21 year old Nouhoum Sissoko, is taking cookery classes in Arezzo hosted by Oxfam’s reception system. “Italian cuisine is very difficult to learn. It takes a long time to get it right. In Africa men never cook, but since I left home I had to learn,” he explains.
Nouhoum never planned to travel to Europe but he had no choice. “In Mali there are many problems, but each case is different. I cannot speak for others. I left because I had problems, if I hadn’t I wouldn’t be here now,” he says. “My initial goal was to go to Algeria,” but he was robbed. “I told the police but they said they could not help me so I decided to leave.”
He has requested asylum in Italy and is working hard to become independent. “I‘m learning Italian and I managed to graduate from middle school in Italy. I studied a lot and I succeeded.”
