If not, maybe reading this letter from my friend will help you:
...
I was just now talking with Suleiman, a friend of mine, on the phone. He's in Napoli, Italy, at the moment but is from a village in the Gambia. (That's where they met.)
He reached Italy by travelling overland from Gambia, through Senegal & Mauritania to Libya where, reaching Tripoli, he got aboard a boat full of other desperate people & eventually to Italy.
I knew about his journey since he left the village, but I just heard some of the details of the trip. It's a truly extraordinary tale.
In Libya he & other youths would look for abandoned vehicles to sleep in. One night men came with guns so they fled. He ran one way but his friend took another route & was followed by the men & shot dead. Suleiman spent the night hidden in a vegetable patch.
The boat which crossed from Libya to Italy broke down in mid-crossing. The drinking water ran out. Sixty people died before they reached land. The boat which left after sank & there were no survivors. People on board were from many countries, all desperate to reach Europe. My friend was shocked to be sharing such danger & hardship with people from Syria who to him are white people like the tourists he used to see in Gambia.
Now he's in Napoli, but has no documents so can't get work.
In January I'll see his wife & their baby. They married just before he left. I doubt he knew she was pregnant.
....
I'm most grateful to my friend for letting me share this here with you, Dear Readers. This picture from the exhibition I mentioned two days ago seems appropriate as a follow-up to Suleiman's story, but it also reminds me of the museums in Bahrain, Oman and The Emirates, and which reflect the life as it had been there before the oil boom.
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| 'Here Today...' exhibition, London |
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