Safi

A little bar, two strangers drinking tea at the same table.

Moroccoan man: Are you Catholic?
Italian man: Sort of.
M: I see.
I: ...
M: I am Muslim, anyway that's not the point.
I: What's the point then?
M: That you look like a good man.
I: Thanks, you too.
M: You see? Whatever faith people choose, you will always find both good men and...
I: Bastards?
M: That's it. It's not about religion, you know?
I: I know.

Interview: Rachid, Khourigba, 20 Apr

We meet Rachid in a modest restaurant in Khourigba. He is drinking tea with some friends, he notices that we're Italians so he invites us to have a chat at his table.
Rachid is 25 years old, he studied law in Morocco, but since he couldn't find a good job here, he came to Italy in 2003 and there he works as a mason. He is on vacation in Khourigba, his home town.

Ale: How do you find Italy? What can you tell us about your experience with Italian people?

Rachid: People is diffident everywhere and everywhere you can find good people and bad people, but I must say I mostly met good people in Italy. Even so, I don't have Italian friends because I'm not interested in that and anyway it wouldn't be easy because of diffidence.
About women in particular, I don't like Italian women because I am Muslim. I'm not saying that I can't bear seeing women without the chador, i don't mind that but still, I am Muslim and I want a Muslim woman.

Ale: And what about Italian politics? Are you informed? Are you interested in it?

Rachid: About politics, the first thing coming to my mind is that we [immigrants, ndr] thought that Proudi could do something good for us, but in truth he didn't do anything.

Ale: In the end, Italy is like you imagined it or not?

Rachid: No, it is not like I imagined it. Before I used to see Italy as a paradise, but living there is quite difficult. I definitely improved my economical condition, but I'm certainly not living in a paradise.
when i first came back to Khourigba I tried to explain it to my friends and it was difficult to make them understand this point, but now they now that Italy is not a paradise and that I am still the same Rachid.

Ale: What about the money you send back to your family? How does your family use it?

Rachid: They just live with it, it's not enough money to be used for anything else.

Ale: Any projects for the future?

Rachid: I just want to come back to Morocco. I'm not hoping to be a lawyer anymore, I'm almost 26 and that would take too much time.

The Village

Guess the point (if any) - 4:

I remember in New York the Village is considered one of the coolest neighborhoods. There you can find old buildings, no skyscrapers, no rush, people chilling out in the streets surrounded by tiny coffee shops.
The bohemian look of this neighborhood almost makes you forget you are in a rich metropolis.

In Khourigba the Village is the wealthiest neighborhood in the town. For this reason and even if we would rather visit the suk and the small, dirty and crowded streets of the downtown (in some way similar to the Village in New York), our host family takes us to visit this part of the town: just sumptuous residences and the clean, quiet streets of a residential neighborhood.

While in one of the most rich towns in the world a slow and modest style of life is considered a privilege, in this little and slow town rich houses and fast cars are reasons of vaunt and opulence is boasted as one of the biggest status symbols.

There seems to be some lack of balance between values in this story.

Khourigba

In Khourigba we're hosted by Aliah, a woman who only speaks arabic. She received precise directions about how to welcome us by his husband, a friend of Ale who lives in Italy and takes care of her and their four daughters periodically sending them money.

For this reason the family is considered a quite wealthy one in the town. In this sense their social status has been raised by emigration and it seems to be a costume of emigrants to come back with new cars and technological goods, as a demonstration of their improved economical condition.

In Aliah's house we counted three televisions, three stereos and a dvd player, an amount of technology definitely fuzzy respect to the style of life of the family.

Khouribga is a small town in the country side, there is no economic growth, no jobs beyond the commercial activities visible along the streets, which are partly the result of investments made by emigrants.
Still, many people just spend their time waiting for the night to come.

I decide to take advantage of these slow rithms and find the time to learn some Arab words from the kids of the family, while they are content with leafing through my diary and a song book of Fabrizio De André.

Italiens - Italians seen from outside (2, Asilah)

So good to be far away from Italy without being able to read arabic.

Asilah

After saying hello to the ocean, We finally get out of the bloody van in this little town where we make our first contact with local people. Therefore let's start the column "guess the point (if any)":

Guess the point (if any) - 1:
Somebody says to Ale that Italy is the Morocco of Europe. A big question mark appears on Ale's head and there it lays.

Guess the point (if any) - 2:
After exploring several restaurants Davide decides to go for the direct way and asks why every restaurateur affirms he is the cheapest. The man stares at Davide with his big brown eyes and gently replies: well, I know everybody says that, but I am telling you the truth.
Enough said, Davide sits at the table and eats a big fish, as tasty as honest.

Guess the point (if any) - 3:
Franzo deals with his first negotiation for a purchase and obviously gets screwed.
Then the chant of the muezzin begins to spread around the streets. The man comes back, gives Franzo a part of his money back and explains that it's because of demons that men are tempted by money, and every man must fight his demons back and respect other men. The second big question mark is now over Franzo's head.

Goodbye Roberta

We have to say goodbye to our friend Roberta who cannot continue the trip with us because her passport is expired...
Well, she may have been not that professional on the formal side but still, she definitely was a lovely travel mate and we will miss her a lot.

Se prima eravamo sei a ballare l'alli galli...

Goodbye Roberta!

Algeciras

On the waves of a book entitled "Stereotypes and Prejudices", the Mangoni van is on his way to Morocco with plenty of discussions about how to approach the people we'll meet in the country.
After eating 2.212 km of dust in less than 30 hours, we are still dealing with improbable debates recorded with a camera fixed on a support in the very center of the van...In some way, Mangoni is our big brother.

The idea would be to record our reactions when we will have to face a direct confrontation with a different culture, but since this means that we're going to Morocco to make a documentary about ourselves, this brings out some paradoxes like: are we the doctor of the patient in this kind of anthropological analysis? Do we have stereotypes or rather we are stereotypes ourselves?

A deconstructing Mangoni is sleeping tonight on the coast of Algeciras, six confused guys inside and Morocco right there out of the window, just in front of us but still on the other side of the sea.

Italiens - Italians seen from outside

In celebrating our last elections and imitating a good italian magazine called "Internazionale", we open a new column on this blog:

"Italiens - Italians seen from outside"

...Hoping to close this column well BEFORE than 5 years.

The project

"Turisti non a caso" (in english "Tourists not by chance") is a social association aimed to analyze and show aspects of migration which are left aside by common mass media.

The core of our work is in fact developing enquiries and documentaries showing how immigration to Italy takes its shape, which are its reasons and how it is perceived when it is still at the stage of mere emigration, that is the decision of an individual to leave his own country for another.
We believe that this couldn't be done without a real and full immersion in the places where this phenomenon takes its roots. That's why we organized this trip to Morocco, a Country which presents a consistent migration rate, a relevant part of which is represented by immigration to Italy.

We hope this trip will help us to better understand and relate ourselves to a phenomenon too often pointed out by Italian media and politicians with too little information about it, as witnessed by the strong presence of stereotypes when it comes to debating immigration in our country.

So, this blog is finally ready and we'll try to keep you posted along the way with our best stories from the road.

Stay tuned!