My work and my friends!
Author: Anna Mathis | Major: Agriculture Communications, Agriculture Leadership | Semester: Fall 2023
Ciao! With three weeks left of my study abroad experience, I’m soaking up the last drops of Italian and European life and am reflecting on the last 14 weeks. I’ve learned the ins and outs of several different kinds of public transportation, renewed my love of American food in the absence of it, toured countless historic sites, and further developed a strong global view. This global view is in part due to visiting ten European countries and amazing international politics/relations classes, but mostly due to my internship at Hummustown Rome. In this blog, we’ll dive into their mission and how my internship became my family.
Global migration is readily increasing, from the war in Syria, to an intense wave of Ukrainian refugees, to what could soon to be a strong wave of Palestinian refugees. While we are at a near all-time level high, this is only the very beginning.
Being in Europe at such a crucial time in world history with several conflicts happening all around me has truly changed my heart and perspective. Most of all, getting to work and experience with the highest displaced population in the world, Syrian refugees, has allowed me to be informed and to inform others. To be granted refugee status, you must be in imminent danger in your home country under a current threat of fear. Learn more about the specific designation and what that means here. Refugees are forced to leave their homes and families, making a dangerous trek only to face more obstacles like Visas, housing, employment, and maybe the hardest of all, integration into a new country. Further, current world and European infrastructure is nearing max capacity for migration, and many are forced out of the country and under threat of being sent back home where wars, strife, and corruption reign supreme.
Now that we’re familiar with the term refugee, here’s how I got involved.
I enrolled in a three-hour internship course and was soon connected with Hummustown, a non-profit catering company that employs Syrian refugees seeking asylum in Rome. I absolutely adore this organization, and its founder Shaza Saker. Not only does it provide a space for asylum-seekers to share their home cuisine, but it is also incredibly community-driven and provides cooking classes, and free meals for the homeless and people with extra needs.
And so I began my internship; armed with my American-centric view and camera, setting out to help with social media and fulfill 180 hours of credit. Promptly, my world changed forever.
I was so timid starting out. Some of the guys know English, but they mostly speak Italian and Arabic, of which I know some and very little, respectively. After just the second week, I stayed late, happily taking corrections on my pitiful Italian language and even happier to sit and watch their friendships, be fed Syrian cuisine, and soak up this unique and vibrant community.
Below are some excerpts from my journal describing the impact of these precious people in real time. I recommend becoming involved with this community wherever you are and however you can. This kind of experience is invaluable, and something that when I count my blessings, I will count twice.
September 6, 2023: “I expected to find war-weary, displaced Syrians ready to share their struggles that would be (by me, of course) transformed into a world-shattering article exposing Italians’ distaste of immigrants and the need for migration reform and welcoming Syrians as working Roman citizens. Instead, I found resilience. Not born of necessity, but a sort of innate strength that translated into deep contentment.
True, immersive experience in a foreign culture is such a complicated gift. It is a hard gift to accept. It is surprising—like Khalil’s musings on life and home, “home is where your wife and children are”. It is awkward, like when Mishel and I had to repeat our questions to each other several times and opt for Google Translate instead. It is scary, like trying food you are bound to hate but doing it anyway because it is polite and part of the experience and because you are strengthening your cultural competency. It is rewarding when you can pick out several more Italian phrases than when you started. It is lifechanging, like when a situation is presented to you and your first thought is completely opposite of what you used to think, and that is because in this case, you will never again see a Syrian refugee. Instead, you see your friend Khihil who made you cappuccino and taught you to make Italian coffee and helped you figure out public transportation and talked about his kids. You see Mishel who is smart and shy and so insanely passionate about the craft of his food, not because he said he was, but because by seeing him make one Syrian dish with such focus and attention to detail you would be a fool not to recognize it.”
September 12, 2023: “Many refugees here are tired of being labeled as a refugee; they would rather first be classified as a fellow human. Don’t we all deserve this courtesy, nonetheless the bravest among us who had no choice but to leave their home, and everything they knew, not for a better life but a chance to live? To cite a more indicative display of the strength of humanity is beyond me. These are not helpless humans draining their new countries dry of resources and protection. No, these are the strongest among us; perhaps the most deserving of the title of human, and all the messiness, courage, defiance, resilience, and determination that it implies.”
“The next best part was the Italian lessons. I admitted how poorly my Italian quiz went, and my new friends immediately went on the Italian offensive and proceeded to only speak in Italian, patiently walking me through the translation, without handing it to me. We practiced my homework, introduced ourselves SEVERAL times, and worked on verb conjugations.”
November 1, 2023: “Over the weekend, we were discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict as we do every day in my classes and my classmate asked, “shouldn’t the Syrians hate us, as we’re from the USA and we make their lives harder?” As our teacher astutely pointed out, they can separate people from a government. And yet, on a baser level, I could never imagine being hated by my friends at Hummustown—couldn’t imagine it long before I called them my friends.
Khalil gruffly but with incredible affection teaches the art of falafel wraps and the bus and we talk about his family. Mishel makes me cappuccino with milk hearts, and we take selfies and laugh at our weak English conversations. Fadi gives me graphic design tips and we talk about FRIENDS. Khalid gives me his jacket and faces the cold for hours, insistent that I keep it and distraught when I wouldn’t take it home at the risk of my being even slightly cold. Silently, he shows my videos of his home in Gaza being war-torn. He shows me videos of his cousin raising awareness, and through broken English and incredible sadness, can barely articulate the depths of his and his people’s despair. I watch as he carefully cuts out a cardboard representation of Gaza, taking it on the wall next to a key. ‘The key is of my home in Palestine. I will be back. Not today. But someday I will go home.’”