Re-thinking Interculturalism: The Aleppo Pine
First we stop at Mile End, quickly followed by Fleur de Lys, then Warda. My mind wanders and I only just catch the automated whisper faintly call out Carmel, Qali and Saqqajja. We’re nearly there. I’m encapsulated by how British the road-signs look as we begin to pull into Mdina — only 20 minutes away from where we started but already over halfway across the island. Being so close, it’s no wonder I can still hear the ring of the carnival pound its way out of the undulating streets of Valletta, past the thick city walls and across the valley — an active reminder that it’s far from reaching its pinnacle, even after three days of intense celebration.
Slowly the dull thud of house music is replaced by an indistinguishable mumbling which seems to wrap itself around the bus just as I arrive. Stepping out onto the street, the acute heat sharpens the muffled conversation into distinct excerpts of Italian, Spanish, French, Arabic, English, German and Greek, the fusion of which resembles something not too dissimilar to Maltese. After a brief meander, I find myself as part of the rippling crowd flowing through the city gates. I know better than not to go with the flow, and so I willingly shuffle through the threshold in awe — watching and listening intently as the sights and sounds the of outside are replicated and reflected against the increasingly textured limestone within. The pastel shutters, mosaic murals, idiosyncratic balconies, blue sky and inviting doorways with their ornate handles look all the more beautiful encased in these aged frames of dappled stone. Such a confluence of culture is too fragrant to ignore, and as I breathe it in I’m immediately transported back to the SIETAR conference in Valetta two days previously.
“It’s way better than Lancaster” I find myself saying without realising — the high, curved-ceilings and large, basking windows of the University of Malta too vast to ignore. The sunlight seems to soak each room; saturating its marigold walls and cadmium green carpets, leaving them luminous with an expectant glow that demands excitement from myself and the other volunteers. Never before has a tech-check been so exhilarating! Strolling between rooms, languishing in the classical precision of a series of sculptures seemingly nonchalantly placed, I scroll once more through the list of presentations. A particularly relevant title catches my eye, then another, and another — and once again I find myself opening reams of tabs to research the presenters and their topics, overjoyed that I might meet these people yet somewhat saddened I’ll only be able to see those in action who have the good fortune of presenting in my room.
“Are you going for lunch?” asks one of the other volunteers through a beaming smile, softly bringing me back to the task at hand. I can’t help but smile back. Now a group of about 12, we leave the former 14th century Jesuit College, passing by its Renaissance courtyard flooded in light to exit through the shaded back-entrance onto Merchants Street. Filtering into the crowd, we meld with the street and become another component to compliment its sporadically placed gift-shops, cafés boasting the best pastizzi and dense thickets of outdoor seating. One-by-one we bifurcate away from the central stream of people, diffusing into various cobbled offshoots that take us back to our homes.
Now the morning, the sun hauls itself over the fortress walls to rest atop one of the cathedral domes, tickling the terrace of my Airbnb in a delicate light that seems so fragile that it might shatter the day back into night. Yet this delicacy is not overlooked, and the fluid game of football taking place on the rooftop pitch of a school across the street ripples with the sound of youthful giggling, something I find myself doing as I sip my coffee and consider what might be in-store for the first day of the conference.
There appears to be no start or end to the day as memories fuse with expectations and I find myself simultaneously still sat on the terrace, peacefully eating my breakfast, whilst also hunched over a computer desk beginning zoom recordings, adjusting camera angles and forgetting to remind the presenters of how long they have left. Not only do the hours begin to meld, but the days find themselves intertwined, too — and now I’m on the terrace, at the conference and having dinner with the other volunteers, now my friends, all at once. But there’s nothing cogent about these moments. All that remains are bright, fleeting explosions of clarity flickering between deeper memories in red, all of which I find myself desperate to bind together. Gazing upwards towards such a vast constellation of ideas without knowing what links them fills me with joy and as I search for their links, cycling through the various abstract shapes they create, the myriad questions from the conference begin to take shape, too.
What is interculturalism? Why is it important? What is its history? How do its various fields interrelate? What is the best way of teaching this content? Who’s qualified? Who decides who’s qualified? Are we sure where we are now is the best place we could be? If not, why and what can we do? If so, what’s next? And, even if we can answer all of these questions, do we agree with one another? Whether we do or we don’t, how do we articulate our positions?
And something clicks. I can’t quite articulate what has changed, but as this train of thought with its carriages jammed with questions spirals off into the distance, I feel a distinct looseness in my body — a disinterestedness that shudders through my shoulders and causes my face to go slack. I’m back in Mdina, alone, facing an Aleppo Pine tree and I’m reminded of the familiar oak trees back in the UK. I can’t help myself, and so I run my hand along the undulating bark of its trunk, and despite how far away I am from the rolling fields of suburban Manchester with its stoic, solitary trees, I see the image of home in its contours and feel a sense of familiarity in how my fingers trace its patterns.
What seems to stick isn’t the specific lessons from any of the presentations, the conversations with friends or city-facts pasted on the tourist-boards around Malta. Rather, the art of facilitating exchange that can lead to reciprocal self-reflection rings powerfully in my ears and takes definite form amongst the disparate stars in my mind. I’m sad to be leaving but glad to be going home — and especially thankful that I came. Because between these clear points of contradiction sits a nascent energy that I’m excited to bring back to my own community, and that I know I can access whenever I find the small of my back pressed against an oak tree, imagining the cool shadow I sit within to be that of the Aleppo Pine.
