Lentil as Anything: feeling at home

Dear all,

Yesterday I had my first day of (volunteer)work at a restaurant called Lentil as Anything. I will, from now one work there once a week.
Let me try and describe the magic of that place to you...
I arrive at the beautiful old convent that hosts the restaurant at 16.00, walking through the community garden that lies behind it. There is of course a faster way to get there, but I like to walk through the garden! Outside on the terrace a few people lazily drink their tea (Lentil has been open already since 9.00). When I get inside everybody greets me happily and after an hour almost everybody (regular staff and volunteers) knows my name! The search for an apron is unsuccessful so I decide to do without. Until six it will be calm so we use that time to chat, clean all the tables, in- and outside, serve the people who are around and build up the vegetarian and mostly organic buffet. The person who is in charge of the volunteers tells us one more time how we can explain to people the philosophy of this place: Lentil as Anything is based on the concepts of social inclusion and trust. That is why there are no fixed prizes and just a box, on the counter, where everybody can donate what they can afford, or what they think it was worth, or what they would like to donate...the hope is that those who can, will donate a little bit more, to compensate for those who have no money. If by any means the money donated exceeds what the restaurant needs this goes to a house where homeless people can sleep.
It is Wednesday and that means: African Night! That also means that today there are quite a few Africans working and that some of them are drumming and jamming on some djembes and congas. When they are not, African music fills the air, and nobody can stand still...But is is not only Africans...the staff comes from basically all over the world, quite a few of them being refugees to whom Lentil is a place where they can build up a social network, have a nice time, learn some kitchen and serving skills and even get help in trying to find a job.
At six it starts getting crowded...some people already know their way, others seem a bit lost when they come, for the first time, into the big hall with all the tables, food, music and smiling people. So we, the volunteers welcome them, show them where they can sit and explain them how it works. It is funny, when you are not working for money people seem to be a million times more grateful when you offer to get them a bottle of water, or when you ask them if you can take their plates! Often you even hear a soft: "I could also do it myself..." or a big "Thanks so much! That is so nice of you" and well, that makes me smile and feel happy to be there, and I guess that is what makes the atmosphere so special!
Seven is kind of the peak of the night and you don't stand still! Coffees and chai lattes have to be brought to tables, tables have to be cleaned, people have to be seated and taken care of. Still everybody is in a good mood! There is no shouting, no hurrying, no stress. Even the people in charge have a smile when they pas by and ask how you are doing. Because the customers are not impatient: somehow the feeling of not having to pay more than you think the service was worth makes people much friendlier :)
After the peak I can have my own dinner. So I serve myself some of the delicious food and look for an uncrowded corner. Sitting there I look around. There sure are some weird people sitting around, just some minutes ago when I asked a guy if he would like some water he started talking about the problems he had with the motor of his car. He talked so fast that I couldn't understand and he just wouldn't stop, so after a minute I wished him a pleasant night and went on. He talked to the air about his car for a few seconds onwards and then resumed to his plate. But there are also people who note my accent and ask where I'm from, what I am studying and how I am enjoying Melbourne. When I come back with their coffees they tell me that after a brief discussion they concluded that they both don't know what anthropology is so if I would be kind enough to explain what it is exactly that I am studying :)
The drums beat outside, people talk and laugh, everybody is fine to be how he or she is, no matter what that means, everybody is welcome here...it reminds me a lot of the wonderful place where I grew up and I feel happy..I finally feel at home in this city on the other side of the world!
Around 9.30 the last guests are leaving, the music turns louder and it is time to clean up. At 10 I walk to the bus. My feet hurt and I start to feel that I am tired. But I have a big smile on my face. It was a beautiful day!

Here is a link with an interview with the founder of Lentil as Anything, because he can explain the philosophy way better than I can!
http://www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=1887

And here are some photos to make up for the photo-less weeks that have passed by since the beautiful surf-trip!

Much love to you all!
Sara


Eater Brunch in Sterre's sunny backyard



Blowing and painting eggs - childhood revival!



The result!



My room as it looks now...



Stony Point, the end of the world, or at least, the end of the line...We went there for a hike



Walking over the swamps and mangroves




We were promised heavy showers, but that's the nice thing about the weather here...it will never rain a whole day...



