Regards croisés Saint-Denis – Delhi

Petit voyage à la découverte de l’Inde et regards croisés Saint-Denis – Delhi : Une rencontre vers l’ailleurs et un parcours citoyen.

Apprendre les langues en apprenant à se connaître, cuisiner ensemble, danser, chanter, échanger en classe ou au micro le temps d’une émission radio. C’est le voyage avant le voyage. Un voyage qui se construit et qui se partage.

Retour en image sur les moments partagés au lycée avec tous, en musique, sur scène avec une clique d’artistes indiens et dionysiens, le rappeur El Deterr, labellisé Franc-Moisin, DJ OffMike Jazzefiq. Un voyage musical avec le guitariste touareg d’Hamawassa du collecif Désert rebel. Des rencontres en atelier aussi, où ensemble nous avons écrit, composé une chanson, cuisiné, appris à danser. Namaste India !

Un coup d’oreille sur la chanson ici : https://soundcloud.com/user-833985177/white-lies-2nde-9

Côté cuisine, nous avons balladé nos épices un peu partout, Garden Party organisée au Centre Socio-culturel collaboratif de Saint-Denis, voyage culinaire à l’Adada dans le cadre d’une exposition photo croisée organisée avec le photographe voyageur dionysien Yvan Loiseau, échanges en radio-conférence et partage des mémoires de nos territoires. Regards croisés sur l’industrialisation de banlieue à banlieue : Saint-Denis / Delhi.

Un petit coup d’œil sur les premières pages du carnet de voyage et de rencontres en texte et en image. A suivre sur le blog « India » des élèves. Je laisse la parole aux élèves, in English of course !

Step 1 :

Back to the beginning ! Ready ?

We met our SBOA penpals from India in class in May last year with Indian teacher Christine and her class. Ice-breaking games were a good start to get to know each other. The teachers organized some kind of “speed dating” activity and it was fun !

Together we made a radio show to cross views over industrialization in Chennai and in Saint-Denis and to understand the history of immigration and industrialization in the suburb in India and in Saint-Denis.

In the backstage of industrialization and modernity, we discovered the reality of childlabour and misery in India. Even if the situation and children’s rights are changing fast, there is still a lot that needs to be done to protect children. We discussed it in a radio debate that we recorded in class.

We discovered about each other’s country. We discovered the reality, for example about child labour. The law is changing and children ‘s rights are changing too. Good news ! But still, there is a lie about children’s situation in India because there is a lot of poverty.

So together we decided to write and sing a song to denounce white lies, to denounce the exploitation of children by big companies, to denounce poverty. This is a protest song and this is our protest. This is also the beginning of a great adventure because we want to go to India to finish up the song and shoot a video clip together !

Step 2 :

Exchange program with Jaipuria school and Gateway high school this year :

Jaipuria school students arrived on Monday September 23^rd. We organized a welcome party at l’Adada, with French photographer from Saint-Denis Yvan Loiseau who travelled the Seine-Saint-Denis for 3 months with his camera and photographed people’s daily life. Like Yvan Loiseau did during his Seine-Saint-Denis tour, we cooked for our guests. We spent the whole weekend cooking and also organizing a treasure hunt (the making of the treasure hunt is a story inside the story !). Namaste India !

They spent the whole week with us. This was great because we got time to spend school time together and extra-school time as well. We made them visit Saint-Denis and the Stade de France. They also went to Paris to see Mona Lisa at the Louvres. Because when we went to the museum of history of Saint-Denis together to tell them about the history of French kings, they thought they would see Mona Lisa. Instead they discovered historical paintings telling about the history of Saint-Denis and very old objects that belonged to kings and queens who used to be sacred in Saint-Denis. They also visited the Eiffel Tower and we went to Montmartre together at night for the view on Paris by night. They bought a lot of souvenirs and we ate a lot of candies together.

The next day was a long day because we had to prepare Suger’s big Bollywood day. We spent the entire day together with our Indian partners to get our Bollywood party ready. We were at Le 110 (socio-cultural center) in Saint-Denis and organized a garden Party to share with the people of Saint-Denis. We were split in several groups and attended workshops to cook together, to learn the basics about DJ-ing, to prepare the show… Busy day for all of us ! Great party, singing and dancing.

Indians had a very tight schedule because we organized school activities, outdoor workshop (the graf workshop was cancelled because of the rain. Too bad because we were supposed to build and graf our names on a brick wall together). Only one week to get that entire social experience of France. Not enough…

On Friday 27^th was the big Day. Bollywood day in Suger. But we also scraped behind the surface of that Bollywood dream. We watched 2 movies together “The Lion” and “Slumdog Millionaire” to cross views over real life in our countries. We debated upon the crossed issues of immigration and industrialization in the suburbs of France and India.

We prepared a radio show together to cross views on our 2 speed countries.

We cooked together for the party during the cooking workshop and we learnt how to use spices and how to cook Indian special dishes. Indian food is very spicy !And of course, we sung and danced on stage.