The Comit\u00e9 d’Entre-aide Internationale (CEI) is one of the organizations on the front-lines of work with migrant communities in Morocco, and in Oujda, there are four young exchange students from sub-Saharan African countries who are doing most of the work for CEI. \u00a0In the photo below, you can see Ruben from Angola in the back row,\u00a0Theophilus from Ghana and\u00a0H\u00e9ry from Madagascar in the front row. \u00a0I think H\u00e9ry and Ruben are both doing degrees in engineering; Theophilus is doing a degree in geo-science, hoping to help manage new oil deposits found in Ghana. \u00a0H\u00e9ry plans to return to Madagascar to help build new buildings for the developing civil society there.<\/p>\n
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\nAzariash from Mozambique, working on a degree in international law, is not in the photo, which was taken at\u00a0the Christian church service Sunday morning; Azariash was absent, trying to arrange care for a migrant who had been knifed in the neck overnight.<\/p>\n
After our day of visiting the camps, we took the CEI team out to dinner and asked them about their experiences: what\u2019s difficult for them in this work, what makes them do it.<\/p>\n
Azariash was completely focused on the work: the difficulties he named were all focused on the need for more resources to help the migrants.\u00a0 Azariash thinks CEI should accept any volunteers who want to help, Christian or not.\u00a0 He has friends who are doctors and he\u2019s persuaded them to provide medical help to the migrants.\u00a0 He speaks across the table to H\u00e9ry about broadening the base of support for the migrants, which makes it look as if H\u00e9ry disagrees.\u00a0 Azariash also wants to spread the word back in the home countries of these migrants. \u00a0He insists that he is learning so much, he receives more than he gives. \u00a0At the same time, he too acknowledges the difficulty of the work, especially recently, with the death of El Hajj.<\/p>\n The words that stay with me most strongly from the evening are H\u00e9ry’s. \u00a0When Karen pressed him again to say why he did this work, he replied: “Nous ne sommes pas dignes de nos avantages<\/em>: \u00a0We are not worthy of our advantages.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t do anything to earn them.\u00a0 This work makes us ask, ‘Why do we have so much and these people so little? How can this be just? \u00a0And what can we do about it?'”<\/p>\n Questions for us all.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Comit\u00e9 d’Entre-aide Internationale (CEI) is one of the organizations on the front-lines of work with migrant communities in Morocco, and in Oujda, there are four young exchange students from sub-Saharan African countries who are doing most of the work for CEI. \u00a0In the photo below, you can see Ruben from Angola in the back … Continue reading Reflecting on work with migrants: CEI’s exchange students<\/span> ![\"P1000580](\"https:\/\/maghrebi-voices.swarthmore.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/P1000580-Version-4.jpg\")
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\nH\u00e9ry, who I think is in charge of the project overall, was pleased that we had had some experience of how complicated and challenging the work can be: the struggle to be equitable in distribution, often displeasing the people you are trying so hard to help.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nRuben had been involved with the project when he first arrived in Oujda, but he had spent a year or two away from it. \u00a0He had been in charge of preparing and delivering food to \u00a0migrants. \u00a0One day he saw a man looking at the sandwich he had just given him with disgust. \u00a0Then the man saw Ruben looking at him: he threw the sandwich in Ruben’s face. \u00a0“I was so mad,” Ruben told us. \u00a0“I thought, ‘Do you have any idea how long it took to make these sandwiches? Do you know I’m a student? I don’t have the time to be doing this.’ \u00a0So I quit. \u00a0I didn’t need to be treated that way.”
\n“But you came back,” we said. \u00a0“Why?”
\n“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Ruben said. “It’s not right, what these people suffer. \u00a0But the work is not easy.”<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nI didn’t hear much of what Theophilus said, because Jeremy was running back and forth to the bathroom the whole time. \u00a0But even before we came, we knew that Theophilus as a Ghanaian felt personally threatened by the murder of his countryman, El Hajj, and that he had been friends with El Hajj and mourned his death intensely. \u00a0“Nigerians killed El Hajj; I am not ready to go back into the forest and work with the Nigerians.” \u00a0Azariash shared many of these feelings: he and Theophilus intentionally led the group going to the university today, while H\u00e9ry and Ruben led those of us who went into the forest.<\/p>\n