It’s the last day of a press trip in Marbella, just a few hours away from my home in Sevilla, Spain.

If you know anything about press trips, you know it’s when hotels or tourism boards bring writers to their regions in the hopes they’ll publish a story about them.

If you know anything about Marbella, you know it’s the height of luxury tourism in southern Spain.

We just toured another opulent property with suites bigger than my apartment. “It’s here where the stars come,” they say.

We’re sitting at a beach club. I’m eating an average, overpriced paella. People are drinking average, overpriced wine.

I look out towards the water and see two men on the sand. And by men I mean they’re probably no older than 22. But I know they’ve seen more than most men three times their age; they’re skin is darker than anyone else’s here, and their sandy flip flops worn through to a thin sheet of foam, practically transparent. They’re sitting by their sacks of soccer jerseys, selling them for 10 euros to beachgoers.

I extricate myself from conversation about the best five-star hotel stay in Budapest and take my shoes off. “I’m going to the water.”

I walk away from the table, past the men, and dip my toes into the Mediterranean. It’s October and it’s cold.

Did they swim in these waters—past the luxury yachts—to get to Spain safely? Were there other oceans they crossed? Was it this cold there too?

How many bodies floated along with them as they reached shore? Young children and pregnant women? Mothers? Daughters? Fathers? Sons?

How many soccer jerseys do they need to sell a day to eat? I met a man in Sevilla who told me he only eats one meal a day so he can send more money home. We video chatted with his kids.

There’s nothing heroic for me to do here at this moment. I am no hero. I am just a journalist—or a measly travel writer—here to report the story. While some sip spritzes on their lounge chairs, others are praying to their god to make it to the shore alive. While I sit at my banquet feast, these men spend hours selling jerseys so their families can eat three meals, and they just one.

Migrants of the Mediterranean began when someone noticed the untold stories. When the contrast became too overbearing to ignore and she had to stop telling herself a story. The story we all tell ourselves: there’s nothing I can do, this is how it is…

This year, we want to tell more of the right stories. Because storytelling is what moves people. Information brings dignity. And eventually, justice.