Safari Summer Gathering For Mixed Families And Friends – Aug 2020
The last days of summer couldn´t be celebrated any better than by bringing together children and their parents in a beautiful Sad Janka Kráľa. The weather was very generous despite unfavorable forecasts, just perfect for the Safari picnic in nature. Families started to gather slowly around 3 pm when the ASU team had already prepared everything for the party to get started: great music, lot of tasty snacks and treats, face painting, but most importantly- love and chilled atmosphere and the desire to build a strong Afro-Slovak community from its very grassroots- the kids.
Through different activities like face painting, story-telling, dancing and, of course, snacking, kids had a chance to meet their young fellows while the adults enjoyed some chit-chatting with alike mixed parents. Soon enough, the meadow teemed with butterflies, monkeys and lions playing football, dancing to catchy African beats or just nibbling on the snacks. Eventually, when they got tired, they closely listened to the story of Simba roaming around the African savanna. In the meantime, those smaller ones were comfortably seated in the strollers or gently soothed in their parents´ arms. Yet there were some naughty ones, who couldn´t rest a minute. Just like the small boy who flipped over a bowl full of colorful rice nibbles, which spread all over the place.
Thinking about it later, it was actually a perfect metaphor for the picnic itself: we are all different, but we belong to the same bowl. No matter how cliché it might be, children are our future in every aspect. At our picnic last Saturday of this summer, the future unfolded in front of our eyes: the color was not important, togetherness and acceptance were much more. Seeing those playful kids with a smile on their painted faces, it was a great reminder of this. ASU wants to build, support and sustain the culture of acceptance in Slovakia.
The Safari picnic assured us that bringing mixed families together was a great idea of how to do that. Not having those annoying mosquitoes all around us, we would have stayed much longer! 😊
