Initiated and sponsored by Stiftungsgemeinschaft anstiftung & ertomis
Safia Safia, 45 years old, born in Egypt, lives in Germany since 1992.Her nature: determined, clear, wise, energetic and active, good sense of humour. Her goals: To work with your hands and with your heart Sometimes, when Safia comes into the garden, she brings homemade Egyptian cake along. This opens up the "ladies session" and leads to hours of tea, cake and extensive chatting. Obviously planting, weeding and harvesting are not the only events happening in the garden. During their debates many issues are brought up, which are then "ploughed back in". Safia wears a scarf and she has exact views on how a Muslim woman should appear in public. The fact that Safia covers her hair and wears long robes does not mean she is hiding herself. Far from it! She is self-confident, humorous and present – quite a strong character! Safia does not mind that other Muslim women do not wear the scarf. In her opinion, this decision should be made by every women herself. She has made her decision – resolute and straight-forward. How she discovered the garden? Safia who lives in Göttingen with her husband, an Egyptian author, and her two children started to – like many other immigrants – miss her garden from home. The active gardening and exchange with the earth, with which she had grown up and cultivated in Egypt, suddenly ceased to exist when they moved to Germany. Not surprisingly, she applied for a parcel of land in the International gardens in Göttingen. To the question, what meaning the garden has for her, she answers: "In my home country we say, we come from the earth and we will return to earth. All life-forms are born out of the earth. When I was a child my dad forbid us to walk on the green space, wearing shoes. He said: 'Where something grows, the ground is holy'. We had to respect the plants. That is why I love working in the garden. With my hands and with my heart." |