Freire y Ondjango: diálogos con la experiencia vital del mundo angoleño

This text seeks to approach two essential perspectives for thinking about the modern world, based on dialogue as a central reference: one, present in the ideas of Paulo Freire, through circles of culture, and the other, based on African/Angolan culture, through ondjango. Ondjango, in the Umbundu language/culture of southern Angola, is a compound word created by combining ondjo (‘house’) and ohango (‘conversation’); that is, «house of conversation». Ondjo –meaning «house, residence, home»– is the place where life goes on, so it is the place where men can meet to deal with matters of common interest. Ohango is considered to be dialogue or serious conversation between two or more people considered equals, mediated by a man (the oldest, with recognised experience of life). This dialogue occurs in a circular system, like a round table, ondjango or circles of culture. With Freire, Lukamba, Nunes and Altuna, we highlight the possibility of dialogue between two perspectives on life –the Freirian and the ondjangian– looking at both the area of life, and the area of school, always facing the task of reading the world and reading the word from the most central human perspective: that of life. With this reflection we seek to meet the challenge of discussing the course of human life as a cultural construction beginning with education.