I taught in various countries overseas for many years. Although stationed in certain cities, I was able to travel often and extensively throughout each region.
In my times and travels, I experienced and I saw many wonders. Many were truly spectacular and wonderful. Others simply made me wonder, “How can this be?” Yet it all was real, …all too true. Clint Eastwood’s Good, Bad, and Ugly is alive and well in the 21st century. For my own reasons, the nation in which I was teaching at the time of this incident remains unnamed.
That country can be a cool post for some foreigners for a while if they are able to adapt to the restrictions there or learn to circumvent them. I did much of both. Circumvention was far more fun.
As always, I was not overseas to hang out with the other Western teachers. If I had wanted American friends, I would have stayed at home. No. I wanted to live among the locals, befriend them as best I could despite any language barriers.
ASAP, I rejected the school offered “foreign housing buildings” and moved into a local apartment flat two blocks from the school. On my floor there were two neighbors who were very private in their ways. I never got to know them well except that one family was Libyan and the other was Philippine. We were always polite with each other, but they made no effort to overcome the language barriers. That’s understandable. With three generations crammed into a two bedroom flat, they hadn’t room to communicate with “the American boy.”
Notwithstanding, there were many wonderful people whom I met while living there. The shopkeepers and merchants, craftsmen and workers at school were wonderful people. These hard working, honest people were there because that was where the jobs were for them.
I sat and spoke with these workers on many occasions. They were there solely to earn money; on average, I’d say that 70% of their wages was sent home to their families. These were people who had lived with poverty all of their lives and for them this work was a golden goose.
True, their living conditions were primitive by Western standards. The workers at school lived 12 men to a one bedroom apartment. Almost every female shopkeeper, maid, or clerk I knew slept on the bare floor of the utility room or on a stairway landing, perhaps the balcony.
Nevertheless, each professed that these conditions were an improvement over what they had at home. At least they now had a permanent place to sleep, food in their bellies, and enough money for their pockets to jingle after they had sent most of their meager pay home to their families.
These were good people, every last one of them. And I became good friends with more than a few.
These workers were recruited and imported from specific nations to perform specific tasks. Nothing more.
These workers and I became friends. I learned more and more about their certain countries’ cultures, and my curiosity was piqued. Most intriguing to me and my wife was the island nation of Sri Lanka. We decided to go there for a ten day holiday from Christmas through New Years.
True, this was in the late 1990s, and civil war was still raging in Sri Lanka, yet we’d done our research and stayed far south of the true danger zones.
Upon arrival, we felt even more secure because of the ubiquitous, seemingly superfluous military presence. Hell there was a machine gun nest straight out of Hollywood at the entrance to our hotel, and an APC was parked at each end of the street.
Security against the Tamil Tigers was not the problem. The local touts were.
Touts were the indigenous poor, unemployed, uneducated, and desperate. Our regular drivers did well to protect us from them, shooing them away. But the divers were not always with us.
Every few steps, we’d be accosted, surrounded by touts. They would beg, shove trinkets in our faces and chests that they were peddling. shout and sing, and there were always far too many hands in exploration, seeking ingress to my pockets and my wife’s tightly chest-clutched handbag.
Within no more than a minute or so, the military invariably chased these people away. A few times I saw soldiers unhesitatingly smack people in the head with a rifle butt. Even little kids were struck down this way.
Once the crowd had fled from us. The soldiers politely made sure that we were okay, ignored their few unconscious countrymen they had lain out around us, and calmly walked back to their post. Not a single shopkeeper, vendor, nor native passer-by even glanced at the awkwardly fallen three humans a few feet from me. It was grotesque.
At that moment, I understood why sleeping on a safe balcony floor with a full stomach and a steady paycheck was the preferable option.
Of course, most female maids and servants were understood to be slaves to their master and his sons. That was a given. Still, this was their perceived best option.
I saw it later elsewhere, but Sri Lanka was my first exposure to dire indigence, …to people who have nothing and no hope of a better existence. I saw too many collecting and eating from refuse piles along the roads. I saw too many defecating and urinating whenever they felt the need, wherever they felt the need. I saw too many who used a single, continually running water pipe using it to “bathe, “ and setting their cooking pots beneath them as they soaplessly wash themselves. No sense wasting any drop of water, I guess. And not ten minutes’ drive away, I saw the opulent homes of the wealthy, and these are the neighborhood that we stayed in. For the most part.
In the mountain capitol of Kandy, we did stay in slightly more primitive quarters. Still, these would be luxury rooms to the indigenous majority.
Oh, and the train ride to get to Kandy was another nightmare. We could not get first class tickets—sold out, so we were stuck in business class. It was incredible.
Before the train had even stopped, people were rushing aboard. My wife, Pepper and I got on as soon as we could, being more pushed into place than anything else. We ended up separated by only about four feet, but in that crowded crush, I could not even see her. We each had a luggage bag and these eventually became our seats as the crush eased after a few tortuous hours.
Pepper had been pushed well inside the train car. Despite the fact that I had been holding her arm as we entered the car, I ended up stuck in the doorway. Literally standing with one foot partially outside the door. It was like a scene from a movie.
I counted seven young men beyond my position—outside of the train and holding on. Often, the train passed through a tunnel or a narrow gap, and these men had to press themselves flat along the outside or press themselves into me and the other three men filling the entrance. I could also hear that there were people atop the train. I imagine tunnels and low branches were distressing to them as well. Still, these people all took it as a matter of daily course, For them perhaps it was routine. For me it was not, it was a four hour nightmare train from hell.
