Poor Misguided Soul
Recovering quickly from the early stages of what had promised to be a nice little nap, I flopped off my bed and stumbled to the door. It was the young man from the office, the computer expert who’d gone AWOL at the port, wanting to know if I’d like to visit the souk, since I would be able to buy a towel there. Although the last thing I felt like doing at that particular moment in time was more shopping, I agreed. It would have been churlish to decline his offer. After all, he had taken the trouble to travel from wherever he lived in Tripoli to ask me out, and he seemed to have my interests at heart.
The young man was a good-looking Palestinian who, like his compatriots, had dark brown skin and eyes. During our taxi ride into the city centre, he told me that he was desperate to leave Tripoli, because life for people like him was becoming increasingly intolerable there. I wasn’t too sure what he meant by ‘people like him’, and it seemed rude to ask. He went on to say that he’d originally wanted to work in Libya’s oil fields, but that now he wanted to work in Cyprus. A few seconds later, I realised that he had a hidden agenda. The pledge to secure me a towel was my guide’s opening gambit in a now obvious ploy to find work in Limassol. The deception became clearer still as he talked at length about the plight of his family in Gaza and his desperate need to support them financially.
The taxi dropped us near the centre of Tripoli. As we wandered the warm streets, scuffing our way through the plastic and paper litter, I pondered how I was going to tell my new friend that I couldn’t help him achieve his ambition. This onerous task became even more difficult when, after drinking several more cups of coffee, this time at a swish office complex, he sidled off to pay the bill and then refused to let me contribute. I knew that this bill would have consumed a sizeable proportion of his weekly wage, but only a small fraction of mine. I also knew that I might just have deprived his family in Gaza of, what to them would have been, a useful sum of money. It was time to be brutally frank.
To this day, I can still see the doleful look on the Palestinian’s face when I told him the facts of life about foreigners working in Limassol. As far as I knew, these facts were particularly harsh for those people without acceptable qualifications. Although the man had certificates from a Middle East university, I doubted whether they would secure him anything more than unskilled labour in the West.
With huge irony therefore, I shattered exactly the same dream that had entranced me for so long: the dream of living and working in Cyprus. I just couldn’t let him make the same rash and ill-informed judgements that I had made, probably. It was better that he knew how things stood from the outset, so that he could decide whether to consolidate what he had, as I should have done perhaps, or gamble on something better.
Consequently, I spared no detail in telling the Palestinian how the Cypriot authorities treated his countrymen, especially those with outdated visas or - worse still - no work permits. All that many of these people wanted was the sort of backbreaking, agricultural work that most young Cypriots would spurn, given the physical effort, discomfort and small financial reward involved.
To secure a day’s pay, illegal Arab workers would congregate on the street corners of Limassol’s old quarter early each morning. In a scene similar to the kerb crawling that went on in a different part of town, at a different time of day, old men in trucks would cruise around eyeing the talent on offer. Those fit youngsters who took the old men’s fancy would then be asked if they'd like to do business. By eight in the morning, most of the Arabs touting for work would either have been spirited away by the old men to toil in some remote field, or else they would have merged back into the shadows of some quiet hideout. Those who remained, the fools and less fit ones who were desperate for money, would find themselves chased around the narrow back streets by policemen, some with the tenacity of rabid Rottweilers.
The Palestinian looked crestfallen, yet oddly disinterested, when I recollected the events that I had seen on many occasions since moving to Limassol. It was obvious that he did not want to hear my views, or of my first-hand experience. He was young and full of self-assurance it seemed, impervious to a knowledgeable friend’s unwanted advice. The fine dividing line he trod, between confidence and arrogance, was hauntingly familiar.
The young man was a good-looking Palestinian who, like his compatriots, had dark brown skin and eyes. During our taxi ride into the city centre, he told me that he was desperate to leave Tripoli, because life for people like him was becoming increasingly intolerable there. I wasn’t too sure what he meant by ‘people like him’, and it seemed rude to ask. He went on to say that he’d originally wanted to work in Libya’s oil fields, but that now he wanted to work in Cyprus. A few seconds later, I realised that he had a hidden agenda. The pledge to secure me a towel was my guide’s opening gambit in a now obvious ploy to find work in Limassol. The deception became clearer still as he talked at length about the plight of his family in Gaza and his desperate need to support them financially.
The taxi dropped us near the centre of Tripoli. As we wandered the warm streets, scuffing our way through the plastic and paper litter, I pondered how I was going to tell my new friend that I couldn’t help him achieve his ambition. This onerous task became even more difficult when, after drinking several more cups of coffee, this time at a swish office complex, he sidled off to pay the bill and then refused to let me contribute. I knew that this bill would have consumed a sizeable proportion of his weekly wage, but only a small fraction of mine. I also knew that I might just have deprived his family in Gaza of, what to them would have been, a useful sum of money. It was time to be brutally frank.
To this day, I can still see the doleful look on the Palestinian’s face when I told him the facts of life about foreigners working in Limassol. As far as I knew, these facts were particularly harsh for those people without acceptable qualifications. Although the man had certificates from a Middle East university, I doubted whether they would secure him anything more than unskilled labour in the West.
With huge irony therefore, I shattered exactly the same dream that had entranced me for so long: the dream of living and working in Cyprus. I just couldn’t let him make the same rash and ill-informed judgements that I had made, probably. It was better that he knew how things stood from the outset, so that he could decide whether to consolidate what he had, as I should have done perhaps, or gamble on something better.
Consequently, I spared no detail in telling the Palestinian how the Cypriot authorities treated his countrymen, especially those with outdated visas or - worse still - no work permits. All that many of these people wanted was the sort of backbreaking, agricultural work that most young Cypriots would spurn, given the physical effort, discomfort and small financial reward involved.
To secure a day’s pay, illegal Arab workers would congregate on the street corners of Limassol’s old quarter early each morning. In a scene similar to the kerb crawling that went on in a different part of town, at a different time of day, old men in trucks would cruise around eyeing the talent on offer. Those fit youngsters who took the old men’s fancy would then be asked if they'd like to do business. By eight in the morning, most of the Arabs touting for work would either have been spirited away by the old men to toil in some remote field, or else they would have merged back into the shadows of some quiet hideout. Those who remained, the fools and less fit ones who were desperate for money, would find themselves chased around the narrow back streets by policemen, some with the tenacity of rabid Rottweilers.
The Palestinian looked crestfallen, yet oddly disinterested, when I recollected the events that I had seen on many occasions since moving to Limassol. It was obvious that he did not want to hear my views, or of my first-hand experience. He was young and full of self-assurance it seemed, impervious to a knowledgeable friend’s unwanted advice. The fine dividing line he trod, between confidence and arrogance, was hauntingly familiar.
posted by Hawkeye at 9:15 am
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