Immigrants

Tenerife is a beautiful place and over last 15 years, there have been lots of new constructions everywhere. The booming economy needs manual labourers, and many foreign tourists who come to Tenerife, stay back to fill those jobs. Last year, many of Latin Americans who, entered the country as tourist, were given residency permits as the government called an amnesty for illegal immigrants with job contracts. But there are many more immigrants who risk their life and enter the country illegally. These immigrants are mainly from neighbouring countries such as Senegal and Morocco. They brave the high seas in small fishing boats and reach the beaches of Tenerife in pitiful state. Most of them are sent back after they are brought back to health, but some of them manage to creep into the city and live in miserable condition, working on low wages. Is it worth risking one’s life and living in fear in a foreign land? So many of them never reach the shores and many are too weak to go back. Few months ago, when I was in Africa, I saw the locals very contented in their own land. They were poor but they all had a smile on their faces. They seemed happy. Being with our own kind gives a great pleasure but economic needs, if not satisfied in our own country can give us so much pain. I have noticed this everywhere, that the foreigners always make more money than the natives. Maybe we are careless in our own land but are wiling to work hard for others. I think if the government paid more attention to their own country men and created more incentive for their own people, nobody would find the need to cross the borders to decorate the neighbour’s lands.

Spam’s made a fool of me……

Some days ago I got a mail in my inbox with a subject line of ‘Yahoo warning me to verify my password or else I would have to face suspension.’ I hold a Yahoo email account since five years and I have never received a mail like that., although, I am aware of the amount of spam that are doing rounds. So when this mail warned me that due to congestion of Yahoo users, yahoo would be shutting down all unused account and that I should verify my email and my password to in order to avoid de-activation of my yahoo account, I got trapped into their bait and foolishly gave my email and the password. Then started another string of spam’s, that started floating from my account and they were very embarrassing for me. There were spam’s sent to all the people in my mailing list asking for money or sending porn’s from my email account. I ignored them all after reporting these spam mail to the Yahoo help line. One email really gave me the jitters. It thanked me for my support and was transferring huge sum money in certain bank under my name! Was the crime of transferring money really happening, I was not sure, but I did not want my name to be associated with such transaction at all. I panicked and called few friends asking them for their advice. I even lodged a complaint at the cyber crime police on the net informing them about my non-involvement. Later, when I spoke to my cousin, she asked me to just chill and relax. These crimes are very common in Africa and anybody who is foolish enough to do transactions without confirming it on phone has only himself to blame. Since I had not signed any papers or documents, I had nothing to worry about. However, after complaining to cyber police, and reporting that I am not responsible for any transaction of any money, I started to feel relaxed. I have changed my passwords (stronger this time, with the combination of Caps and numbers) and I am no more sending or reading any emails from my yahoo or hotmail accounts.