Almer\u00eda province, Spain (CNN) \u2014 On a hot sunny summer afternoon, Amoateng Foster leans against a table in a makeshift open-air classroom in southern Spain, facing outward toward the improvised student seats. This is not an unfamiliar setting for Foster, 44, who was a math teacher in Ghana before making the perilous journey through the Sahel toward Libya, and then across the Mediterranean into Italy, finally arriving in Spain.<\/p>\n
He now lives in an informal settlement for migrants in Almer\u00eda province, where he and thousands of other workers toil in seemingly countless greenhouses across the sun-baked region to produce the fruit and vegetables that sustain Europe during the winter. The conditions are harsh and the pay, for those in a more precarious situation, is terrible.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not easy being here if you don\u2019t have proper documentation,\u201d he said, taking stock of his life in Spain. Like many across the African continent and beyond, he was drawn to Europe by the promise of a better job, a better life. But reality has not lived up to his expectations, proving immeasurably hard and degrading in many ways.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are outside the fence, you may think that is rosy here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not rosy here.\u201d<\/p>\n
And the more he shows us of Don Domingo de Arriba, his current home, the more evident that becomes.<\/p>\n
Hundreds of people live alongside Foster in squalor, in a makeshift neighborhood built with whatever brick, mortar, tire or piece of plastic they could find. It\u2019s a surreal scenario, with no official electricity supply or running water, something you wouldn\u2019t expect to see in Europe in the 21st century.<\/p>\n
CNN has identified at least four of these settlements in the area around N\u00edjar, northeast of the city of Almer\u00eda.<\/p>\n
\u201cLook at the environment that we live in. It\u2019s not good, but we are managing simply because we have found ourselves here, and it\u2019s not easy for us to go back,\u201d Foster said.<\/p>\n
\u2018We are all children of god\u2019<\/p>\n
As men, women and children flooded across the border between Morocco and Spain, into the autonomous city of Ceuta at the end of July, European populists and anti-immigrant politicians capitalized on the shocking images of human desperation<\/a>. They also prompted several right-leaning governments in Europe to criticize the current Spanish government, specifically its approach to migration.<\/p>\n There has also been growing backlash by populist politicians against charities and other organizations operating on the front line of this torrent of human suffering, with some critics accusing them of creating the conditions that attract more migrants.<\/p>\n \u201cAll we do is help those who have nothing,\u201d said Sister Francisca, 80, the coordinator for the local chapter of the Mercedarian Sisters of Charity, a Catholic religious community, responding to the criticism.<\/p>\n Neither we, nor any other organization that supports immigrants, is the reason they come,\u201d she said. \u201cThey are not looking for a piece of bread. They\u2019re looking for a more dignified life and a job where they can fulfill themselves, where they can earn money and send it to their families.\u201d<\/p>\n Her organization assists recent arrivals with language lessons and skills workshops to help them find their footing in Spain. But crucially it also distributes food baskets donated by local supermarkets and charities to those most in need.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone can come to our door. \u2026 The most common thing is that they ask us for is a sandwich, and they tell us they\u2019re hungry. It\u2019s a basic necessity,\u201d Sister Francisca said.<\/p>\n At the group\u2019s food distribution center in San Isidro, her colleague, 61-year-old Sister Estella, is preparing and handing out food baskets. She checks each person\u2019s identification details against a database \u2014 to have a sense of how frequently people are visiting the center \u2014 and then calls them one by one.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re very happy to do it because people really need it, to eat, to survive,\u201d she said. \u201cBut it\u2019s still painful to see.\u201d<\/p>\n On busier days, the sisters say they are able to help around 50 families. When donations are low, it\u2019s around 20.<\/p>\n Outside the center was 36-year-old Amal, a Moroccan mother-of-two, who left her children with her mother and sister when she came to Spain seven months ago to pick strawberries. A disagreement with her employer saw her lose her job, she said, and now she\u2019s desperate for any kind of work.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s difficult. \u2026 There\u2019s no work, no place to live, no papers. My kids are far away,\u201d she said, holding back tears as she flicked through pictures of her children on her phone.<\/p>\n Restoring a sense of dignity for people like Amal, whose vulnerability is why she didn\u2019t want us to use her last name, is the main goal of Sister Francisca\u2019s organization.<\/p>\n \u201cA simple gesture, a glance, reaching out. It can make a difference. It can lead to saying, \u2018You\u2019re just like me,\u2019\u201d the nun told CNN. \u201cWe are elderly, we are poor, but we try to raise the standard of living for these people. We are all children of God, and we all have the right to dignity and respect.\u201d<\/p>\n The promise of Europe<\/p>\n Although overall irregular migration numbers were down over the previous year across Europe in the first five months of this year, many continue to risk their lives to reach the continent, and some routes do show an increase.<\/p>\n One of those is what Frontex, the European Union\u2019s border agency, defines<\/a> as the Western Mediterranean route, which includes crossings from Algeria and Morocco into southern Spain, including the region around Almer\u00eda.<\/p>\n This area is known as Europe\u2019s vegetable garden for the more than 3.5 million tons of fresh produce it delivers to European markets every year, enough to sustain around 500 million people, according to some estimates<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cA few years ago, there were no greenhouses, and there were no immigrants either,\u201d Sister Francisca recalled. \u201cNow there\u2019s plenty of work at the greenhouses. When they open, people come.\u201d<\/p>\n Depending on the time of the year, the greenhouses produce peppers, tomatoes, watermelons or cucumbers, among other smaller crops, across an expanse so vast they can be seen from space, earning the region another, slightly less complimentary nickname \u2013 the \u201cSea of Plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n But with demanding intermediaries and powerful supermarket chains vying to sell at the cheapest possible price, business owners in Almer\u00eda say they\u2019re forced to rely on cheap labor if they are to make any kind of profit. And that\u2019s where immigrants like Amal or Foster come in.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Government data suggests more than 70,000 people are registered with social security as working in the agriculture business in Almer\u00eda. Unions and NGOs say official numbers don\u2019t account for the significant number of undocumented migrants who are also involved in the agriculture business. Their estimates suggest there are more than 110,000 workers, 90% of whom they believe to be foreign.<\/p>\n