You speak, we listen

Charles Correa asked in his lecture the question: "what could I do to interfere in order to get a better understanding?" A better understanding depends on what has to be understand, in this case the people of Transit Camp because they ARE Transit Camp.But why should the people give the information we need if they get nothing in return? With a dictated method to extract the information we want to have, leaving no space or choice to the sources what they actually want to say. No matter if their information contributes to a better understanding or not; just the possibility to tell what they want to tell you. In our way, we wanted to give something back.Promises cannot be made, since they deceive; money cannot be given since we are not fortunate enough and might endanger the possibility to work for next researchers . Left alone the reactions they could evoke. All the time, we asked the habitants specific questions to get a certain information and knowledge. Now we would just listen what they want to say to us, without any goal or method behind. The people would decide in their way if they want and what they want to tell us. By just listening you empower the people, creating a base to be trusted and therefore willing to share the information required to understand Transit Camp. In the morning, with a big colourfull box, we walked into the little streets to see if people wanted to say, to share something. Lots of children made drawings. Some older people gave us little notes. We invited them to come later in the afternoon to the covered public space on Mahatma Ghandi road for a exposition and a little snack. To see their nagar framed with our eyes and camera's and read what the other habitants wanted to share. In the public space, that is frequently used for parties and weddings etc, we prepared our exhibition of Transit Camp. More then 200 colour pictures were hanged on the green walls of the space. In a part, we bound big white cardboards to give the people the opportunity to react on each other and on our intervention. Just a little bit before 5 pm. the children were squased against the fences of the public space, begging when they could enter.Finally, we opened the fences, and a real stampede of screaming children run into the space, directly occupying the white boards. We never expected so many children, so we had to buy more paper and crayons. Within their enthusiasm, little frustrations and aggressions towards other children appeared. Some started to fight over paper and crayons. The distribution of the materials didn't work out properly, since the children were unable to create a line and wait for their turn. Meanwhile, older people came in to see the pictures we took from their area. With attention they watched the photos, and we really wanted to know what they thought about them, but we coulnd't of course.If they wanted, they could approach us, or write something down, what didn't happen. And that is their right.