The basic story that he told me at my request at interviewing him was that “I would rather die trying to make it to Europe than to stay in this country.”
Franklin was unfortunately caught and deported back to Ghana in his bid to make it to Europe. He is a student of one of the universities in Ghana.
12th December 2007, marks another day for the remembrance of migrants contribution to the development of the world. I took this opportunity to interview Franklin, on the ordeal that he had to go through in his desire to make it to Europe.
This is how Franklin started; My name is Franklin, I am 25 years old. I tried to get to the Canary Islands once before but it did not work out for me, I have been caught and now I am back to the zero point. But I will try again.
The journey was one of the most frightening experiences that I have ever had in my life. I had nothing to drink for two days.
Life in Ghana is a pain. I have no future, because even after school there is no guaranteed job for me. I need to feed my family. I think life will be easy out there in Europe. I believe I did what any father or brother would do to protect his family or his life for the future.
My parents died during the Dabgon conflict crises in the Northern Region of Ghana when I was young and now even at age 25, I don’t remember a day which I have not struggled to eat.
I left Brong Ahafo, in Ghana on 12th January, 2005 and that was how the journey began. I was in the company of two of my friends who whom I had convinced into this whole thing. We traveled on land through Togo, through to Benin, Nigeria, Niger Republic, Libya, Algeria and then to Morocco.
In each of these towns we had to work. In some instances we had to work as head porters.
A friend whom we met in Morocco who was also a head porter told us that we will have to meet an acquaintance of his who could assist us to get to the Canary Islands. This was after we had made known our intentions to him. Despite his advice for us, on the need to stop this journey, we were burnt on getting to our “dreamland”.
Upon meeting the man we had to give him 600 euros before the three of us could join him to the desert where some people including young migrants like us were waiting for their turn to get into a boat.
At long last it got to our turn and it seemed like we were making it to our “dreamland”. One person among us began singing a song which we all joined. It really kept our souls and our spirits alive.
After many hours on the water, I was nauseated. I thought it was just me feeling this, but within a few minutes my two friends had all vomited.
After sometime a wave which I describe as a boisterous one arose. Everyone was praying and shouting to his or her God for help. Some people began to cry.
Its seemed our God had heard our prayers. The waters calmed just like the time Jesus commanded the winds and the waves to calm down whilst he was at sea with his disciples.
We were at sea for about another five hours.
We were rescued by the coast guards (police) as we got near the coastline. Some of us started to kiss the ground when we finally touched land.
When I later looked around to see my two friends, I realized that one of them had died in the boat. I wept bitterly for that. My other friend also had some nasty salt sores on his body which was caused by wet clothing rubbing continuously for many days.
For those of us who were quite healthy we were held in internment centers for up to 40 days, and from there we were sent back to our countries of origin.
Now I will have to start all over. My plight is worse. I have started to save some money to make another journey.
This was the story of Franklin. After spending about 2 hours with Franklin for this interview, I began to realize how people like Franklin would go every length to satisfy their dreams.
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