My name is Amadu Tidjane Balde. I was born in Guinea-Bissau, in a city called Bafatá considered the second capital of the country. I studied journalism in my country and came to Spain in November 2015: I went to the Basque Country, specifically to Bilbao. I was living there for a year and a half, and I took the opportunity to study Spanish in the Lagun Artean association for seven months.
She lived with a boy who decided to go to Portugal; At that moment I was left on the street, without a place to sleep or shower. After a few weeks I met another Romanian boy who asked me if I wanted to work, my response was quick: "Yes, but I don't have papers." He replied: do not worry, we are going to work in the field: there are no controls there; and if there are, it is not for the subject of the papers. We went to Valladolid to work picking garlic and corn. When we finished this work, I met another boy from Guinea Conakry, who invited me to go with him to Lleida to work on the fruit campaign: that's how I got to Alcarràs.
In Alcarrás I was sleeping for a week in a park behind the Bonpreu supermarket, until one day I spoke with a boy from Mali about my situation and he explained to me a place where the seasonal workers lived; behind an iron factory, in the municipality of Alcarrás. That same day I went with the intention of sleeping there, but they didn't let me: a boy told me that everything was full, that there was no place for me. They were containers of refrigerated trucks full of people, without water and without light in the middle of the field, so I left and found another place; the terrace of a warehouse near the containers. The next day, very early, a Spanish boy arrived who asked me if I wanted to work and I accepted: I was able to do it during the remaining three weeks of the 2017 campaign.
Without work, I thought I would have to do something, and I decided to perfect Spanish. When asked, they indicated that I could go to Cáritas Parroquial because there they taught classes and when I went, I was lucky enough to meet one of the volunteers who attended me, listened to me and was interested in my situation. She put me in touch with the technician responsible for the settlement program to interview me and assess whether I could be referred to the housing program. In the process until entering one of the floors, I felt welcomed, listened to, oriented and understood. They helped me in everything I needed from the reception, and after a short time they offered me to participate in the housing program.
Now I collaborate as a volunteer in the Spanish class project that I was part of, and I am happy to be able to help others as they did with me. They also ask me to collaborate as a translator when the cultural mediator of Cáritas has to attend to so many children that my help is good, and my volunteering is prolonged when one of the boys must go to the doctor and has great difficulty expressing himself.
When I decided to come to Europe I did it thinking of continuing studying. I studied journalism in my country and I want to get a degree at any Spanish university to be able to return and work as a correspondent for a Spanish radio, but it is not easy. Now I'm working; sometimes as a temporary worker, sometimes in a construction site or doing anything, because I still don't have a residence permit and I have to survive. The first year I earned five euros an hour and last year six, but if it rains one day, you don't work, and also the sweet fruit campaign lasts very little and I have to endure this throughout the year.
Getting residency is a terrible process. How can I register if I live on the street? And if in the end I succeed, it's three years of waiting trying to survive, which is almost always a bad life. Asking for roots in Catalonia also requires 90 hours of Catalan officially certified. The process of getting a passport, penalties and, most difficultly, a job offer for a year, can take another three years if you are very lucky. After; sworn translation of penalties, registration history, proof of having spent those three years in the place in question and a long etcetera. Also, you have to pay for each step you take. With the field contracts, the papers do not usually come out the first time, there is always something wrong and they deny them, although it is easier if the farmer has many lands.
The life of the migrant here is very hard, even if you have a work permit. To renew the first green card after the first year, you have had to work contributing for at least six months. That is very difficult since only the peonies are quoted and after a month they quote you from 15 to 18 days: if the campaign lasts four months and you do not have the possibility to go to other campaigns, in the end you lose the card and you are in illegal situation. There is also the possibility of making many more hours than normal, but they do not appear on the payroll and those do not quote.
At the time of the fruit campaign, if I work, I can buy what I need to eat, but I cannot indulge myself, always thinking about saving money so I can pay for my bed when I don't work in winter. In the apartment where I live I have to pay 120 euros a month, and there are more months that I don't work in the field than I do. Most seasonal workers move to Valencia, Jaén, Almería ... Winter jobs are variable, I have worked cleaning farms, orchards, I have been a gardener. Many of my colleagues do not eat with dignity because the money they earn is a pittance, 90% of them receive aid from Caritas for basic foods such as rice, oil, milk, sugar, tuna, and also clothes that they need.
Racism, it is evident, it shows, exists. Here in Alcarràs, there are bars that when they stare at you and the workers-waiters- do not treat everyone with dignity, that is why most of us go to the bar of the girl named Vero, who we call him Mama Africa, or. the Chinese owner's bar near the CAP or the Moroccan kebab, on the main road. To speak of concrete things that have happened to me, I remember that in Valladolid, the person who took us to work, after finishing in the corn field, took us to cut garlic. She said she would pay the box at € 1.50. We started working from 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. and nobody managed to make 6 boxes. My colleagues and I decided not to continue working for this price; We would continue working only if we were paid by the hour. The owner of the course decided to speak to us and said that he would pay us € 2.00 a box, but we insisted that we wanted to charge by the hour. He did not give in, but what he worked paid us for hours.
From there we came to Alcarràs in the province of Lleida. In Alcarràs, each countryman goes at his own pace; some when starting to work demand that we do it in silence: you cannot speak until you finish the work, that is, until the time of rest. Others program the workers the kilos they have to do a day: there are those who make up to 1,500, and even 2,000 kilos depending on the hectares of field and the number of workers. It is hard work, the palots - the boxes in which the fruit is loaded - that carry three woods weigh 200 kilos each, and there are palots of 300 kilos. But my experience with the farmers of Alcarràs has been good, and I have no complaints.
In the long term, the temps show fatigue, physical wear. During the summer campaign one works between eight and ten hours, with a rest that goes from 15 to 30 minutes, under the harsh summer sun and with the weight of the full buckets. In the time of pruning it is very cold, the gloves freeze, the eyelashes freeze, you do not feel your feet from the cold it is, the bone pain that does not go away (and all this for very low wages). Added to this is the loneliness of having the family away: emotionally it is hard, the hope of returning to the country with enough to settle there, improving the life of the family, is being lost. And this also affects a lot psychologically.