Callaloo Instituto de Magia
Callaloo is an interspecies, nomadic school that enrolls students from across the Circum-Caribbean. The school alerts students of their enrollment and required school gear through Calypso Conches, which usually arrive early in the morning and awaken prospective students with a blaring horn before it diminuendos into a whimsical Calypso melody. Each conch is unique to each student and they are meant to be kept through a students' whole academic career to help Callaloo staff keep track of them and to help them communicate with their professors and peers. They are nearly impossible to lose, and students often keep them after graduating.
Academics
Callaloo offers courses in:
- Restorative Ecology (related to Transfiguartion and Herbology)
- Mutualism & Symbiosis (related to Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology)
- Craftsmanship & Artistry (related to Artificers, Alchemy and Potions)
- Ritual Arts (Mixed Martial Arts/Dance/Music related to DADA and Charms)
- Cosmology & Astrometry (related to Astronomy, Arithmancy and Divination)
- Vibing (a form of research, divination and knowledge production/reproduction)
- Fair Trade & Cultural Exchange (related to History of Magic)
- Gyrationology (involves controlling inertia/momentum and mastering spatial coordination. Related to Flying Lessons, Arithmancy and Apparition)
- Evolution of Semiotics (Typically involves language classes, magical Psycholinguistics, and biolinguistics. Can branch off into Occlumency/Legilimency. Related to Ancient Runes and History of Magic)
Callaloo also offers many extracurriculars, but it is notorious for having two seemingly contradictory, extracurriculars called Fêtes and Fiends. Fêtes is mainly focused on organizing celebrations, holidays, events, and ceremonies catered towards the cultural diversity of the Callaloo student body and geared towards uplifting spirits. While westerners simplify Fiends as teaching dark arts and muggle-baiting, it is actually the magical equivalent of the "forest guardians" of the northern Ka’apor people and the southeastern Kayapo Warriors. Students can enroll as first years, but only participate in their later years after passing an exam that demonstrates that they can destroy the property of and engage in psychological warfare with illegal loggers/poachers without ever being seen.
References
"Callaloo was nomadic and travel, lessons, and etc were sustained by a minimal amount of magical tools and a give-and-take with local resources. It allowed them to learn how to play to each other's strengths and weaknesses, how to conduct interspecies lessons, how to manage ecological resources, and how to facilitate cultural exchanges between the magical and non-magical mish mash of Circum-Caribbean cultures. Second, the social, political and economic isolation of Callaloo, and of the cultures they interacted with, meant their conflicts had never developed into a muggle/magic dichotomy.
Their grief came from the Western World.
Specifically, how both the mundane and magical Western World would exploit land, cultures, and resources, during almost every moment of every day… and so they were always in some sort of survival mode." - Naomi Foley in Gon' Clear a Way for Meh Self
Alumni
- Naomi Foley spent half her fourth year and all her fifth year at Callaloo
- Much of The Afamdi Family
