{"id":4714,"date":"2017-10-30T09:10:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-30T07:10:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2019-01-29T12:39:51","modified_gmt":"2019-01-29T10:39:51","slug":"patricia","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/faces-stories\/patricia\/","title":{"rendered":"Patricia"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"Patricia\"
Patricia (Cameroon)<\/em>, 2017,\u00a0Gicl\u00e9e fine art print, 120 x 180 cm<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Patricia<\/strong>
\n34 years old<\/strong>
\nCameroon<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I come from\u00a0Cameroon.\u00a0Through Turkey, I\u00a0arrived\u00a0in Lesvos, where I stayed for three weeks, and for the\u00a0last four months I\u2019ve been living in Athens.\u00a0I like being here because I feel I have\u00a0more\u00a0options\u00a0and more freedom. I believe that things will get even better for me when I learn the language and can communicate,\u00a0and\u00a0eventually\u00a0be able to work.<\/p>\n

I have a strong desire to make it here and that\u2019s why I started Greek language courses. I am aware that\u00a0things will not be easy\u00a0and I believe this is not\u00a0[just]\u00a0about Greece.\u00a0In any European country, it would have been difficult at first.\u00a0Anyway,\u00a0every new beginning has its difficulties.\u00a0In my\u00a0country,\u00a0I couldn\u2019t express myself freely,\u00a0but\u00a0from the moment I set\u00a0foot in Greece,\u00a0I felt positive, and I decided to stay here.\u00a0In my life I have learned how to fight\u00a0and\u00a0I know that sometimes you need to struggle, even against yourself, to achieve what you want.\u00a0I will do the same now, and I think everything will turn out well\u00a0in the\u00a0end.<\/p>\n

Already,\u00a0with the help of a psychologist who\u2019s supporting me, I\u2019ve managed\u00a0to fill my days with activities and learning new things.\u00a0This is very important because it gives me strength.\u00a0My day starts early in the morning, at home. After praying, I have breakfast, listen to music and study\u00a0Greek.\u00a0Then, depending on my schedule for the day, I go to the Museum for the programme I participate in, do the Greek course,\u00a0and in the evening I\u2019m free to take a walk or go back home and continue studying Greek.\u00a0Soon I will start going to the gym, too.\u00a0That’s how I\u2019ve organized my everyday life.<\/p>\n

Although I had never visited a museum before and I had no previous contact with art, the projects and the discussions at the Museum1<\/sup> created strong emotions and gave me the opportunity to\u00a0focus\u00a0on issues that concern me a lot.\u00a0I kept thinking about them even after I got home.\u00a0I saw in them pieces of myself, pieces of my life.<\/p>\n

For example, Vlassis\u00a0Caniaris\u2019\u00a0work, Hopscotch,<\/em>\u00a0which is about a game we\u00a0used to play in Africa, too\u2014mainly girls, not boys.\u00a0Through\u00a0it,\u00a0the artist wants to show that he feels like a stranger in a foreign country.\u00a0It shows human figures who are tired and worn out, with their suitcases by their side, struggling to start their lives again.\u00a0The\u00a0same\u00a0thing happens in the game hopscotch, where you need to make an effort to move from one square to another\u00a0\u2013 you have to try your best to win.<\/p>\n

Kimsooja\u2019s Bottari<\/em> reminded me of the boats we all started out in when we left Turkey for Greece.\u00a0The Raft<\/em> by\u00a0Bill\u00a0Viola brought\u00a0to mind the\u00a0time we got\u00a0ashore;\u00a0we left the inflatable and were so happy we all cried. \u00a0It is a very powerful feeling, hard to describe.\u00a0It is the moment when you become aware of your own existence and how close to death you can be at any moment.\u00a0But once we\u00a0set foot on\u00a0land,\u00a0we had already had our first victory\u2014a victory over death. I saw something\u00a0like that\u00a0happening in\u00a0Viola’s\u00a0work,\u00a0when all these different people, who were standing together in the same space, were suddenly hit by a jet of water.\u00a0I saw it as a divine intervention, a threat, a shock sent\u00a0by\u00a0God, after which\u00a0the people realized they needed to come together to better face the danger.\u00a0We, too, faced this danger in the boat in the rough sea, when we all tried to save ourselves.<\/p>\n

