Did you ever wonder: ‘did the waiter spit in my dinner?’ Chances are that if you recognise yourself among these five types of clients, the answer is yes, he did. I’m sorry. Well, actually, as a worker, I’m not.

1. The ‘I-Need-Social-Interactions’ One

Usually, an old man or woman who, not having a lot to do with his-her life, decided to talk forever and ever to the unfortunate worker in charge. His superpower is to arrive at the shop exactly at the busiest moment of the whole month. He will waste fifteen minutes of your useful time just to order a salad side while…

This is one of the most difficult articles I ever had to write. And I’m saying it literally because I’m trying my very best not to use my left middle finger. Auuuuch! Damn, I just used it… If it wasn’t already obvious, I fatally injured myself at work.

While cutting a nice bouquet of coriander and talking with my colleague Mr Panda (check my last article for more info about Mr Panda), the big kitchen knife I was firmly holding in my hand went that extra half millimetre on the left and cut out my nail. Yes, now you can…

Since the EU-Turkey agreement in March 2016, thousands of refugees have remained trapped on the Greek islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros, waiting for their asylum procedures to be processed (DWB, 2021a). After months spent travelling in dangerous conditions, many refugees had to face the uncomfortable truth that Europe was still a dream.

Asylum procedures can sometimes take years before being processed, trapping thousands of people in overcrowded refugee camps.

In Greece, camps designed for 3,000 people hosted, at times, up to 20,000 refugees (Kingsley, 2020). …

Every good story starts with an amazing event. For instance, when Bilbo Baggins opened his door to find the great Gandalf the Grey waiting for him. Or when Alice fell into the rabbit hole.

My story doesn’t start with a great event. It starts with boredom. Yeah, right, not very inviting… The truth is that sometimes you don’t need a complete disaster to start a new life. You don’t have to wait for your worst day at work to resign shouting at your boss and slamming the door behind you. You don’t have to arrive at the point when you…

I always thought that the day I would have to choose between love and friendship I would have opted for the latter. When the pandemic hit Europe, life put me in front of a challenging decision: whether to keep living with my beloved housemates in Ireland or to move to the Netherlands to stay with my partner.

It all happened so fast. I still remember the panic in reading that Italy, my country of origin, had closed its borders and how other European countries were following its example. I was terrified by the idea that all my housemates would leave…

It seems now ages ago when in the distant January of 2020, before Covid-19 came to shake up everyone’s life, my partner and I randomly decided to gift ourselves a trip to Greece.

On melancholic days, after a week with no sun, when it seems that the vaccine will never arrive and travelling will never go back to normal, I look back at the Polaroids I took during those happy days.

Today is one of those days. If you’re feeling the same, these pictures may put a smile on your face and remind you of the good old days when…

It may seem paradoxical, but although the purpose of declaring a famine is to save people’s lives, before one can be declared, thousands of individuals need to starve to death.

Last year was so crowded with news, that Yemen’s shortage of food has been largely ignored by most media. But the media are not the only ones who can be blamed for this silence.

The truth is that, despite thousands having already starved to death, more will need to die to meet the criteria for a famine to be declared and no one is really interested in a ‘food emergency’.

The Yemenis civil war and the NON-famine

…

Photos are like cherries: one leads to another. But this was not always the case. When I was a child, before every school trip to the local farm, my mother would inevitably remind me that there were only 17 shots left in our film camera “Use them wisely!”. Those 17 shots couldn’t be taken with a light heart and so my 10-year-old brain would start using all its critical reasoning, design and graphics skills to choose the best subjects. After a few days, there they were, all tidily packed inside a white envelope: my wonderful pieces of art! …