New Statesman – “It breaks down barriers”: The museum that moved into a south London shopping centre (27/02/2020)
A New Statesman feature on the Migration Museum’s move to Lewisham Shopping Centre and our ongoing search for a permanent home.
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Nezhia Ankach
Reading coffee grounds is a tradition from my country, Cyprus. We used to call out of the window in the mornings before breakfast and take it in turns to gather round in each other’s houses. Now we get together here and it’s become a daily ritual again. We always use white Turkish coffee cups like this one, as the coffee patterns have to show up clearly. After we drink the coffee, we swirl the liquid round and flip the coffee cup into the saucer and leave it for a few minutes so that the sediment slides down and makes the final pattern. Aliya read the grounds for me in this cup. She told me I was going to get some happy news and that I was going on a plane journey soon.
Norma Seale-McConnie
I left Barbados in 1958 on the Surriento, an Italian migrant passenger liner. As I was boarding the ship, my grandmother gave me an embroidered handkerchief with something wrapped inside. She told me not to open it until I arrived in the mother country. I opened the little bundle on the train to Victoria and found this penny inside. I laughed because she had said to me that I would always have money! I’ve kept it in my purse ever since then, and this is the first time it’s left my hands in fifty-eight years.
Omer
I use prayer beads every day, all the time when I can and when I feel like it. Not only in the mosque but also on the bus, at home and at work. These actually belong to my brother but we share everything as what belongs to him belongs to me. We are family.