Island in Senegal Kept "Afloat" by Wages from Spain

Feb. 7, 2011 - PRLog -- 7 Feb 2011.
As the issue of "dignity" becomes more pronounced in the struggle now under way in Egypt,
consider this story about a town that exists simultaneously off the coast of Senegal and the agricultural heartland of southern Spain.
The sentence is still there, written on the dusty wall of his room in Niodior.
It's a little faded by now, but the letters are still as curved and rounded as ever:
"The strength of a man does not lie in his freedom, but in the ability to fulfill his duty."
The old women sit outside in the courtyard, nodding as they shell mussels and spread the yellow meat out to dry.

Yes, Mamadou Ndour, they say, they remember him.

He's a good boy. He wrote the sentence on the wall with a piece of white chalk.

Then he got into a wooden boat and headed out into the ocean.
Any of the boys from this island could have written the same sentence.
It's what they believe in, the young men of Niodior, a speck of land off the coast of Senegal.
It's the reason they have to leave their village, and get into boats and risk their lives on the open seas.
This sentence explains why the village of Niodior exists in two incarnations, one in Spain and one in Senegal.
Every year tens of thousands of illegal immigrants land on Europe's shores.
The boats in which they come represent the modern migration
that Europe fears and is trying to fend off -- and yet also desperately needs:
•   the countless sons and daughters who systematically export their labor,
•   the workers in Spanish greenhouses,
•   the dishwashers in French restaurants,
•   the cleaners in German households.
Some arrive on boats or hidden on trucks.
Others arrive by air on tourist visas, and when it comes time to leave again,
they disappear into the cracks of a society that doesn't want them -- yet cannot function without them.
Ndour works in a gigantic greenhouse in Roquetas de Mar on the Spanish coast,
where he is currently crouched over, cutting zucchini from low-growing vines.
"You cut one off, throw it in the box and look for the next one. You spend the whole day bent over."
The French words in his head have gradually given way to Spanish ones.
He laughs when he confuses the two languages.
"€30 ($42) for eight hours," says Ndour. "This isn't what I had expected in Europe."
Ndour, 31, a tall young man, is wearing a light-brown T-shirt that's frayed around the collar.


continued.... http://www.economywatch.com/economy-business-and-finance-...

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