Atsiliepimai: Eglė, Lietuva
Ash in the sky and IPTA in London
(Eglė Paužienė, Lietuva)
We were very lucky to have possibility to come to London one day before…
In the middle of the next day we get message that out Irish colleagues can not come because of the ash in the sky! Volcano in Island had erupted and caused so many changes in the people’s lives.
We were waiting for the evening with some anxious and worry. How it will be? If Helen and Sheila could come to London? If any flight can be open?
Even more… we couldn’t get in touch with our English colleagues. Alison and Amanda were out of connection. So, we had to trust just the destiny and go on… we went to the place where the first performance should happen – into the Lithuanian community centre in the East London.
And we were so happy to find there Amanda and Alison – to see them sitting on the sofa and drinking tea… Thanks a lot to our friend from London Lithuanian community for meeting our friends and hosting us!
It felt like coming home – into very cozy and friendly atmosphere, into the place where LT people coming time to time to meet each other and to stay together. We just arranged the Playback theatre space and wormed up for performance to meet stories…
We had touching feelings from audience about coming to London and being so poor at the start, but getting power to survive, to find the job and change the life… There were stories about coming to England without English speaking, about feeling alone and lost… About finding new home and strength… About sharing feelings and happiness…
The next day we were still waiting for the better news from the sky. But flights were canceled and our Irish friends couldn’t come for this evening as well.
Before performance in the Lithuanian restaurant we met Veronica Needa and asked her to join our International Playback Theatre Group for the evening. And we were so happy when she said “Yes!” She played together on the stage and we had deep stories there about differences in understanding of the age in England and Lithuania, about being happy with possibility to come to London and to stay here. We have heard carry and respect of Lithuanian people’s feelings when English lady talked about her concern of wearing Russian shoal and her choice not to wear it this evening in this international event…
There were feelings of worry connected to the terrorist attacks in Moscow and fear about it’s possible consequences for the close beloved people…
The ash tragedy didn’t finish with our performances. We felt it all the way home which was so difficult and scary.
Happy of arranging the microbus for taking us home we were even happier and very grateful to be invited to overnight at Veronica’s. We had perfect rest and wonderful breakfast and waited for our bus… we waited, waited and waited… It was Sunday evening already when it came to take us home. We started our long trip home…
Two days and two nights we were sitting in the bus and praying that our driver wouldn’t fell asleep driving… He had no sleep during all the trip and thanks God we came home safely… and tired…
And now thinking about the project activities and reflecting back we are grateful for our destiny to have the possibility to know from inside the real life of immigrants, the real troubles and worries. We could touch the feeling of waiting for coming home, trusting strange people in driving you though the Europe… And we are happy, that we don’t need to come back the same migration way as other Lithuanians do more and more often…