We got home sunburned :)

Australia is more that trips, beach and beautiful pictures!

Dear all
Australia is not only trips, beach and beautiful pictures…Australia is also sitting on trains at 8 in the morning, it’s being addicted to the coffee to go at the shop of the nice Greek people at the station who stand there, sometimes for more than 12 hours a day, and always have a smile and a joke for you, it’s sitting in the library writing papers, preparing presentations, it’s having dinner with nice people from all over the world, it’s getting home tired and going to bed early, or having long skype conversations with the other side of the world on early weekend hours!
What I mean to say is that my stay in Australia has become something different than the holiday it was the first weeks! And regarding that fact today I want to share with you not what I have been doing, but what I have been learning…

I will not bore you with all the interesting things I have been learning…there is just one thing I want to tell you today, so that maybe, a few more people in this world will think a little bit further than the stereotype! It is regarding the Indigenous peoples of Australia: the Aboriginals.

I wonder how many of you share the ideas I had when I came here: the Aboriginal people are the indigenous people of Australia, who have been completely overwhelmed by the coming of the Europeans and have, like the North American Indians, succumbed to all the bad things the Europeans brought.
During the last weeks I have been immersed in reading about, on the one hand, the amazing cultural complexity of the people we gather under the name Aboriginals and on the other hand the cruel way in which we, or a least our ancestors have been blind to that complexity, have been arrogant enough to think we had a ‘civilization’ to offer them, and the things we torn apart by bringing that ‘civilization’ to them…
There are two things of which I think it is important to think while looking at the situation of Aboriginals today. The first is the importance of the family. I have been learning about the role of kinship in these communities, and without trying to Anthropologically explain the complexity of it to you, I guess I can take a shortcut and just tell you that everything in their ‘culture’ is related to kinship relations. You cannot address someone without knowing how that person is related to you, for it is the place of a person in society that defines his or her name. The worst punishment people could get before the Europeans came was to be banished from a community, for without a community and its relations, one is literally no one!
The second thing is the half-cast child removal policy that was used in Australia between more or less 1930 and 1970. This meant that children who were not fully Aboriginal (and thus were thought to be more intelligent) were removed from their families to be European-style educated. Sometimes the justification was that these children were neglected by their families, but other times ‘being Aboriginal’ was reason enough…These children were grouped together in homes where they got an ‘education’. I will not go on about what happened in these houses…I just want you to think about how it must have felt for those kids, whose identity was so closely connected to their family, to be ripped off from that family, to be told to be ashamed of the color they had and the language they spoke, and to be told that they were lucky to get the chance to become ‘civilized’…These kids forgot their languages, and with the language they forgot the stories they had been told, they forgot names, they forgot who they had been. 1970 was 40 years ago…
Imagine to grow up without a clue where you belong, imagine to grow up in a place where people see you as inferior, imagine to get out of that foster home and not finding a job because you are Aboriginal, imagine to be 20 when you find out who your family is, but you cannot talk to your own mother, because she doesn’t speak English! Imagine the identity crisis…imagine the trauma…Can we judge the people who turn to anything that might anesthetize the feeling of pain and loss?

The thing that shocks me most is that the average Australian seems not to give a shit! It might be the feeling of guilt that builds high walls around people, but I think it’s mainly the stereotype, the shameless silence about these facts in high school teaching curricula and the avid attempts of certain people to paint the history of Australia brighter than it is…
I don’t mean to depict Australia here as a heartless and racist country because it is not (at least not everywhere). I just want to share this little bit of the other perspective with you, so that, if you ever hear that Aboriginals are alcoholics more interested in spending money on alcohol than on the education of their own kids, you think twice…Even in the case of this being true for some people, there is a reason for it…

I could go on an on about this! I could also tell you how amazingly interesting and fascinating Aboriginals are, and how much we could learn from them if only we bothered to listen without a feeling of superiority. But I am afraid that I might already have lost some of you with this incredibly long blog!
For more stories, frustrations and fascinations there is always email or skype!

I wish you all a very happy Easter!
Love

Sara