A voice from within Spain`s Sea of Plastic

From the air the most striking thing you see as you fly into Almeria, Spain is the white plastic that coats the land from close to the Mediterranean to the steep hills rising up a few kilometres from the coast. This enormous Sea of Plastic (Mar de Plastico), as it is called, is made up of hundreds of huge side-by-side greenhouses where much of Spain´s fruit and vegetables are grown year round.

What you don´t see on the beaches, or in the holiday communities and shopping centres that line this coast - are the workers who plant, tend and harvest the produce. They are hidden from sight. Most are undocumented workers from Africa who eke out a meager living, often for years, in illegal limbo.

Ali is an undocumented worker from the African nation of Burkino-Faso who nows lives and works in the sun-baked Almeria region. For two years he has navigated the shadow world of charity handouts and under-the-table cash payments for work in the greenhouses. The workers in these greenhouses only get cash - so there are no bank accounts, no records of employment, and no payroll taxes go to the Spanish government that help pay for health care and social security payments. He says his Spanish employers will not even acknowledge or greet him if they pass each other on the street or in a shop. For them he is a non-person.

Many workers give up or become depressed in this strange limbo world, but as an educated and articulate advocate for change, Ali is not ready to submit to a life without hope, rights or a future. And he has an idea.

Ali's idea is simple: Require undocumented immigrants to contribute a monthly payment to the Spanish government to help pay for the health care that is now provided free to them. He says doing this would:

1) Allow them to document their time in Spain - as they must prove that they have lived here for three years to get a residency document - essential for finding better jobs. Official records are had to get for the shadow people in the Sea of Plastic. Many live in the shantytowns - called asentiamentos (settlements) made of plastic sheets or in crumbling abandoned buildings, where addresses don`t exist.

2) Allow them to have the dignity of paying for services and contributing to the society they want to join.

3) Spare undocumented immigrants from accusations of benefitting from the work of others - and getting a free ride.

4) Help the cash-strapping Spanish government pay for health services.

Ali´s arguments are well constructed - polished during long hours of work in the blistering heat of the greenhouses in the Sea of Plastic.

Ironically, he admits, there`s a catch - a big one. Helping people document their time in Spain and become legal workers will reduce their chances of being hired because employers prefer illegal workers who get paid less, work longer days and get no benefits at all.

In Africa Ali worked for an international environmental organization. He now dreams of creating a chapter of that group in this region of Spain - where the monoculture greenhouses exhaust the soil and so much human potential, and so many dreams, shrivel in the scorching sun.

Neil McGillivray, Aguadulce Spain