There are a group of women here today…
Here Today…
A place called labor camp.
About 100 ladies will stay here to sleep the other warm bodies will go home to sleep next to their husbands after tucking in their kids.
We are sitting in the not garden but cement courtyard of the labor camp.
Those who live here are the guests tonight.
How odd to be a guest in your own home.
Those who are hosting the party are nice but have no sense of what goes on in the guests’ hearts and minds.
When singing jingle bells, we might think of Santa’s sleigh while they think of the x-mas tree empty under in their home back home.
If we remember x-mas is about the birth of a savior then we will all rejoice.
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THE OUT OF FOCUS PICTURE IS FOR A REASON
You might wonder about the picture above, I did have one that was more in focus and lighter…. but this is really how I saw the night. I was in a daze, not quite sure what business we had to be there…. I knew some of the ladies that lived there from another visit, and i had a bond with a few. It was nice… I guess it is always nice to try to imagine life if you are the other. I am blessed to have friends and friendships that let me touch the life I hope I never have to live as far as the comforts of life goes. Of course, who is to say who is more fulfilled in life.
To give a simple smile with out expecting even a gesture back shows that one is grand and satisfied with life. I see the smiles, i receive and I give, but there is a give and take. When it can be a true gift…. like that of a mother’s umbilical cord feeding her child…. giving with out doubt or thought that is beauty in its essence to me.
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ABOUT THE PARTY ORGANIZERS AND GUESTS
This is a Christmas Party which took place on December ninth at one of the Labor camps here in Abu Dhabi. There are just over one hundred workers that live here, they work with a local cleaning company.
Acomodations are fine, in the sense that they are clean. There are eight women per room on bunk beds, they share two common bathrooms, each stale has a toilet and shower, it is a wonder how the ladies come out so clean and pretty.
The scene I have described in my poem is last night’s party. A group of about 30 expats had organized the gathering. Food was provided by the Farimont, truly a five star dinner, there was a group of Christmas Carolers, gifts of Television, Karioke machine and washing machine were given and at the end of the night there were arts and crafts being done.
It was a beautiful gesture all in all, but i would think for a real party you need real interaction between the guests and the hosts. In this case the guests being the cleaners in the labor camps and the hosts being the expats who had provided everything from trees to jingle bells. Happy holidays to all. I hope next year the guests can be in their own homes with their own families, hosting their own guests.
Your out-of-focus picture seems appropriate: we (expats, so-called “first worlders”) don’t see the laborers clearly. Maybe we can’t see them clearly because there are so many chasms between their worlds and ours. And yet–we can imagine wistfulness about families far away, or traditions not our own–because those emotions are universal, at least in general. Abu Dhabi sometimes seems to me like three or four or five cities, all layered on top of one another: separate strata of laborers, each a different country; expats; “locals;” emiratis… it’s frequently disconcerting and often, yes, difficult to focus.
Thank you Deborah for paying attention to the out of focus picture which focuses on the realities of life.
Yes, there are so many different layers, but as the saying goes more connects us than separates us, this I believe.
All we need to do is to open our hearts, and the connections happen automatically with no thought.
I