides could have said in a structured and dull tour. But most importantly, they have taught me the meaning of μεράκι. Μεράκι or also known as Meraki, is something that I will hold onto me forever, even while I am typing away writing this blog in my cold apartment back in Edinburgh city. The term μεράκι, is defined to be as ‘passion’. And when you describe a person or an experience filled with μεράκι, they are filled with a passionate sense of love, care and sincerity in the things they do. Both Vasilki and Effie has brought this magical atmosphere with them, from the very moment we hugged, to the Play Cafe itself. The Play Cafe in Greece, is nothing short of different than the one we had in Edinburgh, but while there are so many similarities, there are also many differences in them. With a more organic and authentic experience setting up and arranging the Play Cafe, we are less ‘equipped’ with ready made resources and materials in Greece. The wonderful wooden resources and items that we brought from Community Playthings in Edinburgh are now naturally replaced with hand-made blocks and resources by our Greek Practitioners, organically sourced out through second-hand and antique shops in the historical streets of Athens by Aggeliki. This very experience of being and becoming together with the play cafe plays an essential part in our research – the connectedness to the work we do.
Amidst the warmth of the sun and the soft mellows of the wind in the streets of Athens, children and families then came with their little steps entering our very little nook with excitement and anticipation of an experience. Children of all ages, from the littlest one to an elder sibling, their skips into the Play Cafe and their whispering words of love bring so much joy and warmth to the space.
Thoughts and reflections
There is a sense of independence and bravery filling the space. There are times that I am challenged to understand my practice and values as a Froebelian. ‘Am I guiding them? Or am I instructing them?’, ‘Is this all for the name of safety or am I worried of the mess they would make?’.
The children and families in the space have taught me more than a simple experience at a Play Cafe. A boy taught me ‘trust’, two little sisters taught me love and warmth, while a brave little man has shared his very own experiences with me through their little games. This can be seen when I am observing the ‘Chocolate Krispy experience’ (which made a big hit by the way!). There is always this tendency to ‘hide’ the matchsticks away from little hands and eyes of children. But they have brought great spirits to the table when the need and desire to explore and be the one to light up the fire. ‘Can I try?’, ‘I want to do it by myself’, ‘Let me do it now’ and even ‘I like the smell of fire’.
Another essential observation I have made would be the key involvement of adults in the Play Cafe space. A space which what started out to be from the soft laughter and voices of children, has then also filled with the husky chatters of adults (parents, grandparents, carers, practitioners and more!). There is a smile and a sense of warmness etched in their faces, playing and interacting with their children. The Play Cafe space is not a space just for children but a space for everyone, to interact, to be free, to learn, to unlearn and to be themselves.
Three mere hours passed by in a blink of an eye, we unwillingly let go of the space and soon it merged back to the soft briskly empty corner in the Streets of Athens.
There is a need for these spaces, for children to come together with their parents, carers and grandparents. A space that practice children’s rights to play, live and love. The Play Cafe does not only provide a space for food, a space for play or a space for connection but it gives a sense of warmth and love amongst the community, birthing a magical experience which every children and families have the right to be indulged in.
Pictures taken by: Iffah Humaira and Vasiliki
