A glimmer of hope..........

Hello there everyone,

Wow, do I have a lot to write about today. For starters I have one Euro left until this weekend. Joder ! I think that I will use it to buy some chocolate tommorow at work. I am so glad that I should be getting paid this weekend.

You probably don´t know that I am illegally here in Spain. Well, now you know. I have no legal working papers, and no health insurance. European citizens can get free health services and I can´t. I guess that you can say that I am kinda living on the edge right now. So when I bitch about my job, just know that I just can´t go look for something better.Well, actually I can but the chances of actually finding anything are slim to none. It´s not so simple here. I kinda take what I can get around here. Hell, I am even lucky to have a job right now. I was told that Spain is one of the worst places to work in Europe. Damn right it is !

Without working papers employers can rip me off and delay paying me and there is nothing I can do about it. Yeah, I can blubber to my mom about it but I can´t go to court.

And yes, I DID try to obtain a visa before coming here. Almost impossible.

So am I scared ? Nope. The absolutely worst thing that can happen to me is that the Spanish Authorities ask me to go back home. But there are no reports of any Americans being sent home.

So...... on to why I am feeling hopeful. Well, I was reading the Spanish newspaper and the government is giving people such as myself that are living and working here illegally the opportunity to obtain a working contract and a right to live. Between January and April people like me can apply for permission to live and work here. People that have been living and working here for at least 6 months can apply for permission to live and work here if they can prove it. And by February I will be able to apply AND prove it.

I am so excited because opportunities like this almost NEVER happen here and for some reason the government is all of a sudden giving people the opportunity to live and work here. For those of you that have immigrated to another country you KNOW how much hell you have to go through to obtain your rights to live and work like the rest of the citizens. It can take YEARS, lawyers and waiting in line for hours. So you can imagine how I must feel that all this can be accomplished under a year.

Once I have permission to live and work here, I can apply for any job that I want without people rejecting me for a lack of working papers.

But I am very nervous. I have the opportunity in front of me, but I am worried that things won´t work out. To prove that I have been working for the past 6 months I will need to ask my boss to write up a letter and sign it, stating how long I have been with the company. But I am afraid that my boss won´t help me out. There are many reasons why he may not do it. And it would be really sad if I lost my little window of opportunity to be here legally ALL because my boss refused to sign a friggin´sheet of paper. Especially since he faces no consecuences by doing it.  So yeah, I am nervous. I will be praying a lot. I guess if things don´t work out, I´ll know that I just wasn´t meant to stay here for a while. Who knows at this point.

Anyways, I better go now. Wish me luck. I will be getting up earlier to talk to my boss about this tommorow.