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1、Unit 1 The Permit1许可证因生活困苦，我不得不离开家乡去外国打工。我把大部分钱都寄给了妻子和父母。然而不久，政府要求我们必须有工作许可证才能继续打工。后来，我们就遭遇到种种无理待遇I think the building must have been used as a farmers winter store, for I found piles of forgotten dried chestnuts and grain in rotting barrels. I tried the chestnuts but they tasted sour, Paulo said he
2、 would bring me food, but that was three days ago. Yesterday, I heard a car engine getting closer, and climbed up to hide in the beams of the patched roof. But the men just looked in quickly through the worn-out windows and broken doors before they left. I clung to the dusty wooden beam, feeling it
3、would bend under my weight, and tried to make no noise. My arms and legs grew numb, then began to tremble. I longed to move, but I waited until I heard the policemen drive off.I know that they will return. When we began the final part of our journey, we were warned that the police patrolled the land
4、 around here regularly. They are always searching for us, or others like us; the coast of Morocco (摩洛哥) and the Presidio (要塞) of Ceuta (休达，摩洛哥北部港市) are only ten miles away across the Straits. That is how I got here: squeezed in with fifteen other men in a shallow boat meant for eight, with the cold
5、waves reaching over the sides and the night deep and black as a tomb. I have never been more scared. I prayed all the way across, and thought about my family. I told myself, over and over, that I was doing it for them. That trip took almost all of my money. All of the money I had saved in Ecuador (厄
6、瓜多尔) . The boatmen left us on a beach in the middle of the night. We lost sight of them but we could still hear their small engine across the waves. Six of us started walking inland but the others waited for the contacts, the friends of the boatmen, as they had been told. We were lucky: we met Paulo
7、. We found the town and waited until the first bar opened; I went in alone while the others hid in the orchard nearby. When I asked for a cup of coffee, the young barman (侍者) looked at me and nodded. He made the coffee, then disappeared into the back room. Cold and without strength, I wrapped my han
8、ds around the warm cup, not caring whether the barman had called the police, not caring about the next moment, just about the present. But the man had called Paulo, who came and helped us. Paulo was always smiling, always happy. He was from Seville (塞维利亚) , a busy city of many people, and he knew ma
9、ny people. Paulo found work for us. I made good money on the farms. I picked cabbages, beans, cucumbers and peas. I picked great round yellow squashes (南瓜) that smelled of rich perfume when you broke them. The farmers hired us by the day, and were content. The local people would never work for the w
10、ages we are paid. But there were many farms, and many crops to be picked. We were welcomed. I shared a small clean house in the town with seven other workers. We had journeyed from Ecuador, Colombia (哥伦比亚) , Venezuela (委内瑞拉) , even Argentina (阿根廷) . Paulo found the house for us - he knew the landlor
11、d and arranged a good price. We lived well, with enough food and sometimes wine. I earned more in a week than I could in three months back home if there had been work to do there. I sent most of the money that was left to my wife and parents, and wrote many letters to them. Then the government chang
12、ed the rules so that we needed work permits. I queued with hundreds of other workers, waiting for the application forms. We sat on the stone benches beneath the trees and read the forms. Some of the other workers are from small villages and towns, and cannot read as well as I can, so I explained to
13、them that the government wanted our birth certificates, driving licenses, passports and many other documents. Many of the workers had perhaps one or two of these documents, but most had none. I helped the others complete the forms and we gave them to the clerk. He looked at our documents, stamped th
14、e forms many times and told us that they would be sent to Madrid (马德里) , and our permits would be returned in two or three months if the forms were approved. We had to wait. Even Paulo and his friends could not help us. The first month was not too bad as most of the farmers continued to use us; thei
15、r crops were rich, waiting to be picked. Then some men from Madrid visited all of the farms, and maybe half of the farmers stopped using us. The farmers told us that they were sorry, and we understood them. So the second month was worse: only a few of the farmers would use us, and those that did pay
16、 very poor wages. We shared what we had, and ate once a day: rice, porridge(粥), bread, cheap food that would fill our stomachs. We began to stare at each other, and wonder which of us would find work. There were fights in the morning, between different groups of workers, when the farms supervisors (管理人，监工) came to choose who would work that day. But still we had some hope. We lost the house in the third month, as we had no money for rent. We were a
