Rachid Oujdi

Their names are Abdallah, Ahmou, Mohamed, Ramdane, Salah, Sebti, and Tahar. They came from Algeria alone between 1951 and 1971 to work in France, intending to return home one day. The years have passed; they are now retired, yet they remain. Throughout these decades, they lived with one foot here and one foot there—a life defined by coming and going. Some were merely "remittance fathers," while others regret missing their children's upbringing. These men did not bring their families over, as they never intended to stay. Their attachment to their host country grew stronger than that to their homeland, even though the latter remains—at times—idealized. They migrated from one shore of the Mediterranean to the other without fully grasping the rupture this would cause. Neither fully of this place nor truly of that one—and after a disjointed working life and a fractured family life—they are now spending their final days in Marseille, alone.