ADVENT CALENDAR - DAY FOURTEEN

TODAY'S CHALLENGE - Write a piece in which the setting is one of the main characters. Construct a story that couldn't be told in any other place.

After 24 hours on Nanny duty, I have adapted a story I wrote while living in Tenerife, where witnessing distressing scenes very similar to this one made a lasting impression on me. Rickety wooden boats would set out from Africa to cross the treacherous 100 miles of sea - one was discovered weeks later in America, having missed the Canary Islands altogether. All the occupants were dead.

The text with this photo says 'Cayuco containing 105 immigrants arrives in Tenerife 14/1/2007.' One hundred and five! Seeing the empty boat the next day prompted me to write this story.

CAYUCO

A fishing boat spotted the ninth cayuco of the year wallowing in the trough between massive full-moon waves, its occupants’ faces grey with sickness and terror.

Tourists took photographs as exhausted people clambered up stone steps to be met by policia and medicos on the harbour wall. There were gasps when another layer was revealed – second-class passengers under the feet of the first, their clothing soaked in brine and vomit.

Just one woman remained in the cayuco, searching desperately through the filth until she found, wedged beneath the lowest seat, a bundle that had stopped crying hours before.

.........................................................................................................

AND - in case you missed my previous post - my book WOLF PACK is now available on Amazon, just in time for Christmas! Wolf Pack is the second in my Living Rock series, the fist of which is A VOLCANIC RACE. When you've read them, please do consider writing a review - an author's lifeblood and incentive to continue. Here's the link for WOLF PACK -   https://www.amazon.com/dp/1790375088

CAYUCO - a 100 word story

CAYUCO

A fishing boat spotted the ninth cayuco of the year wallowing in the trough between massive full-moon waves, its occupants’ faces grey with sickness and terror.

Tourists took photographs as people struggled up stone steps to policia and medicos, silver blankets and bottled water on the harbour wall. There were disbelieving gasps when another layer was revealed – second-class passengers under the feet of the first, their hair and clothing soaked in brine and vomit.

Just one woman remained, searching desperately through the filth until she found, wedged beneath the lowest seat, a bundle that had stopped crying hours before they sighted land.

--------------------------------------------------------

The above photograph, taken by Georgia Koch, is this week's prompt for Friday Fictioneers, hosted by Rochelle. When you've left a comment on my story (please!) you can read other writers' interpretations by following the Blue Frog link from her blog 

https://rochellewisofffields.wordpress.com/

My story is based on fact. When we lived in Tenerife I witnessed similar scenes in  Las Galletas, the village where I shopped - these photos were taken at sea and on the beach there.

XENOPHOBIA - A-Z Challenge

XENOPHOBIA
has been in the news lately, and Tenerife is no exceptoin to this prejudice. It is a difficult subject to broach and discussions can become heated. 
I am British, and a large number of Tenerife residents are also foreigners here, but every nationality seems to have sent more than its share of  perceived stereotypes to the Canary Islands.
For example, Rumanians are often in the papers for committing robberies, and drugs come in from South American countries on a regular basis. This makes everyone view both nationalities warily.
More personal is our own experience that if someone shoves to the front in the market waving a €50 note for a bunch of bananas it is always a German. The experiences of far too many gullible tourists prove that you have to be very careful when buying a camera or a phone in a shop owned by an Indian, and when a drunken idiot falls from a hotel balcony it is usually a Brit.

We have friends from many countries, and we are all embarrassed on occasions by the way some of our own countrymen behave, but the instances above are indisputable facts. Small wonder that, although most Canarians are lovely, welcoming people, a few are xenophobes – you’re just unlucky if you are served by one in a shop or cafė.

A few years ago there was a flood of Cayucos – those unstable wooden boats that crossed 300 kilometres of ocean from Africa. I was actually in Los Abrigos when one was escorted in out of the night by a lifeboat, and I saw the exhausted people being given bread and water by the local restaurateurs before the Cruz Roja took them away in ambulances.

 The sight of their empty boat the next day, with its home-made urinals and rotting food scraps, brought home to me how desperate they must have been to embark on sugh a journey.  Most of those people were re-patriated as illegal immigrants, but some stayed, and there are a lot of Africans here – every promenade has its ‘lookie-lookie’ boys with their sunglasses and watches, or groups of hair-plaiting women..

But it's not easy being black here.
One black friend told me he used to drive a fancy car but the policia stopped him every time he went out in it. The assumption was that if he was black he must have stolen it. Now he drives a nondescript car just for a quiet life. Surprisingly, it doesn’t seem to make these minorities bitter – perhaps the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Our Centro Cultural hosts a Nigerian party each year, and when I was drawn by the music I stopped a toddler from escaping into the night. I picked him up and a moment later his mother claimed him – I thought she was never going to stop thanking me, and I was invited in and given a plate of food and a beer. A memorable evening.

We always remember that we're strangers here too - XENOPHOBIA flows both ways.