Meet Patel

“My name is Meet, I am 18 years old and I am from India. I speak five languages: Gujarati (my mother tongue) Hindi, English, German and Portuguese. I lived in Germany for four years until I moved to Portugal, where I have been for three years. I am studying in Odemira still in 9th grade, because of all the traveling and admission problems in schools. I live with my sister and my father, my mother is in Germany. We want to move back there when we get our Portuguese passports.”

Meet was part of the first year of the project. We met him at Damião Basic School in Odemira, in his 7th-grade class. He was a student with a broad worldview, passionate about meditation and his culture, with a strong desire to share it. He had the talent for communicating and capturing the attention of those who listened.

“People in Portugal are generally nice, but the teenagers can be difficult when meeting new people. I find that most of them are not curious about other countries. They are close-minded when it comes to sharing or learning about other cultures, different religious beliefs and ways of living.”

During the sessions at school, Meet shared stories from Indian sacred texts: the Bhagavad Gita and Mahabharata, repeating the phrase "This time will pass" as a motto to accept everything that happens in life, for better or worse.

“The biggest problem in schools is the lack of strategies and planning to integrate the migrant population. They don’t know how to receive you or guide you when you first arrive. You have to find out about everything on your own. I remember not being able to eat lunch at school for a while because no one explained that I had to get my ‘ticket’ for the canteen. The teachers are nice and happy to help if you ask them, but there should be an organized plan to receive all these new people. When you are new in a country you don’t know anything. There are so many migrants in this area that the establishments have to be prepared.”

When he joined the rehearsals he brought joy, strength, and maturity with him. In the performance, Meet danced, sang, gave Hindi lessons, and his words guided the beginning of our journey during three nights in São Teotónio, leading a collective meditation.

“BOWING was a very good experience that gave me a huge confidence boost. I had the chance to meet new people from different countries, make Portuguese friends as well as other friends from Asian countries. I never liked to dance much but I also did a bit of that, it was the hardest for me. I really enjoyed being able to teach others what I knew, like meditation practice. During that time I was meditating daily, which was helping me a lot in my life. You asked me if I could teach it to everyone during a rehearsal and then that became the beginning of the performance. It was very nice to teach it to all the participants but also to the public. I remember those three days, having 400 to 500 people meditating together and there was no noise, everybody was concentrated, listening to my words, curious to learn. I will never forget that. Another strong memory I keep is of the last night, when we were saying goodbye. It was one of the most nostalgic moments for me and I can’t forget it. I made good friends, a strong bond with a lot of people.”