Part of a series on my journalism faculty-led program through Italy and Greece. For privacy reasons, I've changed the name appearing in this post.
In Boy Scouts, we were always taught to Be Prepared. And I thought I had prepared for everything (first aid kit, flashlights, emergency food, etc.) before heading on this trip – that is, until I met Joshua. Joshua is a 17 year old refugee from Sierra Leone.
By his own account, Joshua was a slave. He “worked” for a man who did not pay him. He was just given food, and only once something broke or tore was he given a replacement. He did all the work, but reaped none of the benefits.
Joshua ran away, traveled 150 kilometers on foot, and then worked odd jobs to get rides to cover the rest of the distance. While in the desert, he said some of his friends were bitten by animals and died. He now stays in a center in Italy with other unaccompanied minor boy refugees, living a typical teenage life.
He unsuccessfully tried out for the nearby club soccer team, but was happy for his three friends that made it. Since they’re not adults yet, the boys are required to go to school, and are taken care of by a house-mother who runs the center.
Joshua’s English is better than his Italian these days – he listens to American music, and likes Selena Gomez, but doesn’t care much for Taylor Swift.
But just when you think he might be a normal teenager, you notice the pain in his voice that sets him apart. Joshua looked at us if we were crazy when we asked him if he ever skipped school – he quickly said he wasn’t going to waste any opportunity given to him, especially school.
Since he’ll be an adult soon, Joshua told us he wanted to be a painter. At first we thought he wanted to follow in the footsteps of famous Italian painters like Da Vinci or Michelangelo, but he meant something else entirely.
Joshua wants to paint buildings, like general contractor might. He started to explain to us the different types of stucco and how he would paint them.
We asked if Joshua had any higher aspirations or a dream job, to which he had a simple response: “I will take any job that I can get.”
He credits God with keeping an eye out for him, and is a devout Christian. He attends Church every Sunday, and even joked that it’s just him and “old people”.
But Joshua said that he knows he cannot expect God to provide everything for him – he needs to continue to work hard and take advantage of what’s given to him. He has his official refugee papers, which should make it easier for him to stay in the country and get a job.
Despite all the help and support he’s received in Italy, for which he said he is extremely grateful, he wants to eventually go somewhere else. You see, when we first introduced ourselves and told him we were from California, his face lit up, and he immediately exclaimed, “America! The best country on Earth!”
I did not want to crush his dreams, nor lie to him, so I kept quiet. But that, that was when my heart broke.
Part of a series on my journalism faculty-led program through Italy and Greece.
It's day 5, I did not expect to be this tired, so quickly. I think I'm missing the siesta time that I'm supposed to get in Italy. But, I'm also having a blast, and at least trying to take every opportunity to explore / learn things. It feels waaaay longer than 5 days.
Today we started out heading to the university, saw some awesome street art (I'm going to be doing a "photo essay" on what we've seen so far) on the way there, and then double backed to get a few photos.
We walked a bit around the port and docks area, picking up b-roll and talking to some people. We went up to the tents where migrants are brought to after getting off the boat that brings them in. To be honest, it was pretty underwhelming.
We had lunch at a nice panini place, drank some Fanta, and then headed back to the hotel to start putting together our assignments. I think our group has started to get into rhythm - I do the writing parts, another person does images, and the last does the photos (generally, it's more nuanced than that in reality), and then we all edit each other's stuff. So far it seems to be working.
There's a bigger meta question starting to loom over my head now: if this is what real reporting work is like, do I want to do this as a career? To which my answer is still the same so far: "Maybe." I think I need more time to make a decision.
Part of a series on my journalism faculty-led program through Italy and Greece.
Today we went out onto the streets and started looking for people to talk to. Ideally we were looking for people to talk to us on video, but we knew that everyone would not be comfortable with that.
We have two interviews planned for later this week, which should hopefully give us some good content. We struck out a few times when people said no to us - but after we stopped trying, that's when we got the good stuff.
We started to give up and just shoot some b-roll so the day would not be a full failure, when one of the musicians in the University square walked in front of our camera and started playing for a full minute.
And then when we went to lunch, we found an empty pizzaria, ordered, and noticed that the chef was making the pizzas right in front of us. We quickly set up the tripod and started recording. And after we finished and paid, we asked if he'd be willing to do a quick interview, and his son translated for us. All of his responses are in Italian so we're going to have to translate and subtitle them before being able to publish it.
Later in the day we went to Siracusa and Noto for some touristy activities. Both were just incredible. Every time I go and see anything that old, the question in my head always is "What have I done that will last that long?"
