Billy's journey: Crossing the Sahara
I had heard that travelling overland was much cheaper than flying - and you didn't need a visa.I was also told it would take a week to reach Spain. Little did I know how wrong that was.
I left Dakar in November 1999, hoping to be in Europe for the millennium.
From the BBC site, the story of Mamadou Saliou "Billy" Diallo's tough journey from Senegal to a new life in Europe where he finally arrived... in March 2000. It is only two pages long but I'm sure a true description of the obstacles he faced could fill a book. In that sense it resembles the epic stories of migrants from South and Central America. The account of one migrant's journey from Honduras to the United States won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003.
There's also a connection between Billy's story and the previous entry on Spain's African Colonies. Billy's final "European" destination is the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, one of the last remnants of Spain's colonial presence in northern Morocco. Pictures of Ceuta and the other Spanish enclave, Melilla can be found here.