the+owls

THE OWLS written by Domingos Santos -Agrupamento de Escolas da Junqueira, Portugal read in Italian Norvegian Turkish Estonian Irish Portuguese

A long, long time ago, in a far away galaxy, there was a planet inhabited by different species of animals that lived in distant kingdoms, each of them with their own language, customs and way of thinking. In this world of several and different kingdoms, despite the great technological development they all had reached - TV sets, mobile phones and internet- each kingdom lived closed in itself, separated by walls and closed doors, ignoring each other. One day, by chance – well, it hasn’t happened exactly like that, but that’s another story… six owls, from six distant countries met: the owl from the Estonium kingdom, the owl from the Irlandum kingdom, the owl from the Italium kingdom, the owl from the Noruegum kingdom, the owl from the Portucalum kingdom and the owl from the Turquium kingdom. Our heroes while talking about their own kingdoms realised that they didn’t know almost anything about one another. In spite of all the technology a wall of ignorance kept them apart. After giving a long thought, and as they couldn’t destroy the walls by themselves, they decided to open a window to allow communication between their kingdoms. There were some who said at once that those owls suffered from lack of air, but I am sure that they opened the window because of their well-known curiosity and never ending humanistic spirit – after all, owls are known to be the teachers of the kingdom. They set to work. They asked other owl teachers for help. They involved their pupils and, with the energy that only the heart can produce, they opened an enormous window from where one could see each other and slowly, with snail patience, they traded fingers, words, smiles, pictures, experiences, sunflowers, mixing theirs alphabets, their souls, their cultures, finding complicities, discovering how much they looked alike despite the distorting mirror of difference. And, since then, their world has never been the same. Mo **ral of the story, to change the world you only need half a dozen of dreaming owls and… a window.**