The Blue Ball Cap in 45H

We haven't posted anything for a while, but honestly most of the pictures we could show you of things we have seen lately would show the inside of airports! No need to subject you to that, but we do have one interesting story to tell about our fellow travelers these days.

A Bangladeshi newspaper recently reported that so far this year, more than 475,000 Bangladeshis have left for destinations mainly in the Middle East -- Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, even Iraq -- to work. Some may do domestic work, but most of them are bound for construction sites in the desert. Firms looking for cheap labor hire companies who act as press gangs: they find the workers, check their papers, get them visas, etc. Some of these companies may be upstanding and legit, but recent occurrences with Bangladeshi workers have proven that some are not. They may take the (often exorbitant) fee the workers pay for the privilege of being exported, but then don’t show up at the other end of the plane journey to take the workers to their new job; so, workers are left on their own to be dealt with by the destination country officials. This happened to about a hundred workers who recently arrived in Malaysia. They were sent to a detention holding area for weeks until it could all be sorted out ... and then they were sent back home, hundreds of dollars poorer.

They’re easy to pick out in the check-in line. They usually wear matching ball caps or t-shirts with company logos and the name of the country they are going to. Ironically, they certainly can’t read what’s on their shirts, but I suppose the visual identity is enough. They usually have some sort of documentation with them – a work contract or the like – which they keep a death grip on throughout their journey. It’s obvious they’ve been told that no matter what happens, they mustn’t lose their papers. Most of them have never left their village before showing up at the airport in Dhaka to fly thousands of miles. Sometimes airlines seat them all together and board them first, which is preferable. Getting caught up in the middle of 50 of these guys as you board the plane is not something you’d want to do very often.

It's not just Bangladeshis who are leaving their rural villages to take jobs in the Middle East. On a recent flight back from Kathmandu, Patrick shared the plane with about 30 Nepali migrant workers (who were wearing blue caps, by the way). One was Patrick's seatmate in Row 45. During the entire three-and-a-half hour flight to Bangkok on Thai Airways, he watched Patrick carefully. One could almost hear the guy thinking: "Oh, these are headphones ... and they plug in here." "So, this button turns on the light." "Yes, I'll have some peanuts, too!"

Of course, he didn't speak English or Thai, so when dinner was served, he just pointed to Patrick's tray and nodded. Chicken, lamb or veggie? "I'll have what he's having." Water, soda, juice? "I'll have what he's having." Red wine, white wine? "I'll have what he's having." However, he got so involved in his food that he didn't really watch what Patrick did with the condiments. He ate his salad dry, with pepper and salt, and spread the salad dressing on his dinner roll. Then he discovered the butter packet. After studying it for a moment, he picked it up with both hands, held it between his forefingers, and pushed with his thumbs against the bottom, thinking to push whatever was inside out through the foil. Fearing an explosive result (which would have shot a wad of butter across the seats and into the back of the head of the guy sitting in Row 44), Patrick showed him that the foil top could be peeled off. The Nepali thanked him solemnly, picked up his spoon, and had a couple of spoonfuls of butter before he decided that it just wasn't his thing. Coffee, tea? "I'll have what he's having."

"Labor migration" is an interesting phenomenon for the academic types, and an entertaining debate topic for loudmouthed journalists, but for the workers, it’s about trying to make a better life. They’re just looking for jobs and generally have no idea what they’re getting into. For some, things may turn out fine – they’ll work hard, deal with whatever awful living conditions they’re put into and earn more money than they ever could in their home country. But for most, it can be a story of what is essentially modern-day slave labor. Yes, they do get paid, but is it is enough to offset the risks they must take at work, the conditions they live in and the money they had to pay for the job in the first place? When the alternative is no job at all, or begging, or whatever other trouble they can get into at home, it must be worth it. By contrast, a 20-year-old gardener working for foreigners in Bangladesh, who pay him $100 a month and care whether he lives or dies, is doing quite well.