Coming up to my 5th month marker in Italy (and my English is slowly creeping away from me day by day), I am using this famous Led Zeppelin reference to describe a three day experience I had at the godforsaken immigration office of Catania. It really opened my eyes to how immigrants are treated, because for 3 days in a row I was treated exactly as an immigrant would be treated, if not a little more fair.
Monday, I missed school to go to the immigration office for the first time in my life (because I'm not technically an immigrant but I still kind of count as one). At 11, my mom picked me up from the house to go home. The immigration office is sideways to the police station of Catania, so we entered the police station first and then to the immigration office.
The immigration office was a room about the size of a large living room packed to the brim with immigrants, and 2 windows: one packed with people, one slightly open but yet there was still a line. I luckily was part of the one slightly open with a line. This day really doesn't matter because we were turned away because we didn't have the correct paperwork since I switched families, so, we returned the next day.
Tuesday, we woke up at the same time as my brothers woke up for school to go to the immigration office as soon as it opened at 9ish. Yet again, the office was packed in the same formation as the day before; to the left was a mob, to the right was a line. We had to wait for a little while (which was a terrible thing for the immigration office to make me do) because I observe when I have nothing to do. So, this is what I observed.
Most of the immigrants that I was sharing the living space with were African or Southern Asian, with a few eastern Europeans thrown into the mix. At the window to the left were mostly Africans and on the other side of the window was a single woman handling every one of them.
Heeeere comes Point A.
This lady who was obviously monolingual (in reality it's pretty rational to think that people working at an immigration office would speak more than just Italian which is only spoken in like, 2 countries on the planet) was yelling through a glass window at them, who some understood, some could not. But for the record (just mentally picture me agressively typing this on my living room couch) SCREAMING IN YOUR OWN LANGUAGE WILL NOT HELP PEOPLE UNDERSTAND YOU JIMINY FLIPPING CHRISTMAS. Yes, they are crowding the window. Yes, they don't speak perfect Italian. Yes, they may miss a paper or two, but for the love of all that is holy on this planet at least try to help them for goodness sake. It's like you are trying to be a gigantic coglione. It takes effort to be that rude.
Point B.
Everyone has their own story, and whether you want to know it or be a part of it, you have to respect it. Let this be a reminder that homeless, immigrants, criminals, and everyone in between are actual human beings and not a different species of their own. Also they didn't just pop up one day to quote-on-quote "terrorize" the world as we basically expect them to. They have mouths to feed, they've got ends to meet, they've got people that may be depending on them. I'm guilty of turning my head away from beggars on the street and merchants selling knockoff Nike sneakers or sunglasses but they are human, people. We are literally dehumanizing them by the way we live around them instead of with them. It's the way they live and you know what? It may seem like an act of desperation when they stick out a cup and ask for pocket change but I can guarantee you that if you dropped everything you owned tomorrow and took up the lifestyle of one of them, you wouldn't be able to handle it. They are strong people. They know how to live life in a way that is like another species to us, but to them, it's reality.
I abuse the italics button.
LET'S GET HAPPAY!
On a much lighter note, that same day as I encountered that mess and had that conversation in my head, I walked a lot. One of the reasons being that after the appointment at the office my host mom had to go to work, and she just kind of said "okay see ya byez" and left me to find my way back home. I didn't know where I was, so I just kind of.....walked.
1.5 hours, an outdoor market, and a humongous wrong turn later, I arrived at my home after walking what I know AT LEAST was 5 or 6 kilometers (2.5-3 miles), to change clothes, scarf down some lunch, and walk a little over 3 more kilometers to the train station of Catania to pick up.......NANO! In case we have some new readers (welcome by the way), Nano is my friend from Argentina who lives a town over that I have become besties with, who looks like this:
A nice transformation Thursday for ya.
At 2 I picked him up at the station and we started off for the center of the city, eating at McDonalds (the kid loves that place). Through the center of the city, we swung through Villa Bellini, and saw a couple monuments of Catania, which then after we still had a crap ton of time to use. So, little did I know before hand, but he actually loves to go shopping. And I love to pick stuff out for people to wear. He ended up buying something I picked out for him (successssssssss)!
Little teeny tiny tidbit and a promo for AFS: THIS IS WHY YOU ALL NEED TO HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH EXCHANGE. HOST A KID. SEND YOUR KIDS ABROAD. GO ABROAD YOURSELF. BECOME A VOLUNTEER. This is only one of the lifelong friendships I've made in only about 5 months in Sicily. I can't think of a reason to not be an exchange student with all of the reasons I'm giving you. So seriously, don't EVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVEREVER pass up on the chance if you get it to become involved with AFS, or just take the chance yourself.
Booyah.
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