Soup Jar

Storytelling for Human Rights by Oana Maroti

These days, there was continuous rain, and from habit, I had made a typical noodle soup for the cold season, and seeing him in the cold and rain made me approach to ask if he wanted some soup, and he confirmed.

I´m so poor myself that I had only the possibility to put the warm soup in a jar for him, but he was content.

In our culture, having soup, especially noodle soup, condimented with different roots, is like a sublime instant comfort.

I have asked Mr. Tiberiu what happened, why he is on the streets. He started explaining in Spanish, then I realized, while speaking, that his facial characteristics are familiar. He has the name of my adoptive grandfather and a similar dark skin tone. In Romania, we are delivered in different skin tonalities.

Mr. Tiberiu is from a rural area near Aiud, Transilvania. He arrived in Spain, specifically in Catalunya, 16 years ago. Initially, he came with his wife, but life took a turn, and he found himself alone, at one point, without work. He is now working wherever he can, primarily in recycling. He received no help in these years, and reactualizing his papers seems impossible, and I know that the challenge is real. It´s impossible to access basic rights like paper reactualization, changing an address, or scheduling an official processing, which became only feasible with external help, paying others, or, if lucky, just giving your personal details to 3rd individuals or groups, which, according to GDPR rules and personal data protection legislation, should never occur.

In desperation, Mr. Tiberiu asked for help in different places, but was refused, even mocked when he was trying to explain his situation. He is a mechanic who was trained and worked for years as a specialist mechanic, and speaks 3 languages: Romanian, Hungarian, and Spanish. No formation or guidance towards work opportunities based on his knowledge was initiated for him, in all this time. Nobody from those in charge approached to offer support of some kind, or a jacket, a blanket, something during all the cold weather emergency, even though he is situated on a central street, totally visible.

His repetitive attempts to approach the social services were redirected towards scheduling and reactualizing a basic documentation, which he cannot schedule due to the insufficiency of the system, and has no money to pay 3rd parties to solve his papers; therefore is totally blocked and forced to beg, as he does not want to steal.

With the Catalan support system closed doors, he tried to approach the Romanian system, but once we pay taxes in Spain, in the other country, they do not care about us, as the responsibility goes where you have paid taxes.

Mr. Tiberiu is a mechanic of heavy machinery, plus a person from rural Transilvania, who speaks 3 languages, which for me is a lot of knowledge. In the rural areas from where he is, the basic knowledge goes from construction, to preservation, and constant invention, and this is a personality interested and developed in mechanics. You cannot imagine the skills and potential this means. Overspecialized in so many domains that being unable to find a formation and include such a connoisseur in the society is quite strange.

Mr. Tiberiu needs help. He needs a representative, a lawyer. Like many others, I included the basic bureaucracy being inaccessible and closed doors when asking for support, even access problems at the emergency room make life a calvary, that enchains you. No possibility to move. If you reach an institution dedicated to support, they send you home, or where is that home? If for more than a decade you have been in the same area as those sending you home, and for sure you have been paying more even for a bottle of water.

Between Spain and Romania, there is a bureaucratic ping-pong on social cases. The support is slim or nonexistent, even though the work abuse cases and human trafficking cases are significant.

We are people too, people who worked in different countries, and for more than 10 years in each of them. You cannot just send us home from one border to another, and pretend we are invisible, and when we show up to explain the situation, imply we are stupid.

Migrants are not stupid, and there is a wrong impression, generalized and preferred, about Romanians, that we might not be educated. If you hear Transilvania, Romania, expect the surprise element; people are incredibly educated. Many of those willing to relocate and start from 0 in your countries are highly intelligent people, who may never had the chance for a proper education, and just need some support with that, others are already trained as specialists, when they reach Spain, and then there is the genius group, who are in your country to continue their lifetime research. Why are we invisible? Why are there no work opportunities available for us, and no functional integration planning in place? Each of us has seen disgust and low institutional education; that´s the general experience.

I´m writing this article as a call for support. After trying so many times to communicate and being dehumanized, the trying becomes an anguish, and clearly the closed door´s effect is exactly doing that, traumatizing people until they lose all energy, and will stop trying. Mr. Tiberiu is so traumatized by the repetitive xenophobic institutional reactions that he doesn´t even have the energy to make a complaint. Complaining in here produces a reverse reaction; you get more revenge, so Mr. Tiberiu is, in conclusion, afraid to even complain, as it might make the situation even worse, and I don´t make problems, I don´t want problems, is what Mr. Tiberiu says. I just need a work opportunity. Romania is in Europe, we have work permits, so why are we left aside?

<-><->ES

Los migrantes no son tontos, y existe la impresión errónea, generalizada y preferente, sobre los rumanos de que quizás no tengamos educación. Si escuchan hablar de Transilvania, Rumanía, esperen la sorpresa; la gente tiene una educación increíble. Muchos de quienes están dispuestos a reubicarse y empezar de cero en sus países son personas muy inteligentes que quizás nunca tuvieron la oportunidad de una educación adecuada y solo necesitan apoyo para ello; otros ya están formados como especialistas al llegar a España. ¿Por qué somos invisibles? ¿Por qué no hay oportunidades laborales para nosotros?

Escribo este artículo como un llamado de apoyo. Después de intentar comunicarnos tantas veces y ser deshumanizados, el intento se convierte en angustia, y claramente el efecto de la puerta cerrada está haciendo precisamente eso, traumatizando a las personas hasta que pierden toda la energía y dejan de intentarlo. El Sr. Tiberiu está tan traumatizado por las repetidas reacciones institucionales xenófobas que ni siquiera tiene la energía para quejarse.

Quejarse aquí produce la reacción contraria; se obtiene más venganza, así que el Sr. Tiberiu, en conclusión, teme incluso quejarse, ya que podría empeorar la situación. «Yo no causo problemas, no quiero problemas», dice el Sr. Tiberiu. «Solo necesito una oportunidad laboral. Rumanía está en Europa, tenemos permisos de trabajo, así que ¿por qué nos dejan de lado?».