Mustafa carefully wraps the kebabs in platinum paper. When finished, she arranges a bowl of rice upside down on a large plate previously heated in the microwave. Then she adds the pita bread, some yogurt cream, salad, and finally, the ground lamb. He comes and goes non-stop to the kitchen to meet all the diners and at the same time explains to me how he makes the shish kefta.
Youssef arrives later. He finishes preparing the tea that his partner and friend put on the fire and serves three baklava, a typical Moroccan sweet that is also cooked in other Arab countries.
He arrived in 2007 in Arinaga, Gran Canaria, at the age of 15, and Mustafá arrived in November of the previous year, at just 12, on the island of Lanzarote. Fate made them meet later at the juvenile center of La Esperanza, in Tenerife.
Youssef is a native of Dajla and Mustafá of Sidi Ifni, capital of the former Spanish province. Both decided to travel to Spain in search of a better life, with greater possibilities, freedom, and a future without impositions but chosen by them. A dream that could only be fulfilled traveling by boat. They arrived at the height of the migratory upswing -in 2006, 31,678 people arrived in the islands in 515 small boats- with all that that implied: greater police control and the risk of failing and returning.
Mustafa did it motivated by his older brother who spoke with his parents and convinced them. “I promised them that I was going to find my life, that I was going to help them and that I was not going to smoke or drink,” he jokes.
They had to work hard to buy textbooks for him and his two brothers, so he assured them that he would reciprocate. Every month he sends them money.
Youssef already had friends who were in Spain. He didn’t tell his parents anything about the adventure he was going to undertake because he was afraid of worrying them and since he was a very good student in Morocco, they wouldn’t let him go. “How are you going to tell a mother that you are going to cross the ocean for three days in a small boat?” A secret kept by the eldest of his eight brothers, all boys, the only accomplice of his at that time.
When he arrived in the Canary Islands, the first thing he did was call them. “My mother started crying, but they couldn’t do anything anymore,” she says. Mustafa adds that hers was crying too and of course, he did the same when she heard her voice.
Neither of them doubted the decision they made at the time. “Of course there is fear, but what are you going to do? You don’t have to think about it. You can also die sleeping”, defends Youssef.
The conditions in which they traveled were very harsh. “During the day you suffer a lot of heat, with the sun beating down on you all the time and when the sea is bad, you don’t stop vomiting,” says Youssef, who was unable to eat during the three days of the crossing, as was his friend, who at seeing the lights of Lanzarote, he began to put cans of sardines and bread in his small backpack because he did not know where he was going and was afraid of going hungry.
They don’t talk about mafias but about business. “In Morocco there are people who are dedicated to that, who work at sea and when they know that there are people who travel, you pay them and they bring you. They are not mafias, they do not kill you or anything, they are dedicated to making those trips, ”says Youssef, who paid 500 euros, a “ridiculous” amount at present, because they are asking for a “minimum” of up to 2,000 euros. Mustafa was lucky. He paid absolutely nothing because the person who organized it “was like family.”
They met at the La Esperanza home school in El Rosario. While there they both studied. Youssef chose music because he played instruments in a solidarity group and Mustafa chose to train as a kitchen assistant. She studied in Tegueste and then did an internship in a restaurant in La Laguna, where she lived and ended up working, since when they turned 18 they left the center and each one made their own way.
Fate made them meet again at the restaurant where Mustafá worked, where Youssef presented his resume and was accepted as a waiter.
They worked together for four years and then tried their luck at another. They also shared a flat until each one formed her partner.
Tired of working for third parties, as they had saved money and knew the secrets of restoration, each one from their field, they dared to undertake another adventure: open and manage their own company. Thus was born ‘Alhambra‘, located on the Cuesta de la Villa, in Santa Úrsula.
It was Youssef who saw the place online. “All day I was looking on Facebook pages and I found this one, which belonged to another Moroccan boy who passed it on to us. I mentioned it to ‘Musta’ -that’s what he calls his friend- and we came to see him”.
They never thought they were going to make it. “If it weren’t for Youssef, who was the one who pushed me to this, I would continue working in the same place until I don’t know when,” says Musta.
They opened on March 13 and have not stopped since. As soon as it was inaugurated, they sent photos and videos to their families, “who are very proud,” they stress in unison. “Customers are also happy because the reviews we have on social networks are good,” they add.
The name Alhambra comes from an Arabic expression that can be translated as “red castle” due to the tonality of its walls and towers, the same color they chose to paint the facade of the building. The decoration and gastronomic offer, which fuses Moroccan food with that of other Arab countries, was also a joint development.
At the moment the two of them are “working only half a day, which is twelve hours”, jokes Youssef. Until the business works well, because they plan to hire employees, although at the moment they know that they have to “be there, paying attention to everything. You have to sow first to reap.”
A decade and a half later, the minors who traveled to the Canary Islands in a small boat in search of their dream managed to fulfill it: they are men, small businessmen with their partners, who have learned a trade, are looking for a life and live as they have always dreamed of: with more freedom.
