JAÉN, Spain.
At the end of May, volunteers and students of Rajab-Jaen Project conducted a trip to Granada to end the Academic Year 2014-2015. Juan Cózar Olmo writes this story.
We continue being surprised
What we have experienced of the Rajab project on a day-to-day basis continues to surprise us. Through our Spanish classes we continue uniting our lives, dreams, and projects in a string of light, joy, and tenderness; and all of it amidst pain and hope.
Ours are stories of light that accompany us and are threaded in our history as a way of understanding life and relationships with other cultures. We are Muslims, Christians, and agnostics (the least). We are “documented” and “undocumented” people. We have known each other "crossing borders," in Jaen, and creating bonds among ourselves and with other people and groups. We meet our colleagues from Linares: a groups working for a different society, where no human being is illegal and where the dreams of dignity for every person and for a better world are possible.
We are amazed at the class atmosphere every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. We can say that the Teresian Association (TA) in Jaen is connected with its origins as we see the racially mixed classrooms, people from South of Sahara, Pakistanis, and people fromMaghreb, so much loved by Poveda. He loved those people living in the caves of Guadix at the beginning of the 20th century, children with dreams of formation, and young workers in evening classes that gave full meaning to his pedagogical project.
Granada’s Light
The end of the Academic Year has been an experience of light.
For the Muslim world light has a special resonance, and for our students, who had never been able to travel to Granada and contemplate what at a time was the last stronghold of the Muslim people in our peninsula, was a desire and dream that had not been realized yet.
We were going to start the trip of 54-seat bus but it had to be changed to another one with 67 seats. Our students wanted to travel with their loved ones and we tried our best so that they could do so.
In Granada ACIT President, Jorge Fernandez, had the tickets to visit the Alhambra. He also found a history professor who acted as a guide to describe the monument and its history.
Just seeing the faces of astonishment of the Senegalese, Pakistanis, people from Maghreb at seeing such beauty and contemplating the majestic gardens and fountains was worth the trip.
We shared lunch on the patio of Colegio Mayor Santa Fe. The TA welcomed the group and they were most attentive to our needs. The name of Pedro Poveda was heard several times through the voice of Moroccans and Pakistanis.
In the afternoon we visited the Albayzin with its maze of stone alleys, places full of uniqueness, and flowering balconies of multicolored geraniums. From the balcony of St. Nicholas we contemplated one of the most beautiful views of Granada’s Alhambra and Generalife, with Sierra Nevada in the background.
We also listened to music and danced spontaneously, accompanied by a guitar. The light over us made us more and more aware of the Story of Light we were living and enjoying.
Then we visited the Grand Mosque of Granada, where some of our friends visited the facilities and participated in the third prayer of the day. The others waited in a beautiful courtyard of the mosque overlooking the Alhambra. We knew we were on sacred ground, companions of a people who pray to a God who is full of mercy and compassion. On several walls of the Alhambra we read: "God is One", "God is Compassionate," "God is Merciful".
The mercy of God welcomed us as one human family. His compassion filled us with tenderness and increased our desire to continue moving forward on this path: a path of respect, integration, support, and justice.
Transformation is a good idea of Poveda that that we want to recreate: Transform mentalities and behaviors, priorities and those who want to be first to be last and the last be first.
We experience divine human and paths intertwined, stories of light that give meaning to our history and the history of our Teresian Association in Linares and Jaen.
Juan Cózar Olmo, Proyecto Rajab-Jaén
Fotos: Fernando Marmol