Environmental migration? Or a manifestation of global inequalities? After five years of irregular stay and work, the climate crisis is impacting most vulnerable also in Europe. The young man who made it across the ocean is exposed to increased heat and wildfires in Spain. Living conditions are harsh. Those who are marginalised and racialised are most exposed to the impacts of the climate crisis across the globe. Yet people fight back: not drowning but fighting. The young man connects with migrant rights organisations, to push for justice, to call for the fishing agreements (which also damage biodiversity in Senegalese waters) to be overturned, to reduce global warming and to enhance global mobility through legal channels for those who wish to move.

dear matafele peinam,

you are a seven month old sunrise of gummy smiles

you are bald as an egg and bald as the buddha

you are thighs that are thunder and shrieks that are lightning

so excited for bananas, hugs and

our morning walks past the lagoon

dear matafele peinam, 

i want to tell you about that lagoon

that lucid, sleepy lagoon lounging against the sunrise 

men say that one day

that lagoon will devour you

they say it will gnaw at the shoreline

chew at the roots of your breadfruit trees

gulp down rows of your seawalls

and crunch your island’s shattered bones

they say you, your daughter

and your granddaughter, too

will wander rootless

with only a passport to call home

dear matafele peinam, 

don’t cry

mommy promises you

no one

will come and devour you 

no greedy whale of a company sharking through political seas

no backwater bullying of businesses with broken morals

no blindfolded bureaucracies gonna push

this mother ocean over

the edge

no one’s drowning, baby

no one’s moving

no one’s losing

their homeland

no one’s gonna become

a climate change refugee

or should i say

no one else

to the carteret islanders of papua new guinea

and to the taro islanders of the solomon islands

i take this moment

to apologize to you

we are drawing the line here 

because baby we are going to fight

your mommy daddy

bubu jimma your country and president too

we will all fight

and even though there are those

hidden behind platinum titles

who like to pretend

that we don’t exist

that the marshall islands

tuvalu

kiribati

maldives

and typhoon haiyan in the philippines

and floods of pakistan, algeria, colombia

and all the hurricanes, earthquakes, and tidalwaves

didn’t exist 

still

there are those

who see us

hands reaching out

fists raising up

banners unfurling

megaphones booming

and we are

canoes blocking coal ships

we are

the radiance of solar villages

we are

the rich clean soil of the farmer’s past

we are

petitions blooming from teenage fingertips

we are

families biking, recycling, reusing,

engineers dreaming, designing, building,

artists painting, dancing, writing

and we are spreading the word 

and there are thousands out on the street

marching with signs

hand in hand

chanting for change NOW 

and they’re marching for you, baby

they’re marching for us 

because we deserve to do more than just

survive

we deserve

to thrive

dear matafele peinam, 

you are eyes heavy

with drowsy weight

so just close those eyes, baby

and sleep in peace

because we won’t let you down 

you’ll see

Who will hold forth when the ancestors come greeting?

The water came silently and quickly, swallowing our belongings. Mud is now everywhere. My books, my toys, everything destroyed. This happened to us twice before. The first time, we moved to Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a couple of months while the floor was being replaced, and the windows were being repaired. The second time, we stayed in a shelter in the nearby village, just for a few days. But this time is different. Many have left in the past two years. Dad says, “The soil is too salty; nothing grows anymore.” My aunt and uncle left last spring. They moved to a big city in the north. The bakery closed in July, followed by the little repair shop down the street. Mom says, “It won’t be long until the school closes too. Many people are leaving.” It makes me so sad.

My first memories of the big city are its smells and noises. People hurry by, as if they are being chased. Our new home is a small shed located near a floodway. Mom tells me not to be afraid, but I can't help feeling scared. The water is dangerously close. Dad will search for work in the nearby industrial complex, and Mom will continue to sew, as she did back home.

The water returned, perilously close to our shed. I heard the water gargling and swishing at night. Dad says it's safe, but I am not convinced. School is challenging here, not because the courses are difficult, but because there are no tables, no chairs, or even chalk. Sometimes, I can't even hear what the teacher is saying. There are 50 children in our classroom with only one teacher. At home, we were only 15. Also, some children are mocking me because of my dialect.

Since we arrived, Dad has lost his job three times. Today, he brought home some rice balls and gave me a few, but I didn’t eat them because I knew it was the only meal we would have today. The water washed away some sheds next to us. Our neighbors are leaving. They are going back to their villages. “It was hard, but it was better there,” they say.