What we experienced was a transition from dark to light.\u00a0This is what Mona\u00a0Hatoum\u2019s work\u00a0Fix<\/em>\u00a0It<\/em> made me think.\u00a0Light always symbolizes life, regeneration.\u00a0When light lights up in this space with the old, rusty objects, it resembles the moment you turn back to light, you find yourself after a deeply thoughtful or difficult phase of your life when you have sunk in the dark.<\/p>\n

But\u00a0the work\u00a0that influenced me\u00a0most\u00a0of all is\u00a0Heart<\/em>\u00a0in<\/em>\u00a0Heart<\/em>\u00a0by\u00a0Yael\u00a0Kanarek,\u00a0which looks like a wedding dress hanging from\u00a0hooks.\u00a0There is something\u00a0hard\u00a0and\u00a0violent about it,\u00a0far from gentle, cheerful and pleasant.\u00a0When I learned that the love letters of two people living apart from each other are written on the ribbons, my thoughts immediately travelled to my relationship, to my girlfriend who stayed back.\u00a0It is the\u00a0first time I\u2019ve had a relationship from a distance and I can see how painful it is.\u00a0We think about each other, we communicate\u00a0through social media.\u00a0But as\u00a0time goes by, I feel despair, because I see that, in fact, there can be no relationship.\u00a0When you live with your partner, however difficult it is sometimes and whatever problems there are, you have the chance to face them.\u00a0When you are\u00a0apart,\u00a0the problem is permanent.\u00a0I do not know who invented\u00a0love,\u00a0but it is the hardest thing\u00a0on\u00a0earth.\u00a0In Cameroon they say that\u00a0“love\u00a0is a\u00a0fool.”\u00a0It causes\u00a0problems, it upsets you, it can even hurt you, while the beautiful\u00a0moments\u00a0are\u00a0few.\u00a0Who hasn\u2019t cried over it?\u00a0 I do, often.\u00a0In order not to think about her,\u00a0I try to fill my time with activities or housework.\u00a0And that takes my mind off things.<\/p>\n

Although thinking about all this made me cry, in the end I felt positive.\u00a0I was even keener to work, earn money and be able to go for a few days to see my girlfriend and then return to Greece.<\/p>\n

I know that when we ask something from God with all our might, He will give it to us.\u00a0And I still know that happiness is always within us and God sends it to us.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1\u00a0<\/sup>Refers to the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens.<\/p>\n

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Audio Files<\/strong><\/h5>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″][vc_column_text]\u0395\u03bb\u03bb\u03b7\u03bd\u03b9\u03ba\u03ac<\/p>\n

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English<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/mp3\/Patricia-E.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/mp3\/Patricia-A.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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\u0641\u0627\u0631\u0633\u06cc<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/mp3\/Patricia-F.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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[vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/2″]Slovensk\u00fd<\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/wp-content\/uploads\/mp3\/Patricia_34_Kamerun.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

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[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1511022388651{margin-top: 30px !important;}”][vc_column][vc_column_text] Patricia 34 years old Cameroon I come from\u00a0Cameroon.\u00a0Through Turkey, I\u00a0arrived\u00a0in Lesvos, where I stayed for three weeks, and for the\u00a0last four months I\u2019ve been living in Athens.\u00a0I like being here because I feel I have\u00a0more\u00a0options\u00a0and more freedom. I believe that things will get even better for me when I learn the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":18,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4714","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4714\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7975,"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4714\/revisions\/7975"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/18"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.faceforward.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}