For two weeks Nakkaba and her thirteen-year-old son Dalid had been sleeping in the cellar of their apartment which burned down on March 20. Dislodged last Friday, they are desperately awaiting emergency housing.
Hair hidden under his bandana and small, tired eyes, Nakkaba leads the visit. “Over there is the homework area, here is the toilet area, and there is the kitchen area.” Like at home. However, that’s not quite it: we are here in the cellar of his building located in the Petit Bard district. She and her son Dalid (not her real name), 13, have found shelter there for two weeks, after the fire of a candle left behind by negligence, which destroyed their second floor apartment on March 20. They have been on the street since Friday, after the trustee asked them to leave the premises.
“The smell bothers me”
Every morning, since they had to leave the hotel offered by the insurance – they were able to stay there for five days, renewed twice – Nakkaba and Dalid have breakfast at the “Café royal”, 200 meters from their residence and open seven days a week.We come to get some fresh air and see the light because in the storage room, we’re suffocating in the basement“, explains the 37-year-old woman, concerned to see her child coughing more and more. For a week, the schoolboy has refused to go to school. “The smell bothers me“, he says with a blank look, seeing all his belongings abandoned three floors higher, reeking and too blackened by smoke.
Some neighbors and parents from the football club where Dalid trains showed solidarity by donating clothes to the family, sometimes offering to shower them or spend the night at their place. For the rest, Nakkaba goes to the popular aid and buys something for two or three euros to satisfy herself, like this camping chair that she installed on wooden planks, themselves found in the street. “This is to avoid getting dirty and so that Dalid can take off his shoes. Cit’s good, every day I have ideas, she reassures herself, trying to smile. I do all this for my son.”
“The 115 is my only hope”
While at the hotel, both hoped to be placed in emergency housing quickly. Above all, after the expert’s visit to the burned apartment, which has since been declared uninhabitable, the owner decided – within her rights – to terminate the lease. She is also recognized by law as a victim, the lessor is not required to rehouse her tenant, the fire being caused by an external event. Nakkaba and his son must return the keys. “115 is my only hope. I call when they open at 10:30 a.m., they tell me there is no more room and to call back tomorrow. I still call back at 3:30 p.m. just in case, but it’s always the same.“Accompanied by social services and associations that work with disadvantaged people, the widow multiplies administrative procedures, such as renewing her residence permit, essential to later be able to apply for social housing.”The procedures are long, we do it step by step. But I don’t want to squat or break the rules. I just want somewhere safe and clean.” she calls, for the moment reduced to showering with a glove and urinating in a bag, out of sight of her son, in the neighboring room.
She also says she is distressed by the noise of the trash bags falling in this same room throughout the day. So as soon as she hears a noise, she rushes to block the entrance with an iron gate and sheets dropped at the doorstep, which itself is impossible to close from the inside.
Fighting for your son’s future
However, the one who arrived in France ten years ago is adamant about the idea of not warning her mother, who lives in Marrakech. “To avoid worrying him“, she says. Since she stopped working a few years ago, her brother sends her money from time to time.
Without real friends in whom to confide – perhaps apart from Omar, the boss of the “Café royal” – she clings to her son’s future. He, who dreams of being a veterinarian, insists on finishing his studies in Montpellier. “The social worker told me that it might be possible to be accommodated elsewhere if we couldn’t find solutions here, for example in Béziers. But it’s too complicated with college. We can’t move, this accident must not spoil his plan.“
While Dalid is at the supermarket next door – “tonight it’s salad, tomato, corn, and a little bread” – Nakkaba remains on the sunny terrace of the café, isolated in a corner. Pensive, she observes the passers-by. “It’s long. I’m bored. I can’t wait to wake up to the light.“
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