We are leaving again. We are going to my uncle’s place. He works as a carpenter and thinks Dad could learn too. The community is at a higher elevation, and the water is far away. Dad says, “We can rent a little plot there.” Mom and my aunt can grow some vegetables, and I can play with my cousins. The school is well-equipped, and there is a community council where my parents can share experiences, discuss new acquisitions for the community, and just chat with the neighbors.

In our new community I feel happier. Dad has found stable work as a carpenter, and Mom's sewing skills are in high demand. The community council has become a second family for us, offering support and guidance. After five years our shed has transformed into a home. I made many new friends and Mom and Dad seem happier too. Mom tends our little vegetable plot, and the community council has led to initiatives for sustainable living. The constant fear of losing everything has transformed into a sense of belonging. However, sometimes I still dream of our home near the river.

Argentina, particularly in the provinces of Santa Fe, Chaco, Formosa, Entre Rios, Corrientes, and

Misiones.

But while statistics could give us the magnitude to the displacement, they cannot immediately

provide a sense of the impacts the recurrent flooding and displacement events have on the lives

of those more affected, who usually are also those with less resources.

He grew up in the nearby village and knew the surrounding hills and valleys very well. There were meadows and streams with clear and crisp water that flew from the mountains not far from there. Forests promised some income, and the soil was apparently rich enough to yield a small amount of profitable crops. However, older people also thought that nature in that particular place could be dangerous. In the 1990s, after the independence, people started buying previously public land through privatisation, and soon, more and more smaller settlements grew on the more natural outskirts of long-standing villages and smaller towns. In a matter of 10-15 years, everything was happening very fast. New houses, roads, and infrastructures were being built. A decade later, when having a secure job didn’t mean more than moving into a town or a city anymore, the younger generation started looking back to nature and expressed wanting to remain in the countryside and develop the land with their own hands. Their parents were more than happy to see them remain closer to home. When we married, we expressed similar dreams and plans: an uncomplicated family life with a home near those beautiful meadows, our children playing in the nearby forest, a small garden and maybe a few farm animals. Having heard that, my father-in-law’s wish to have his son living close by came true, and he signed over the property soon after our wedding. That was ten years ago. He kept that dream for almost 30 years, always wanting to see his grandchildren grow up where he grew up.

We built our house close to a small stream, 5 km from the largest village in the county. As expected, our building permit was issued without question, and we had a house for less than a year. A narrow asphalt road winds towards our place, crossing two forests and a small marsh. There are three farms in the vicinity, but our plot is at the very end of the road, so it is quite closed and sometimes we feel we have the whole Earth to ourselves. I created a large vegetable garden and a flower garden attached to it, and we also have a small stable with a couple of goats. They are my hobby. I sell small batches of goat milk and cheese to friends and families in the village. Behind the house, the forest starts, leading into a steep hill. You can reach the top of the hill in 30 minutes, with a beautiful vista of the entire county and the nearby mountains. We walk up that hill almost every weekend. My two children love our place. They endure early morning drives to school every day but would not change where we live for the world. Except, now, they have to. After the floods last summer, everything vanished. Wiped out, as if someone used their finger on ink and smudged our paradise into oblivion.

We have observed the changes in the weather in the last couple of years. We had heavy rains some years ago when the stream flooded and swallowed half of my garden. Then, there were a couple of hot summers when the leaves in the trees were yellowed already in the first half of September. Unusual, but we always tell ourselves that is the cost and exciting part of “living with nature”. This time, it was different. Since it was July, the national news only projected heavy rains, as the air was humid and heavy for about a week. But nobody could predict what would actually happen. It started raining very early in the morning, and both of our children were at home. There wasn’t much to do, so we mostly stayed at home. The rain was pounding heavily throughout the day and well into the night. We went to sleep that evening with only minor cares in our minds when, at four in the morning, my husband shook me from my sleep with a panic in his eyes. He hurriedly explained he heard some strange whirlpool noises from the outside, and basically, our basement and ground floor were flooded. Half-dressed, I looked out the window and saw that our stream was gone. Instead, a torrent body of murky water was hurrying past our house, the meadow across completely swamped, and our car about 50 meters down from where we parked it. We hurried downstairs to see the damage, and it was like submerging in a pool. the water was about 40 cm high already. I ran upstairs, waking the children, pulling out rain clothes and spare shoes because most of our belongings downstairs were already gone. In the last minute, I grabbed my phone and some documents, and we waded out, past our kitchen, my son in my husband's arms, me clutching my daughter’s hand. We managed to get some higher ground away from the flood, my husband hurrying to the stable to release the goats. When safe in the forest, we called my father-in-law. He was already awake, telling us the flood had reached the village 1 hour ago, and the houses near the water were experiencing the same fate. The flood took half of the road that led to our house, meaning we were cut out from the rest of the county.

