#WomensLives: Life on the Border Between Europe and Africa

Hello Melitngpot Readers,

If you’ve read my memoir, Kinky Gazpacho, then you know I’ve lived in both Spain and Morocco, so these recent stories about life in the border city of Ceuta have caught my attention. Ceuta is a city on the cusp of Africa, but it is a Spanish territory. Ceuta’s citizens are Spanish, but the divide between African and European is clear and striking.

Check out these two stories, one about the bone crushing work Moroccan women endure to make pennies at the border of Ceuta and Morocco and the other about the growing tensions between the haves and have-nots in Ceuta.

Life as it stands in Ceuta is not working and will require some significant changes. A handover to Morocco? An influx of industry that can staunch unemployment? What? I don’t have the answers, but obviously something has to give.

What do you think dear readers? Do you think Spain should hand over the city? Would Ceuta as a Moroccan territory solve the issue of unemployment and illegal activity? I’ve always thought it odd that Spain owned a small piece of Africa, but then again the Brits still own a small piece of Spain in Gibraltar. And we thought colonialism was so last century!

Peace!