My favorite place was the Ear of Dionysius. We played some music (Shake It Off of course) to try and get the acoustics to work, but couldn't. I don't think my phone speaker was loud enough to get it started. It was at this point that other people in my group were disapointed by the guidebook they paid a few euros for, while the Wikipedia articles I was reading had answers to all of their questions. Yay for free knowledge :-)
On Mastodon (h/t Greg) I saw that the Italian Minister of the Interior had called for the registration of all Roma people in Italy, which really saddened me. Coincidentally, tomorrow is the World Refugee Day, and we'll be going to some event for that.
Part of a series on my journalism faculty-led program through Italy and Greece.
Today we travelled to a few mountain (relatively) towns in Sicily. Ignoring some of the tourist-y stuff, it really reminded me of Esino Lario. The streets, buildings, and elevation gain were all pretty similar.
I got to do a bit of hiking (and just get out of the tourist trap!) when we climbed up a few hundred steps to the top of a peak where there was a monastary (I think, OpenStreetMap wasn't very clear). The view was beautiful, and the hike was totally worth it. We were only two minutes late meeting up with the group - mostly because we saw a lemon tree and were trying to figure out how to grab one even though the tree was three feet above us (we never did in the end).
We had lunch at a, um, interesting restaurant. I'll leave it at that. The food was great, I love trying out all the different types of pizza here. The crust seemed a lot thicker than the pizzas I had in Rome though.
We walked through a few more towns, and even though our van driver was acting as our tour guide, I had fun trying to read the Italian Wikipedia articles for churches and monuments we saw. Spoiler alert: I just looked at the pictures, I didn't understand 95% of the words.
Oh, and the bar in Godfather 2, and the church they got married? We visited both of those. There was a small statue honoring Francis Ford Coppola, which I submitted to OpenStreetMap.
At the end of the day, we went back to Catania and had dinner at an Irish Pub. Coincidentally, England was playing in the World Cup at that time - it was a nail biter to watch until the very end.
Tomorrow we will be going out into Catania and getting interviews and gathering other source material to use in our video assignments.
Part of a series on my journalism faculty-led program through Italy and Greece.
Today was just a travel day - we're now in Catania, Sicily. It feels like Italy, but a lot more laid back than Rome. I think I would be pretty laid back too if I lived on an Island.
Our plane was named after Mozart? Neat.
Since most of our day was taken up by traveling, moving hotels, etc., we didn't have any specific class events today, so a few of us went out exploring after dinner. We walked through most of the tourist areas, and came to the square with the historical buildings of the University of Catania. There were some collaborative art projects happening, as well as one where it looked like people were just staring at each other. My friend and I went closer, and saw the signs (paraphrased, because I forgot to take a picture):
"Are real human connections dead?" "Spend a minute of uninterrupted eye contact"
There were some empty cardboard seats on the floor, so we sat down, and gave it a shot. One set of people next to us looked like they were having a staring contest, and another couple on the other side were deeply looking into each others souls to the point that it seemed like they were engaged in the most PDA I've ever seen with the least amount of touching.
We set a timer for a minute and started talking. After 10 seconds of talking, my eyes seemed to naturally gaze away - I'd have to consiously force them back. Most of the in depth conversations I have happen online, where there is no eye contact that needs maintaining - so this was pretty different. The timer for a minute went off, but since we were in the middle of our conversation, we kept going for about ten minutes (before we realized we needed to meet back up with our other friend!).
I learned a lot of new things about my friend (we have a lot of things in common!) in those ten minutes, which I doubt I would have ever learned or even asked about throughout our trip together. I also learned a bit about myself - I can maintain eye contact for ten minutes, but it takes a conscious effort. I would not say that "real human connections are dead", but I would question whether eye contact is a relevant indicator. I wonder if anyone has done proper research in this area, like having subjects have a conversation without mandatory eye contact, and then with, and see the effect on recall of conversation topics, as well as emotional feelings throughout the conversation. Something for another day :-)
As part of earning my journalism degree at San Jose State, we're required to study abroad. I'm currently on a faculty-led program (FLP) to Italy and Greece to interview migrants and refugees, conduct interviews, document their situation, and gain real world reporting experience. I will try to blog daily for the next three weeks...we'll see if it lasts!
Our trip started in Rome, Italy. Day 0 was meeting at our hotel, getting dinner together, and then enjoying some gelato. The next morning we visited the Colosseum and a few other tourist attractions before the main event for the day: visiting a camp where migrants were staying. Unfortunately, that's all I can write about for now, as I am still working on a full story to publish about our experience at the camp.
In the evening a few of us went to a rally that was protesting the murder of an immigrant, who was a union leader defending workers rights (at least, that's my understanding). There was also the issue of the anti-immigration views of the minister of internal afairs. Aside from not understanding most of what was being said since it was in Italian, I also struggled since there was no article on Unione Sindacale di Base on Wikipedia. It would be great if someone could write one!
Take from the rich, and give to the poor!
