The colored neon lights and the music pumping from the speakers rip through the silence of the countryside near Foggia, in the region of Apulia, southern Italy. The demography of the ghetto changes depending on the season and the demand for work in the tomato fields. During winter it hosts around immigrants mainly coming from French-speaking African countries , while during summer the population rises to Once they succeed in crossing the Mediterranean, day laborers in southern fields are forced to camp out in abandoned factories, with no money and a daily dose of violence from landowners who make enormous profits out of their work.
The work conditions border on the Medieval. And although the ghetto is illegal and the police know all about it, they rarely intervene. The inhabitants just quietly go about their day-to-day work as almost-slaves. The Apulia regional government has started providing the area with drinking water just a few years ago, after some associations had been lobbying local politicians about the issue. He finds me a place to sleep and offers me my first dinner in the camp: barbecued chunks of smoked mutton.
With my stomach full, I go for a look around: everything is absorbed by darkness, except for a few power generators lighting blue and red neon lights. As I walk closer to one of the shacks, I am stopped by two girls who start stroking my chin. The penny immediately drops as they invite me into what I realize is the local brothel.
I decline their invitation and walk into the bar to have a beer. I am served by the first white person I see since I arrived. I can tell from his face that he is not exactly in the mood for a conversation. I pay and leave the bar, starting to wander around the main roads.
People are all busy slowly walking nowhere. Some of them play table football. In , Rosarno witnessed a massive immigrant revolt after some locals shot the workers with an air rifle. When morning comes around I start to understand the shape of the place. Migrants build the shacks by hand. Nobody pays rent. When they leave the ghetto, their shack is given to a friend or a relative. I follow their advice and limit myself to a discreet walk around the ghetto, talking to some residents.
