LIGHTHOUSES AND STATIONS, TRIP TO ITHACA

This collection of stories was born to be one of the final products of the European Project "Lighthouses and Stations, Trip to Ithaca" under the name of "The Never Ending Story"; in it the students would tell what their lives would be like either if they had not emigrated, had remained in the countries of destination, or if they had never been forced to "cross the border".

Another of the products designed for the project was the shooting of documentaries about migration and employment in which the students would tell about their experiences, or those from relatives or acquaintances, as migrants.

Many of them have been emigrants, first hand witnesses of the story we intended to tell.

Taking advantage of their experience, we asked them to write a story about their lives as emigrants so that we could write the script for the documental "Crossing the Border".

Once they had finished writing, their narrations had to be adapted to the script and, in some way, "mutilate" them... some "bits" of their stories could not be included in the documental due to their length. it was not fair out, to lose them perhaps forever.

The students had made a great effort, both intellectual and emotional to tell things that belonged to their most private life: they had to reveal their feelings, their sufferings, their emotions; they had to look back to a past that had not always been happy. The experience became a real catharsis. To recover their most intimate log books was reason enough for adding their complete testimonies to the "Never Ending Story".