After our general meltdown in the beginning of the week, we reflected a lot on our presence here. It’s interesting to see that sometimes you need such moments of distress, to focus on the essential. For me personally, after three weeks in this small provisional community, it needed that moment, to find out, what it means to be a small provisional community in this centre – it implies a lot of offers, it implies the setting of priorities, it implies constant change, constant welcome of situations and people. Talking briefly to the bishop, we concluded: “The people who live here, are in a certain way always forming a provisional community.” And we have the chance to be part of this for 5 weeks, and to maintain a constant presence in prayer. With resetting our priorities, and communicating them to the organization team of the École de la différence, we felt some sort of liberation. Our motivation to participate returned.
In some discussion rounds and guests we talked about Humanité plurielle (=plural humanity), Nouvelles formes d’esclavage (New forms of slavery) and Non violence active (active non-violence). It was nice to hear from the experiences of the guests, a priest caring about prisoners, an NGO giving information about HIV, a migrants couple living in Algeria, a peace movement of young Algerians… And above all, we enjoyed to exchange with the other participants as everyone of us brings his own experiences and is special and different in his way.
Visiting the „Grand Mosquée“ of Oran
Saturday morning we got a letter called “Une parole commune entre vous et nous” from Muslim authorities appealing to Christian leaders to recognize the common base of Islam and Christianity which are “Love of God and love of the neighbor” and to find therefore a peaceful and respectful way of communication. One of the questions was what it does mean to us and what activities we can do to live it in daily life. It became obvious that religion stays a sensitive topic because it touches the very own conviction of a believer; nevertheless we should always be aware of and respect “other truths” even if we cannot understand it. We thought that friendship could be the way to truly listen to each other. Together we can grow. That activity of the École de la difference was full with positive energy. There is joy, love and hope on our shoulders, and with that we go in the world today.
Yes, today… The École de la différence has finished and we will already leave for the next event: In Tlemcen, there will be a one-week Taizé meeting of the Christian students in Algeria. Another group was already gathered for the first session this week. Every year the Catholic Church organizes two weeks of Taizé-Tlemcen for the students which apparently is very similar to Taizé in France- the cleaning team meets at point five, people dance at the Oyak in the evening and everyone comes together for three prayers per day. Probably we won’t be able to be online the following week, but afterwards we will tell you everything about the “African Taizé”! May God be with you in this week!
Provisional Community in Algeria 