Vencedores: Língua Estrangeira - Escalão A - 1.º Prémio

Maps and Connections 

On one of the library walls at school, there was a world map. Most students passed it by without a second glance. To many it was just a map with different colours separating countries, but for teacher Helena that map told stories.

One day, she asked the students to stand up and gather around the map.
“I want each of you to place a pin on the country where your family comes from”, she said.
Some students laughed. “ But we’re all from here”, someone replied.
The teacher smiled. “Are you sure?”

The first to step forward was Omar. He places his pin on Syria. 
“My grandfather was born here,” he explained.

Then came Sofia.  
“My family came from Cabo Verde.”

Right after her, Miguel stepped up and placed a pin on Brazil.
 “My mother was born in Brazil.”

The map began to be filled increasingly with dots: Angola, Ukraine, France, India, Mozambique...

Sara watched it in silence. She had never thought about it. She had always believed her story started and ended right there, in that city.
“And you Sara?”, the teacher asked.

She approached the map slowly.
“I...I don’t know where to put it.”

“Think for a moment”, the teacher said.

Sara looked at the pins scattered across the globe. She thought about the food her grandmother cooked, the music her father listened to, and the different words some of her classmates used.

Suddenly, she realized something.
She took a pin... and placed it right in the centre of the map.

Laughter... “That’s not a country”, some of her classmates remarked. 
But teacher Helena smiled. “Perhaps it is the most important place of all.”

Sara turned to the class.
“My story doesn’t just come from one place”, she uttered. “It comes from all the people I know, from all the stories I listen to, and from everything we learn from one another.”

The library fell silent.

The teacher examined the map again, now covered in pins.
“Don’t you see?  The world seems divided into many countries. But in truth, our stories are all connected.”

That day, the students understood something that no book had ever explained quite so well:
There are borders on the maps.
But our stories cross borders.