Armando Molinaries was a paramedic. His wife Ester was working in a retirement home. They were both fired without notice.
"This year was very hard for me. I couldn't pay anything because there was no more work in Spain. They just leave you on the street like a dog."
The couple sold their car to buy an old minivan they could sleep in. The money saved wasn't enough, so they begged on the way to pay for the fuel up to the French Drome region.
Because of bad weather, the picking season was delayed for several weeks in Tain-l'Hermitage. Armando and Ester will spend a month sleeping under a tent, without money and job.
More and more Spanish people travel to France for seasonal work. In 2012, they were more than 56.000.
Ester suffers from rheumatism because of the humidity, the discomfort and the hard work.
Ester should stay in bed for several days but she can't afford not being paid.
Ester takes anti-inflammatory drugs to ease the pain.
Both Armando and Ester can't afford to stop working during the seasonal work.
The couple would be ashamed to come home empty handed because they need to pay their children's scholarship fees.
"Like anyone else, we had a house…"
"In a day, we had to sell everything we had. We sold our furniture, we sold our car, we sold our cellphone. For close to nothing..."
"Armando pays for the camping fees, the food, the tobacco, the washing powder, and the fuel."
"I pay everything for our children back in Spain. School, clothes, books…"
"The children don't know what's going on. When I call them, they ask me: mommy, sweep love, what are you doing that prevents you from coming home?""
Armando and Ester are paid the French legal minimum wage even if they work during the evening or on a sunday.
They can't afford to say no. some days, they work for 15 hours, sometimes they don't work at all because of the rain.
Early october, the seasonal work period is almost over with the grape harvest near Orange city.
Ester sends me an email at the end of october saying: "working was worth it."
Travelling to France was their last hope to find work. That choice forced them to leave their 10 and 13-year old children for the 5-month long harvest season.
