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Up First from NPR

Chapter 3: The Call Home

Up First from NPR

NPR

News, Daily News

4.659K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For many African migrants who set out on long and dangerous journeys to Europe, the end point is Huelva province in southwestern Spain. Here, strawberry fields spread for miles and miles and jobs are plentiful. Each year, thousands of seasonal workers cultivate the soil, plant seedlings, water and fertilize and harvest the crops.

In Huelva, workers from sub-Saharan Africa often live in dense settlements of semi-permanent structures without electricity or running water. And many are haunted by the question of when—or whether—they'll finally receive the documentation they need to travel home and see their families.

In the final installment of our Climate Migration series, All Things Considered co-host Ari Shapiro and his team travel to Huelva and end their trip in Madrid, where they meet a Spanish politician who was once a migrant without papers himself.

Ari tells Rachel stories of people who've made it to Spain but long for a sense of home while struggling for a foothold in a new country.

This is the third episode of our series focused on Ari's reporting. You can listen to Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 in the Up First feed.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Hey, it's Rachel and this is up for Sunday.

0:02.4

Well, I think the last time I talked to you, we were...

0:04.8

We just escaped the Moroccan police.

0:06.8

That's right.

0:07.6

This is the third part of our series with Ari Shapiro,

0:10.4

following people who were migrating from the African continent to Europe.

0:14.4

Back in October, Ari and his team spent weeks traveling through Senegal and Morocco

0:18.8

before finally arriving in mainland Spain.

0:22.0

For so many of the migrants Ari had met, this was the dream,

0:25.6

the long awaited destination, the end of their journey.

0:28.8

So I wanted to know what was life like for the people who had made it to Spain.

0:33.2

So days before he returned to D.C., I called Ari one last time.

0:42.4

Hi.

0:42.8

Hi.

0:43.8

How you doing?

0:44.8

Well, we've reached the end of the trip.

0:47.8

My bags are packed.

0:48.8

I'm flying home tomorrow.

0:50.4

We've been through three countries, at least seven different locations within those countries.

0:56.4

We've conducted interviews in five or six languages.

0:59.6

I have lost track.

1:01.2

Bombard wall-off, English, French, Spanish, Arabic.

...

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