I’m spoiled on travel. I know this. I’m about to write that it’s been a while since I travelled, but the reality is that I was starting a five week trip just 4.5 months ago. Still, it feels good to be back in the saddle, or, I guess, back in the harness with a backpack weighing me down. So here I am in Milan, with something between one and two months in Italy before spending something between 2 and 3 weeks in Tunisia, with a possible 2-3 week “stopover” in Greece, Mozambique, or Eastern Turkey on my way home.
My flight was… hilariously bad. I think it was due to the fact that United and Continental are currently “mid merger,” but nonetheless, it was a joke. While there were personal video screens, there was no video on demand, and there were only two video channels. Things were in English and Spanish on the screen, so I guess if one spoke Italian on this flight to Italy they’d be screwed. I guess I should have known this’d be the reality of flying on a 767. There was the loudest Cuban/NJ woman next to me, who was drunk and pretty much would not shut up (though she did buy me a drink). But whatever. It was a dirt cheap flight and at least I got frequent flyer miles.
Now I’m waiting for atrain to leave the airport to Milan’s central station, where I’ll switch immediately to see a couchsurfing host in Turin for 2 days, before coming back here for 3 (including one night at lake Como), then go to meet up with old college friends in Venice.
Hopefully my language limitations are well tolerated… everyone says with a few works of Italian and a decent spanish vocabulary one can get by!
I’ll keep you updated.
Andrew
![occupyallstreets:
theatlantic:
Living Cadavers: How Bangladesh’s Poor Are Tricked Into Selling Their Organs
After they agree to donate, sellers are tissue tested, and if there is a match, the broker will offer the seller around $1,150. But in most cases, the sellers do not receive anywhere near that amount. The organ brokers tack on extra fees for travel and other logistics, and the sellers make sometimes only half the initial amount — and even then only after the surgery is completed.
The brokers forge fake passports and legal documents to make it appear plausible that the seller is donating to a blood relative. In one case, Michigan State anthropologist Monir Moniruzzaman found a 38-year-old Hindu seller who had to get circumcised to donate to a Muslim recipient. The circumcision was done crudely and only with local anesthesia. “When I was coming back home, the anesthesia stopped working,” he told the anthropologist, “and I felt like it was a nightmare.”
Most of the sellers Moniruzzaman spoke to were taken to India for the surgery, and upon arrival they had their passports confiscated so they could not leave. “One case I found [was] a 23-year-old college student,” he says. “He went to India and realized that he was making a mistake. So he wanted to come back without giving his kidney. The broker hired two thugs — Indian thugs — and they basically beat him and forced him to go to the operation room.”
This man, like all the other sellers, woke up from surgery with a 20-inch long scar around his torso — a constant reminder that he sold part of his body for a few hundred dollars. “We are living cadavers,” another told Moniruzzaman. “By selling our kidneys, our bodies are lighter but our chests are heavier than ever.”
Read more. [Image: Monir Moniruzzaman]
This is sick, the people of Bangladesh have been exploited for too long. The protests last week was massive (100,000 protested in Dhaka). Hopefully they’ll keep it up.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1cvvpj7V61qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