I will never forget that night for the rest of my life. Freezing, trying to call the emergency number for help without getting a reply, hoping and praying this was just some horrible nightmare. And to see our beautiful place being shredded to wet pieces. We would probably be forced to stay in that forest for days since the water levels just grew and grew if it wasn’t for some of the villagers who sent the rescue helicopter our way. They took us to my in-laws’ place, and we stayed there for the next week. The rain and the flood went on for days. The news told us of similar floods in almost half of the county. 100-year floods, they described them. We watched more houses being flooded, more roads and bridges being pulled, and more people with panic and devastation in their eyes as they saw their world crumble before their eyes. Then the experts came on TV panels, geologists and geographers, talking about the dangers of building in such places. They would tell anyone listening that they should find a more secure place. Where were they when we got our building permit?! Wasn’t our place safe? They gave us the permit; the experts went to see the land; what went wrong? Apparently, the Ministry and the Municipality just went along with the building demands, never foreseeing such events would happen. How could they?

But we can manage. We will repair and rebuild. That is what we told ourselves. A week and a half after the flood, they managed to repair the road, and we borrowed a car and went to see the damage. The plot was unrecognizable. Mud and gravel were everywhere, and some of our belongings were on the way to the house. Our car vanished. We called the insurance company, claimed what happened, sent them photos, asking when we could expect the coverage for damages. Their response was that it would take some time and possibly be lower than expected. Why? For all these years, we paid one of the highest insurance premiums. They responded that, given new information from the experts, we never should have built in this place, which they understand as a hazardous building. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing. How could we possibly know?! They have given us the permit on the count of experts!

The damage repair team on the ground told us we might need to evacuate. Take what you can and find someplace to stay. Couldn’t we stay at our in-laws for the week and start with the repairs ourselves? Surely, in a year, we could go back to normal. The chief gently took us to the side, revealing the brutal truth: the sloped forest behind the house was a serious threat. One night of heavy rainfall, and a good part of it will slide directly into our house. Our home was not a haven anymore. It was a mortal danger. And as predicted, the very dreaded rain fell that very night. By the next evening, we received the news that a landslide of 20.000 cubic meters had buried our home, and everything was gone.

We are not homeless, but our home is lost. My husband’s selfless family more than helped us try to get on our feet, but it is still very hard. We are sharing the house with his parents, but it is still cramped. It has been over six months since the floods, and I can see the light in my husband’s eyes dwindling. My children still cry in their sleep. Displaced by a flood is how they call us now on the news. We are one of the almost 2000 families that lost their properties and all belongings because of that cursed week. We will never return and probably never experience such carefree happiness again. I cannot see the future, but I am now scared for my children. We don’t have the money to buy new property. And who can we trust that someplace new will also be safe? We all feel like we were lied to for decades by politicians, urbanists, and insurance companies.

I am heartbroken.

When the waters came

And they had to leave

Mixing good Spanish

With some Guarani

This is what she said

I'm going to repeat it

Hurry up José, it's coming again

The crescent again and I don't know why

This time the waters are scaring me more

All the bicherío is announcing it

As it never was... Hayé José!I've already gathered the kids and the bundle on the embankment

Doña Pancha came at dawn

And left with Fretes for the Batel

She took some shirts and some junk

In the car cué

Eulogia and Camba Maciel have already gone by

Bordering the town by the tapé

Hurry up I tell you that the river is coming

And I don't know why

The silence stuns scaring me

Never was the sunset so sad

The little virgin forgive me

But God has long forgotten

Of the islanders Jhei Chupe

Oh, how the poor people suffer!

Calamities I kept usually happen to the people, ¡Hayé José!

to the people, Hayé José!

Do you remember the other time, those who could not

Reach the road, no one else saw them.

Evarista Luján, the one from Ríos' place

She stayed alone waiting for López

At the ranch over there and never heard of again

Every Good Friday

I usually pray the rosary to her angá

Hurry up, I tell you! Look carefully

Jacinto Gómez also passed by

He went to the Chinaman's to look for him

To his guaina

I've already gathered the bundle and the curumis

And to my little virgin, the Virgin of Itatí

I asked her with prayers to help us get out of here

We have to go along the road like this

Hurry up, I tell you! Aña membi!