Wednesday, November 7, 2007

I'm coming home....



Yeah, Dubai was a bit of a disappointment I may say. It's a place of so much extremes. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty. Extreme laziness of some locals against hardworking foreigners.
It took me a long time to write another piece as an ending to my Dubai Journey. I wanted to save the best for last. But what entirely could be the best? Should the best be the thousands of designer shops in hundreds of malls? The magnificent 7 star hotel? The expensive cars flying around the roads of Dubai? The vast desert with camels nearing extinction? Or the mixture of culture from different countries in Europe, Asia and the Americas?
I may sound so benevolent with what I am about to write, but thats the thing, am only human. There are several thousands of men and women working in Dubai right now who aren't in any system. A friend of mine met a Pakistani woman who came to Dubai in search of her missing husband. Oh she found him alright. But the story doesn't end there. The husband came to Dubai thru an agent who found him and some hundred other Pakistanis, Indians, Sri Lankans, and Africans, jobs in construction sites. As you now know, Dubai is one big construction site in one big sand box. With high hopes of earning a bit more money to feed the hungry family, they went. First of the many injustices they faced was, they were given only 6€ worth of phone calls a month and 4€ for their daily meals (including breakfast, lunch and dinner). There's 3 shifts, of 10 hours each. You are lucky if you get the night shift for you won't last so long working under the scorching sun. Yeah they get accommodation and free bus rides in a cramped van with no air conditioning. But these are just the tip of the iceberg my dear friends. Their passport was taken. They can't leave the country until after the construction is done. So even if you find another place to work with better salary and better working condition, you cant!
There are still other branches to this story. But the truth is, there isn't anything you and I can do. For as long as there's a Gorshanis, Mazaris and Mundranis who will do anything to earn money to feed their young, there's always people who will take advantage. I may have left the country heartbroken and disappointed, but the country has left me with one true thing I will carry in my heart for as long as I live. And that's HUMANITY.
Goodbye Dubai... till we meet again.

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