By: domingo barbolla camarero  (Page 7/8)

Madani lives with eight companions in a house he rents from his employer. In the shared room is an old bed base, a foam mattress, and blankets. Besides his suitcase, his old clothes, and a carpet for prayer, these are his only belongings in Spain. He makes food with two others. Between the three, they share everything, but it is a group aside from the rest of the house. Sometimes they do common activities, for example a dinner at the end of the field work. He does not eat pork, does notdrink, respects his wife, does not have a car, saves all the money for his family, and yet he always seems to be happy. He is always willing to work, never complains, he does not speak badly of his King: I can hardly believe it. They are of the kind of men who practically don’t exist. For Madani everything is good, there are no “buts;” I cannot understand it. I see him walking down the highway when he needs to buy things; he never asks to be taken there, he only goes when it is convenient for those who live with him. The others treat him with the respect he deserves for his age, but his religiosity is, at times, an object of certain ridicule. He requested for family aid for his children, 3000 pesetas a month, but Social Security requested a certificate to prove that he did not receive it in Morocco, but he does not receive anything from his country.

Madani does all kinds of things in the field: changes sprinklers, gathers leaves, repairs the walkways. He is willing to work at any hour of the day, except those established for prayer. Day after day, facing Mecca, he offers the tribute of his prayer to Allah; he thanks Him for his luck, for everything life gives him. He is a true patriarch; he doesn’t have eight children in vain. He distributes food with fairness, equal for all; he knows how to be fair. Almost everything he earns he saves to send to his family in Morocco, he only works for them and nothing else. He spends his part on food for the three, for paperwork, and to travel. Madani is part of the Moroccan immigrants who are solely in Spain to make money by working, to send it home, and to give a better life to his relatives; dozens of people depend on him; his wife, children, brothers, nephews, cousins. He is responsible for feeding all these people. He has found a job with certain stability; he will return to his employer in the tobacco and olive field every year.

Madani does not dream of remaining in Spain and bringing his family; he does not dream about the glories of the western world, he does not hate his King or his God; he simply finds in our country the work he lacks in Morocco. Spain is only the means, not an objective. His objective is Morocco, his people, and Allah. He hardly speaks Spanish but that is not very necessary for he does. He fulfills his role and knows clearly what he wants. He is not integrated, nor does he need to be. He lives with us, feeds his family with his work, which is the only thing that matters to him and to his employers.

Summary

In summary; I understand that Moroccan immigrants in the zone are mostly religious, as a cultural expression of their country of origin, transferring their faith to their new place of establishment. They transfer it with small modifications depending on different factors. I find individual elements of sanctity worthy to recognize and to envy. These people are transferred by their faith to a daily paradise in which the recognized hardships are transformed into praise to Allah, the Great one, the Only one, the Merciful one; it is as if nothing was real, nothing outside their circle of faith. Faith is very important to the majority; they must fulfill the norms of their God, the rules of the Koran, and they do. No one misses daily prayer in the month of Ramadan. They do not drink alcohol, nor do they go with women. They live like this in a natural way; it forms part of their original culture, their rural culture. In spite of the importance of the faith of the majority of the Moroccan immigrants, they do not have mosques to read the Koran and to pray, except for the place fitted for celebration days in Talayuela.