A trip down my memories

Part 2

Lets start from the very boring beginning.

My parents gave birth to me in Casablanca in 1993.

My father was working in Italy and my mother was taking care of me in Morocco.

We moved when I was 3 years old, while my mother was pregnant with my brother.

We started our life in Verona, Romeo and Juliet city.

At the time, in Italy, immigration was rare and few immigrants were there, so it was difficult to find a place to stay.

From my mother stories, we moved from house to house and people took advantage of my parents till finally we found our own place.

I remember being a very quiet child, I loved eating Nutella and I hated broccoli, like every child did.

At school I remember being the only immigrant, so I didn't play a lot with other kids.

For that reason, my parents bought me a grey rabbit that I named Kiki and I remember my mom coming with her motorbike to my school on my break and bringing me my little rabbit to make me happy every time she was not working.

At the age of 6, when I learnt how to read, I discovered a new world that became my safe place.

I started reading like crazy and I had my mom buying me books in english, telling me that learning it was very important for my future.

So she spent hours with me teaching me how to pronounce every word on the books.

She bought me books that were not really for kids, but she told me that I would learn a lot from them.

As a Moroccan family, we were speaking arabic at home and we were speaking italian outside.

Every immigrant child has the same things an italian child has, but no matter how much you think you are like them, it would not change the fact that they will never accept you.

At school I was being teased for my name, similar to "spider" in Italian, but that's OK.
I was being teased for having a different colour skin.
I was being blamed for being muslim and an immigrant from my teachers.
They were making it difficult for me because I was friend with the richest girl in the class.

During IT class my teacher would never allow me to touch a computer, while the other kids were doing exercises on them.

I thank my mom for being always present and for always believing in what I had to say.

Because as soon as I told her that my teacher didn't let me use the computer like the other kids, she bought me an expensive one and let me learn to use it, so I could show my teacher in class that I was better than anyone else. When my mom told the teacher that I had a computer at home and that I knew how to use it, the teacher was shocked and said "do you let your child use the computer alone?" and my mom told her that I was very capable with it and since then I could do what the other kids did during class.

This is just a little example of what an immigrant child has to go through, not knowing even the reason why he is being treated so differently.