So on our second day in Almeria we got there early enough and secured a nice spot for our stuff with a bit of shade. Nisarga and I played in the black sand all day, napping and swimming in between without a care in the world.
In the afternoon, some time between 4 and 5, Pedro alerted us that there w
as a boat approaching with a helicopter following, so it was most likely a boat with immigrants trying to enter Spain illegally. He said they had seen similar boat chases a couple of times before, with the boat landing on the beach and the Spanish boarder patrol chasing after the people. Nisarga and I watched in amazement as the bright orange raft approached, the helicopter relentlessly above it. At the last minute the boat veered towards the beach to our left. The helicopter however landed on the beach we were on. Before doing so we all had to clear off and stand against the rocks as there was so much sand and water blowing in all directions. It landed briefly with 2 guys getting out and running towards the next beach. Most of the people on our beach had already ran over that way. And whoever was left, Pedro, Pillar and Nisarga included, ran over behind the patrol guys to check it out.I was the only one left
on the beach. I sat hugging my knees to my chest. Something had really moved inside me. I wasn’t curious about what was going on over on the beach next door. I had no desire to watch as these guys got chased down while a handful of naked people watched on. I was sad, very sad. A deep and profound sadness came up from somewhere. And I started to cry a bit. Then out of nowhere, well I guess not out of nowhere but out of the beach next door, came running two guys. They were from the boat, which was obvious because they weren’t in uniform and they were dressed and they were running and they looked north African. As they came over the bend they started to take off their clothes, and quickly buried them under the sand. One ran into the tent which was behind where I was sitting, and the other one came over and sat with me. When they were burying their clothes we looked at each other and I gave them a soft nod to mean “it’s ok, I won’t tell, I didn’t see anything.”So now I have a naked illegal immigrant in front of me and he is speaking to me in Arabic. I don’t understand a word. I try French, but he doesn’t understand me. No English, no Spanish, I don’t bother trying Greek. I’m still in shock actually. After a few minutes Nisarga and some others come over from the next beach. Now Nisarga is surprised. I think I’m asked if that’s my husband and I say yes. None of us can communicate with him. He’s upset, his mobile phone got wet and no longer works, he smashes it. He doesn’t ask for money, he takes off his rings and insists I take them. Three of them. And a currency note from back home. We insist he keep the rings and the money, he insists on parting with them.
For the next hour, the other guy who also made it to this beach hides in the near by tent, set up by a Spanish couple planning to camp out for the night, and this guy lays face down on the beach as if taking sun. The helicopter continues t
o circle overhead and beyond. The border patrol guys apprehend some of the guys from the raft. They confiscate the raft and try to get it back in the ocean, using it as a way to reach their boat which is too big to get closer. But they can’t get it past the waves. A group of nude beach goers help out (this is actually a very funny scene, with the border patrol guys in shorts and polo tops and shoes and then the naked group all pushing together and then once in the ocean waving thanks and goodbye). I think it’s a don’t ask don’t tell situation. A few people, like that Spanish couple with the tent, are doing what they can to shelter and look out for the two refugees. Others are talking and comparing what they saw, staying away, but not snitching on the two stowaways either.I’m still in shock. Pedro asks what’s wrong and I don’t know. I really don’t know. So many different emotions have come up, but I really don’t have the space to go into any of them or even figure them out. It’s soon time to go. I leave some water and bread behind for the two, wave goodbye to the guy who came to sit near me, and start to walk back to the car. I carry with me the gifts he insisted on sharing. On our way back down the hill there are 2 border patrol guys waiting and a car, checking on who comes down the hill. I don’t think they will make it through the night there. And if that Spanish couple gets caught helping them, they can also face legal problems. It’s a sad and complicated situation.
As a person who was born in the US, I have been aware most of my life how much people are willing to risk to cross a particular border. As a first generation American (meaning neither one of my parents were born in the US), I am often reminded of how lucky I am. I am asked where I am from, and when I say the US people often follow up with: “were you born there?” When I reply “yes”, I sense an approval come from the enquirer, as if to say, oh yes, then you are a real American. A few strangers have told me how lucky I am. And a few friends and family members have pointed out that while people die, literally, on a daily basis trying to enter the US, here I am trying not to come back… why would I throw all that away? My mother has pointed out that she has worked hard and long to give my brother and I the best opportunities, ones she never could have even dreamed of, and I am choosing to live among poverty and lower standards of living (according to her) than what I could have. It’s that I’m choosing to do this that gets her. (The first time I asked her to visit me in India she said “why would I want to spend my vacation surrounded by poverty? In that case I would just go and visit my own family in Bolivia!” I understood.) But I have never been witness to someone actually trying to cross a border illegally. We see it on TV, in movies, and we see what happens to these people at the hands of US immigration, but never had I actually witnessed it.
These guys had come prepared. They had euro, water resistant bags, gels and sprays and combs, they knew they had to blend in well upon landing. But they landed on a nude beach! That was their first face to face impression of Europe. I thought back to what I remember my mother telling me was one of her first impressions of the promise land, the US. She first went to the US from Bolivia as a nanny, when she was 19, working for diplomats from Israel that were transferred to the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington DC. They had a baby girl and she was hired to look after her. She flew into Miami airport and she said she could not believe her eyes at what she saw. A huge machine going from one side to the other, making the whole floor so shiny. Something that would take so long to accomplish back home. She said she sat on a chair at the gate, and just watched the machine for a while.
Maybe because I come from immigrant parents. Maybe because I have worked in countries where I have been considered very lucky for where I was born. Maybe because I have worked in countries where people do die trying to reach the US. Maybe because I’m not considered to look like a typical American so I don’t get treated like one. Maybe because I realized when I was 12, during my first trip to Bolivia with my mother serving as translator since I didn’t speak Spanish back then, that the only thing that differentiated me from the girls my age selling cookies and ice-cream in the plaza, or the ones carrying their younger sibling on their back, or the ones slightly older who were carrying their child in their belly, or the ones just a decade older then me with a few kids tugging on them… was simply where I was born. If I had been born in Bolivia, to my same mother, I would have had a very similar fate. It was luck of the draw, why I had access to so many more opportunities and they didn’t. I didn’t deserve it more, I hadn’t earned it, I wouldn’t even necessarily make best use of the opportunities in comparison. My parents, by then naturalized US citizens, weren’t even living in the US at the time when I was born. But I was born in the US… the only difference… and a huge difference. And I don’t ever forget that.
And so when I see this, someone trying to cross the border at any cost, my heart goes out to them. Maybe they aren’t the poorest, maybe they aren’t the saintliest, maybe they aren’t the hardest working, or whatever people say about potential immigrants. But I respect them for the sheer fact that they aspire to something more. That they want something more for themselves, for their families. And they are willing to risk their life for it. How many of us can say there are things we are willing to risk our lives for (other than our children of course)? Because is there any need to risk our lives? I respect such a strong desire for a better life, and I’m grateful and indebted to my parents for ensuring that I would not have to make such a decision in this life time.
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