TE20 Migrant Mosaics

Carlos Gámez Pérez

itwas obvious that theywere going to pickme by that criterion. At the dock I saw a few familiar faces, like Mamadou’s; inexplicably, Nadir stayed on land. I asked one of the organizers and he told me it was a programming issue; they had been observing us through the cameras with which they controlled the whole facility; apparently, the audience reaction had given them cause to leave Nadir in the center even though he was young. For the expat Spanishwriter, hewould have been one of those young men with copper skin and white teeth, with a little, wandering soul, but the organizers saw him only as a physically gifted youngster. The problem is that, according to the organizer, the program coordinators saw him differently: they saw him as an alpha male, and that was a profile that tended to intimidate the audience. So, in spite of his notable physical aptitude for the job, they had decided to eliminate him. I sighed, thanking Allah for the womanly undulations that so captivated the expat Spanish writer and that, I thought, had won methefavorof theprogramcoordinators; Ididsowhileweboarded a few long ferries and one of the members of the organization who had accompanied us to the pier said: They’re conditioned for the journey; but I looked at how the bodies were crammed into the boat and I didn’t understand what this conditioning could mean, until the man, in response to complaints from some of the passengers, said: Don’t spoil the fun. The challenges that await you at the end of the trip will be harder than this, you should think positive; he said all of this in front of one of the cameras that transmitted live, and then I understood not only the language he had used but also its crux.

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