Africans in Barcelona

This place is full of foreigners. Many are tourists who just pass through and many are other European citizens who have as much right to live here, as they would have to live in their own EU countries. There are also many people that live here, who are not European. There are Africans living here but from what I can gather, there are not too many of them. You do not see many dark skinned (African) people here. Many of the Africans staying here are legally here now because Spain has a policy of granting legal status to illegal aliens who have lived here for a period of 3 years. Such leniency! If more people knew this, they would sneak in here... Many of the African men become vendors, selling pirate goods on the streets near tourist hotspots - to the tourists who happily pay for the bags, sunglasses, jewellery and other goods which these guys sell. They are obviously under pressure when doing their work as it is not legal trading or perhaps some of them are not here legally. They always work in groups. They carry their goods in a large cloth which they lay on the pavement when they get to their chosen street. They stand near one another and one of them keeps a look out for the police - while they try to sell their wares. As soon as one of them sees the police he alerts the group. They all grab the four corners of their cloth (with the goods inside it) and sling it onto their backs before they hoof it. Usually, to a metro station (the police have no jurisdiction over passengers inside the metro) as the metro police have jurisdiction there. So they are safely out of harm's way when in the station or on the trains. Yesterday my brother and I were getting onto the metro when an African woman interrupted me to tell me that my backpack was not zipped. I panicked and thought I might have been robbed but I had not. She told me that the Metro is a high risk place and I had better be careful with my possessions. I better pay more attention! Anyhow, I chatted to her and asked many questions. She told me she was from Nigeria but now lives here. She has been living in Barcelona for 9 years already. She said that she is now a permanent resident. She only has one year left until she can obtain her Spanish passport. She works in a hotel as a receptionist. She said that she tried to go to Ireland before she came to Spain all those years ago but was deported on arrival in Dublin. So she made her way to Spain and is now a permanent resident - who is just a short way from getting citizenship and a passport! Today as I walked past a home affairs office where there are usually long lines of people waiting to collect their passports and identity cards I noticed some African women with babies waiting outside - obviously having just collected their identity cards or passports. The easy way for Africans to become Europeans!

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