I never did see Pepper until the trainload of natives had disgorged itself. As I was still standing in the doorway. I was more or less thrown out by the throng behind me. She had been pushed more out of the way and sat patiently on her suitcase until the coast was clear.
Before leaving the station, we booked our first class tickets for the return train trip. Oh man, what a difference. For less than two bucks a piece, the extra cost was a blessing.
First class was in a dining car with a white linen tablecloth breakfast of whatever you want on the menu. We had booked a “private” booth, which meant that the two of us were seated in a plush booth for four. There was a TV that was set to CNN International. This was fine with us since we’d lost contact with the world for a week and were fine to find out goings-on.
But that’s not what this is all about. I mean, it is but it isn’t.
Yes, I want to tell the disparity of poverty and wealth in Sri Lanka as one example of what I have witnessed there and elsewhere in the world. But my focus is on the plight and treatment of those poor Sri Lankans and others from many nations who voluntarily enslave themselves.
Leaving Sri Lanka after our relaxing holiday, Pepper and I boarded the plane and took our seats. As always, we had booked economy class tickets.
We were just settling in when a flight attendant rushed to us saying, “You are in the wrong seats. You cannot sit here. Come with me.”
I told Pepper to sit tight and I’d find out what the problem was. As it turned out, the problem was that we were white. The next words I heard are etched forever into my mind. To quote verbatim the head flight attendant, “You are white. You can’t sit with the Darkies. It’s not right.” She showed me to two seats in first class that were for us. Her bias and intolerance pissed me off; but hey, first class with two glasses of champagne and canapes already set and waiting for us, why the hell not?
As I walked back to retrieve Pepper, I did take a look at the people there in economy class. It was clearly nothing but dark faced people—mostly younger men who were all wide-eyed scared looking.
As we sipped our champagne and ate our canapes. I explained to Pepper what had incurred. Before she could say a word, the waitress–there are no regular flight attendants in first class–was there to give us or menus, refill our champagne, deliver fresh sushi, and tell us that her name was Rebecca, “but you can call me Becky.”
We settled in and after a quick perusal gave Becky our order. I had the surf and turf; Pepper ordered the chicken Alfredo.
I suppose I should have felt bad about those Sri Lankan “Darkies” behind us, but I didn’t. Until minutes after we landed.
I am a smoker. When I get off a flight, I grab a quick smoke as soon as I can. I had flown into and out of this airport many times before. I knew that this first smoke opportunity came on a wide footbridge on the second floor just before entering the main concourse area. I liked this place to smoke. It was quiet and relatively undisturbed until a flight arrived and disembarking arrivals walked through for a few minutes. Plus, from here I had a good view of the runways to watch take offs and landings. Yet, until this night, I never really noticed the empty hall below me.
I was sitting watching the runways when I heard shouting below me, what sounded like a firecracker and doors slamming open below. I stood at the rail and looked down curiously.
There below, I saw those same Sri Lankans from our flight being herded into this passageway. I recognized a few of them from their clothing and faces. But now, they all were scared, some visibly shaking and a few crying with fear, genuine and deserved fear.
Eight uniformed security personnel had literally driven these people into this hallway. Two had bullwhips that they enjoyed using for intimidation and punishment for the hesitant immigrants. The two officers went from one person to another, examining their passports and other documents. If anyone was too slow to respond, the bullwhips got them up to speed. As the documents were approved, these human cattle were separated into three groups. The fourth group, only three or four people, were apparently rejected and driven through an open door with the encouragement of both well-aimed bullwhips. I will never forget the crack that those whips made in the air; I will truly never forget the cries of those poor people the bullwhips connected with.
Once all their papers had been perused to the approval of the two officers, the three remaining groups were driven through separate doors below me. The bullwhips influenced this egress quite handily. I have no idea what happened to the rejects, but I suppose it was a nightmarish deportation. I also have no idea what happened to the others who were apparently accepted into a state of modern slavery. Semi-barbaric was the word that was foremost in my mind.
This entire process took only about 15 minutes, but it made me so nervous that I was on my second cigarette standing there on the man-bridge above. Only then did one of the commanding officers look up to see me watching. He said something to his partner and both men were looking up at me. I took one last drag off my cigarette and flicked the butt down toward them. They smiled, laughed and saluted me. I walked away disgusted, exited the airport as quickly as I could. Not because I was afraid they might come after me, I just wanted out and away from that hallway of horror.
I had trouble sleeping that night—if I slept at all. I kept thinking about Fate, being born into the right place and culture opposed to being born into dire poverty and potential volunteer slavery of a sort. The What if’s came at me fast and furious. They still do at times.
I could not believe that I had just witnessed that barbaric treatment of human beings. People who were just wanting a job were being treated as animals. I was appalled, and then some.
I kept thinking about intolerance, prejudice and how I was raised. I grew up in New Orleans, the Deep South in the 1960s. I was surrounded by bigotry and intolerance. Yet, I never bought into it. I don’t know why I didn’t; I just didn’t. People are people. I guess I saw color, but I never let it stop me from seeing the human being inside that mere skin pigmentation.
All men are good until they prove themselves unworthy of that appellation. Race, creed, color, culture mean nothing to me except that this person who is different has things of interest to teach me. For my own good, I must listen to him and learn.
I used to tell my students, “Intolerance is the one thing I will not tolerate.” Then I lived that motto and taught them to live it too.
Global English Tutor - Paul Cuadrado 