Roundabout Dubai

Bright Colored Overalls

The bright colors of their work overalls are eye-catching; navy blue, grassy green, hot orange, shimmering yellow. So bright, yet hey stay mostly anonymous and out of sight as they labor in the bellies of the high-rise buildings and on the dangerous beams and surfaces of scaffoldings and cranes. But often we have closer encounters, we see them as they come in the full view of people like us, the other species of the Dubai inhabitants. We pass them so routinely that they become part of the landscape, as they wave a red flag to slow down the traffic at a roadwork site, sweeping streets sides as crazy drivers zoom by them, water grass and trees on roads islands, and work their manual equipment or machinery to dig or dump or roll or pour or scrape or smooth or pack or move. No words exchanged, no gestures, no eye contact; no communication. We might as well be perfect aliens. We pass each other, more silently and indifferently than the manner in which people pass each other in Dubai. The gulf here stretches far beyond what separates us from other groups of the lucky class of expatriates.

The world of the bright-colored overalls is so remote and unimaginable it makes me sometimes think of the Morlocks from Wells's Time Machine (obviously minus the morbid cannibalistic and predatory nature). But the wretchedness of their netherworld existence is not so different, trapped in their netherworld-like labor camps and killing cycle of work-sleep-work-sleep work. Their only reprieve is looking forward to the time they get to go back home in some little corner in the Subcontinent or wherever they came from, having saved a bit of money to help them escape eternal poverty. We recognize their humanity, at least many of us do, but we keep our distance, keeping as far away from their labor camps as possible.

We know they're mostly getting a raw deal, screwed by recruiters and agents, paid in a month less than what many of us make in a single day doing an infinitely more pleasant job, and living in subhuman conditions. We show our empathy by debating their rights and work conditions. That’s about how much we help them in their silent and sometimes vocal struggle to secure a subsistence existence from the clutches of greedy employers and sleazy companies; but we keep our distance from them, the untouchables. This is after all a region where people’s lives and destinies are carved out separately with some of the sharpest social, ethnic and national distinctions you find anywhere. And as we revel in our abundance of luck and fortune as they roast across the divide in the inferno of their working days and the misery of their grueling nights.

This morning I saw them by the airport tunnel, working on the new flyover at Nad Al Hamar, wandering in blue overalls and yellow helmets with a cloth hanging from underneath them on the back of the head and neck and down the sides to the shoulders. They struck as a group of travelers going on some strange safari or members of a disbanded circus troupe. Once again, and despite the very bright appearance, I passed them with little real attention and the memory is almost erased by the time I enter the airport tunnel just a minute later; I could only recall the bright overalls and the helmets, but none of the faces.

posted by bandicoot @ 9:49 PM