Just thought this was worth posting up.
i remember years ago, i wanted to do an anthropological project… take a video camera and film the lives of these construction labourers in Dubai/Abu Dhabi. The two fears stopping me were: i) making an arse of myself ii) one woman in an exclusively male environment
Reading this, makes me kick myself for listening to my fears.
The sweat, the blood, the returns, Najia Alavi, DAWN, 25 March 2004
Pakistani workers are living the “Dubai Dream” on velvety carpets and 24-hour air-conditioning, bringing home bags full of goodies. Dubai looks like a vast desert building site interspersed with magnificent high-rises and luxurious grasslands. The situation is win-win all around. Or is it? Najia Alavi reports.
As deceptive as appearances can be, the glitz of Dubai may not be all that it seems. Pakistan’s increasing dependence on remittances may or may not be that great a thing. The “Dubai Dream” is just that - a fantasy, a dream that closes its eyes on the gruelling 12-hour work day outdoors in the sweltering nine-month-summer heat. With construction continuing round the clock every day, the building site is all too quickly transforming into opulence, but vacant towers prompt analysts to declare that the bust in the booming construction industry may be just around the corner.
Rough estimates (there are no official figures) put the number of Pakistanis working in the emirates at about half a million of which 70 per cent are helpers, masons, carpenters, electricians, and drivers in the construction industry.
Dubai is a city in a hurry to be glorious, to be the best in everything - the tallest tower, the largest cake, the biggest shopping mall – the list is endless. But while Dubai’s better-off expatriates laud the “development” that allows them to live well-paid, tax-free lives, those who have been building the city brick by brick live gloomy lives far away from their families on meagre salaries.
Tucked away at the edge of the desert away from glaring city lights, are labour camps - housing facilities built by contractors for their workers. As I take a turn into the road that leads up to what I expect to be a colony of shanties, I am pleasantly surprised to see thousands of apartment blocks with the backs of window ACs jutting out of them. It could just as well have been apartments in Karachi’s Gulshan-i-Iqbal. However, driving deeper into the colony I discover that this is yet another facade, for hiding in its depths are thousands of despondent, gloomy faces, resigned to their fates.
Afraid that I might be kicked out of every labour camp and worried that no one will speak to me, I am again surprised to find a genuine openness, warmth, and hospitality that is really practised here. And it has nothing to do with the novelty of a woman walking into an exclusively male locale, but the rarity of anyone being interested in their lives.
Over five days of speaking to small groups of workers - some employed with big companies and others with small ones - I learn to respect those who I had often seen working away in half-completed buildings but never really noticed.
Sitting in whitewashed stark plain rooms with six to10 bunk beds, I hear stories of burnt boats, lost dreams and vanquished hopes. Paying about 1.5 lakh rupees to agents, they come to Dubai to earn that little extra to send back home for the son’s books, the sister’s wedding and for the ever impossible dream of having their own small pucca house.
Their day begins at 4:00 in the morning when they wake up to cook their breakfast and lunch, and board their company buses at 5:00. They are at their respective sites by 6:00 and toil away till lunchtime when they get an hour-long break, and then it’s back to work till 6:00 in the evening.
Depending on the work, the foreman and the urgency of the project (in Dubai almost all real estate projects are urgent and construction goes on 24-hours), they may have to stay on for another few hours till the next shift is brought in. The workers have no say in the choice of site, or the hours they work. They get overtime for the extra hours and money is assumed to compensate for this kind of slavery.
And perhaps it does. Money is by far the only motivator that keeps them going. On average a worker earns anywhere between Dhs450 - 600 a month, usually inclusive of a Dhs150 allowance for food. Overtime may take that figure up to about Dhs800. That is about Rs12,000, considerably more than what they would earn back home. But I still ask question whether it is worth it, and whether their quality of life is better than what it was in Pakistan.
Most say their personal quality of life is much worse, but they are happy that they are able to provide for those back home. I point to the stark clean room, the air-conditioning, the fridge, and the TV in their room. They point to the nine other people they share the room, the air-conditioning, the fridge and TV with.
They tell me that the air-conditioners, the fridge and the TV were bought by pooling their own money and were not, as I assumed, provided by the company. I remember my first impression of the apartment blocks with their window A/Cs and realize how appearances can indeed be deceptive.
Living in hostel-like rooms outside city limits with no entertainment and no families (the minimum wage for being able to sponsor families is Dhs4,000), life can be dull at best. Hidden away from the city of lights, and practically stranded - for the closest bazaar, cinema or eat-out means transportation costs out of their own pockets - these workers are in every sense of the word deprived of any recreation or amusement.