Coffee in Prague

In early December 2023 I was running a workshop in Prague for Ukrainians who had been forced to flee because of the full-scale Russian invasion of their country, and who were now living in other European countries. The students I was teaching were learning about how to tackle disinformation and propaganda, and how to develop effective communications strategies to encourage people in their new countries of residence to continue to provide protection and support for Ukraine and Ukrainians as the war moves toward its third year. 

This recording - of coffees being made and some chit-chat during the coffee break - highlights that despite all of the horrors of the war, the violence and the geopolitical wranglings that make the headlines, there is a mundanity and ordinariness to the refugee experience. 

The immediate moments of crisis are occasional, but displacement becomes normality - part of who a person is - and each little part of everyday life from waking in the morning to reading the news, to speaking to family, friends and colleagues to having a coffee at a training event is shaped to a greater or a lesser extent by the long tail of that crisis. 

Recorded by Rob McNeil.

Part of the Migration Sounds project, the world’s first collection of the sounds of human migration. 

For more information and to explore the project, see https://www.citiesandmemory.com/migration