What If I was a Half-Skilled Construction Worker?

Construction sites are not a good place for a woman to spend her day, even if she was an architect.

But, this is not about a worker's hormonal rush that produces wolf whistles and camouflaged comments, nor about flashing bottoms that are a trademark of any construction site anywhere in  the world. Rather, it's about the emotional burden such a day would cast on you, and about how, never again, will you take your meal or bath time for granted.

From eight till seven, yesterday, I had three workers at home, pulling down parts of the ceiling and wall for an interior staircase to be mounted between the house and the roof. The foreman claimed it would be an hour's work, but the poor people were banging walls, operating demolition tools, and removing debris till seven in the evening .My continuous presence around them was to ensure no unnecessary parts would be pulled  down, and to try and contain the mess they would be creating when debris starts falling down to the house itself. I was a big nuisance to them, I know. They had to keep asking me to move out of the way, they were not used to the constant warnings I was giving them: watch out for your hands, mind the step, careful with the wires, move the rocks before they fall down, don't mix the cement on the tiles, cover the ground with plastic,...,they MUST have hated me. But the day ended with me developing a new-found feeling of compassion for them that I have never felt this strongly before. I have always felt for people who are less fortunate, I have sometimes tried to help with whatever I could do or give, but never have I been into this much thought on how they live their lives. They use their bare hands to pull out bricks from long dried cement, they pull out sheets of tin that could easily cut their hands open and cause them a number of severe infections. They use their tools and utensils without any sort of protection to their eyes or heads. The possibilities of things falling on their heads or flying into their eyes are present, every minute of the day. They cut a finger and just lick their wound and keep going.  I was thinking, what would happen if one should trade places. By the end of the day, my legs were killing me from standing up, my body was sore, and all I could hardly wait for my  nice hot bath and warm dinner, but I found myself thinking that they, the ones who were actually doing the work, will probably not get this sort of ending for their day. Then,a certain feeling of shame crept on me, when I felt how content they were with everything, how positive their approach to life was, and how very little made them feel so good. They asked for some water, and I was still waiting for the water company to bring the bottle refills, so I asked them to wait while I go to the shop and get some, but they insisted they'd drink tap water, they laughed when I said it's undrinkable. I felt so naive. And when my husband came home bringing them dinner, they were ecstatic, such an ordinary event like dinner, was a reason to celebrate. To be honest, they had been pleasant all day, singing and laughing, and never complained about the amount of work they were given. They did not stop for a minute, well, one of them did to smoke, but it was continuous hard work for most of the day. I wondered all day, how they survive on little food and how they kept their spirits when their lives were so tough. There's a lesson to be learned there,and I am ashamed to say, I, for one, very often forget to count my blessings.

Waking up this morning to the sad news of the collapse of  a floor (or more, story not clear yet), of one of the Jordan Gate towers, and the death of a couple of the workers there, I was outraged. This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, unless new measures would be taken, and new regulations enforced to guarantee the safety of workers, and their rights in case of an accident. There will always be accidents in a work place, it's inevitable, but ensuring a worker-who suffers from an accident, sufficient rights to cater for him and/or his family in the case of a casualty, will minimize the numbers to a great extent. May God Bless the Souls of those who were killed, and May we, be made to regard people as the human beings they are, not as figures and statistics from the departments of immigration and work permits.

September 2006