The cry for help from Please, the Montilivi drum-playing entertainer

GIRONAEffah Kingsford (Nkoranza, Ghana, 1982) has a problem. "They want to throw me out of the flat and I don't know where to go. My contract expired at the end of October and they wanted me to return the keys, but I haven't done it. I've been to lots of real estate agencies. But there are no flats to rent, only to buy. And I can't buy one, I don't have that much money, I'm scared," NOW, with a heavy heart. Kingsford lives in Salt and in Girona he is known as "Por Favor", because he has been walking around the north goal of Montilivi for almost fifteen years dressed in red and white, with a flag of his country hanging around his neck and supporting with his inseparable drum. The nickname "Por Favor" comes from the way he asked the Girona people to cheer on the team. "Please, cheer them on," he insisted, with the stadium half empty.

"I have continued paying all these months, because I don't want to live for free. I have been living in the flat for six years and I have never had any problems. No one can have a bad word to say about non-compliance or bad behaviour. I don't understand why they don't give me more time to find resources. I have three minor children." "The owner told me that he needed the flat for a relative, but he has it for sale. They offered to buy it, but I can't pay the deposit. Not for this one, or for anyone else. It's desperate. I haven't slept for nights and no one helps me. Not even the institutions, which are supposed to be there for that, right?"

Kingsford, who works in a carpentry shop in Fornells de la Selva, admits that he is "a person who finds it hard to ask for favours": "I can't stand him, I don't like him. And this is one of the big ones, but I'm at my limit." For this reason, he showed up at the stadium at the last match with a banner, in which he summarised his condition and encouraged the fans to "please" lend him a hand. "I have received good intentions, but no one has offered me a place to live. What I need is a flat, not nice words. I appreciate the affection of the people, of course, I am not ungrateful, and Montilivi is like a second family to me. I need solutions, not pats on the shoulder," he explains.

"I suffer because I don't want to come home one day, with the children, and not be able to get in because they have changed the lock. After what? What will my children do? What will I tell my wife?" he asks himself. Kingsford has two girls and a boy: Benedicta, 12 years old; Glòria, 9, and Gerard, 3. Gerard was born in Catalonia and has only known the house in Salt. "He always tells me that this is his flat. I wish I won the lottery to pay for it."

The couple decided to hide the truth from them so that they don't suffer. "They don't know anything. Well, the eldest does. She found out a few days ago. They told the school, because someone saw it. When she saw me, she came to me, asking me if it was true that they would throw us out. It's very difficult for a child to tell you this. I told her no, that we won't be left without a sound. With these words she starts to cry. She cries because she remembers.

Three years of Ghana in Spain

At 17, Kingsford boarded a van in search of a better future. "Of those who tried, I was the only one who made it. There were many of us, about 300, but along the way we split up until we became a single group of 150. The only one who left was me." He travelled through Burkina Faso, Niger, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal and Morocco. He was imprisoned and built a boat with his own hands. "Many have not yet returned to Ghana. God helped me."

"I have seen a lot of shit. We had no food, no water. I drank my own urine because there was nothing else. They even told my mother that I had died. It took me about three years to make the journey from Ghana to Spain. Incommunicado, far from the civilisation of any city. We were... , he repeats, and continues: "That's why I think about my children. If it were just me, I would have left the flat already. I would have made a living, as I have always done. But it is not their place to have that uncertainty. I have already had it for them. I have already fought for them. They are my whole life."

Kingsford is part of the Peña Gerundense, involved in his case, and is thinking of different strategies to try to get everything resolved favourably as soon as possible. One of the options that is being considered is to organise a collection. Girona is also aware of the situation. He is waiting, but time is running out. "I need it to be resolved. I really need it," he concludes.