MIGRATION IS NOT A CRIME - Terrazas of Algeciras

  I'm in Algeciras, by the port, looking for something, and  then, I sit on the terrace of some arab-style cafes run by ex-Moroccans, in front of the harbor. And so, here I’m, surrounded by these arab men with turbans on the shoulders, drinking shay, smoking big cigarettes, while having their exalted conversations in arab language, Darija or the berbere dialect. And so, as it goes, a young guy with frizzy hair and jeans is already approaching my table and asking, “Yendo a Tanger!? Necesita boletos!?“ (“Going to Tangier!? Do you need tickets!?) “Ahah, no!” I say. And then he insists “So, where do you wanna go after all?”; “I just wanna stay here” I say “I do not want to go to Africa now, coz, I just came from there…” And then he is already asking me “ah, you just came from there, so, how was it over there”, and so, “Jamil jiddan” I say, and then, I’m adding that, “before Morocco I have been to Mauritania, and before Mauritania I have been to Senegal and before Senegal I came from the Gambia, and before Gambia I have been to Mali, and before Mali I have been to the Sahara'', and then, I stop, thinking that I have said already enough names. And so, at this point he is nodding enthusiastically, and then, adding “And, what were you looking for in that African countries you just said, it was just holidays, or?”, “I was there, probably looking for the same as you are looking here… pussycats, adventure, and maybe, a certain concept of, God”. And so, as I say this, his smile is bigger, and then, he even puts some beer in my cup of tea while stammering something like “Youu areee absolutely righght… actually, you are very righrrght… yes, we will be friends… but, just one thing, one thing, I'm not looking for God, that is already in my heart, the rest yes, naeam, girlz, pussycats, adventure, yez, naeam, some money to go into these adventures, yez, naeam, in that sayings you are very right! Très vrai!  SaaHebee!” And then, as it goes, Aamir, his name, even starts to tell me about his life in European lands. This is, he starts by telling me how he has crossed the Bāb al-maghrib in a small dinghy made of inner tubes when he was still a teenager. “Alors, la mer nous ait entraînés là où nous ne l'attendions pas… it happened that the sea dragged us to where we did not expect, and so, we landed in south Portugal… and with some luck, we weren't pulled into the Atlantic sea… and thus, this is, we landed in Al-Garbia, the southern coast of Portugal,  and, as soon as we landed, my friends left to Spain, leaving me alone, and, I would never see them again… and so, then, I would go alone to Lisbon, where I remained for some time, coz, I may say… I liked the Portuguese people, they are actually humbler than the Spanish tourists I knew from Tanger, but, there aren't great opportunities in that country, and so, after a while, I left Lisbon and went to work illegally in the huge orange tree farms in south Spain, mainly located around Valencia, a city that have ferries to the famous island of Ibiza, and so, once again… I ended up crossing the Bāb al-maghrib illegally, but, this time, I got catched on the arrival and they sent me to a special kind of prisons for illegals that turned out to be a forced labour camp, and thus, it was there, that finally I got to know and make friendship with other people from all this maghreb countries like Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and also some sub-sahariens ones, like Mali, Niger, Chad etc., and also, It was there that I learned to properly speak and write spanish, and just then, they sent me back to Morocco… this is, as I got there my mother was happy to see me again, but my older brother… as soon as I arrived, he would put me out of the house because, as he said, I had become an infidel, and then, I would leave again, this is, I would wander through the country and end up in the Sahara living with the locals, not far from Ouarzazate, a touristic city in the desert, on the side of the Barrage el Mansour Eddahbi, where I worked for a while, this before taking the caravan to Merzouga, a city on the border with Algeria… and it happened that, randomly, without notice, at some point, I endep up crossing the border, coz, as you know, in the desert there are no borders… and so, after a while, I found myself in Tunis, and then… It was there that I heard about a place where people could cross to Europe, or, this is, to the so called the Djerba peninsula, and so, I did it all, and after that, I got into another dinghy to Malta, an island where people speak arabic, italian, french, and english, all mixed up. And then, from Malta I would pass to Sicilia, a major isle of Italy, and yeah, I would get involved with the Sicilian mafia, and then, with some of them, I would have to do constant travels between cities like Napoli, Taranto, Bari, Rome, Florence, Bologna, and then, I would follow to France… this is, I ended up staying between Marseille and Montpellier, but, once there, I would get into a series of problems with the Algerian guys, that were in majority there, and so, these Algerians were very different from the ones he had known in Algiers and other Algerien cities. And it happened that, I would get involved in a series of fights with some gangs, and  so, at some point, the police would come by, and, I was arrested, found illegal, and sent back to my country… And so, once again, my mother was very happy, but not my brother and brothers. This is, in the meanwhile, I got to know that my girlfriend in France was pregnant, and so, I had to find a way to come back there, this is, I wanted to marry that woman and get the European papers that would give me the free move. And so, again, I managed to cross into Malta and Sicily, and then, I have to say, that, I passed some bad time in their hands before I manage to escape, not to Italy this time, but to Libya, and then, once there, I even shook hands with one of Gaddafi’s sons… And then, as I went out of the city, I came to meet some Tuaregs… and so, with them I went into the Sahra again, and so, at some point, I mounted a caravan, this is, we were taking some tourists to mythical city of Zerzura, a city rumored to have existed deep in the desert somewhere between Libya and Egypt… and then, it happened that we would get very sick in the middle of the desert and, at some point, I would find myself in the Gulf of Suez, aboard a felluca, and thus, I would end up in a city named Port Said, where I would find work as a “stevedore”, this is, loading and unloading cargo from the boats, ferries and cruises that would come by, cargo that would come from all over the world, because, you know, the Suez Channel is a the channel that makes the connection between the mediterranean sea and the arabian sea…  and so, one of the main routes used to transport goods between asia and europe… and then, at some point, I would mount one of that ships that would take me to Cyprus, and from Cyprus I would manage mount another vessel that would take me to Greece mainland, and so, I was leaving the European dream again…”