A beautiful idealic town in the province of Caserta- where Spartacus was trained at the Gladiator school (ludus) here in what was then known as Capua is now known as one of the most dangerous mafia regions in Italy. We went down to meet with locals to discuss food, politics and how English as a second language is saving force. Believe it or not, no one sees them. Forget Sopranos, this is the “Gomorrah” – the mafia located in the Campania region who control the region since – as they put it – no one else takes care of them. The don’t bother you or me, they are infiltrated in the government, the infrastructure, the agriculture, the commerce. You may recall the news reporting on trash not being picked up for years in Italy? Well this is the center of the problem, the headquarters of the Campania Gomorrah, where Saviano based his best-seller and where some people’s saving grace is a one-hour English lesson with optimistic locals who claim that there is hope – one lesson at a time. MAG Travel along with e-Learning school are fighting to get kids back into school at least through the 5th grade. It sounds absurd for a European country but most kids won’t make it past this class and those who go through to 6th grade have a 50% drop-out rate. E-Learning is making an active effort along with MAG to make English fun, so they can listen to American hip-hop music that love so much, and mostly, so they can feel like they are capace of doing something.
