Consuming other peoples’ sweat, blood and poverty

I am struggling to live with the daily divergence from values of social justice, equal rights and respect for all, colour-blindness…. It is infuriating that management at this international organization tries to work towards reducing poverty and improving human development, but does not even acknowledge all the back-breaking work carried out by sub-contracted, informal workers. One business manager at this organization threw down new rules, so that the women and man who clean during office hours and provide tea twice a day must alter their schedules. Basically, seeing these staff members cleaning toilets, emptying waste bins or making very sugary tea is too much of a distraction for these top echelon managers. Now the cleaning staff must come to work earlier and stay later to do all the cleaning (instead of just during 9-5 work hours), but must also be on-call during the day in case there are cleaning ‘emergencies’ such as they have to clean up the sick from someone’s dengue.

It is appalling that there was no consultation with the staff, that they have no bargaining power to stand up for different work hours and overtime, and that they are seen as people who should be unseen. They are already marginalized in mainstream society, deal with their own gender hierarchies at home, and now must struggle through UN’s subjugation to the unseen, private sphere. Maybe if we look the other way at their treatment and lack of rights, we can continue to work on human development issues from our pristine, clean ivory towers? We will be so lucky, then, to have these women (who have their own families from whom they are delayed in seeing, by this new schedule change) clean our toilets while we continue to churn out lofty, disconnected shit. Can we talk for a moment about praxis?

Meanwhile, this evening I went with Nason, the man who gives me cooking lessons where I live, to meet his visiting daughter. His daughter just turned 18 and came down from Kandy for the week. Nason rarely gets time off, so it is a huge deal that he is able to spend time with her these next few days. Wani, the daughter, traveled 5 hours by bus to stay in a cramped apartment with her relatives. I was fortunate to meet her aunt, cousins and friends. Everyone speaks Tamil, so Nason had to translate and it was difficult to get an understanding of who was who. There were 8 young women total, all garment factory workers. They seem very proud that they have these jobs, and it is commendable how hard they work. These women sew the majority of the world’s underwear, lingerie, swimsuits and shoes.

After the phase-out of the Multi-Fibre Agreement, which grants quota-free, duty-free access to developing countries, several Least Developed Countries are indeed competing for shares in the European and United States clothing markets. I’ve been saturated with textiles data since assisting with the quarterly tracking reports for the South Asian garment industry. Most notable is how Pakistan and Sri Lanka seem to be competing on certain clothing items, with Pakistan driving the bed linens and ready-made t-shirts and shorts segments, and Sri Lanka having a strong hold on the other, aforementioned items. But the two countries compete against each other on other kinds of ready-made clothing. Makes you think twice about Victoria’s Secret and Bata shoes. (My own view on consuming other peoples’ sweat, blood and poverty, which changes constantly, is that everything is made in sweatshops so it’s impossible to avoid. But we can become aware of the work conditions, opt to pay slightly more for fair trade clothing, and normalize talking about these issues until all garment workers get benefits, decent pay and hours, health provisions, back massages…)

So these 7 women, 2 young (maybe 20-25 year old) husbands, 1 daughter and Nason share a tiny, 2-storey, 10x5 ft room with loft. About 1/4 of the room is divided for a Hindu shrine on a shelf, with a cheap, colour TV in one corner. Another shelf with spices and condiments lines the opposite wall, under the stairs leading to the loft. They use kerosene to cook their chapatis and curries, and drink disgusting Nescafe coffee with too much sugar (traditional drink here?). I have no idea where their toilet or bathing area is, but most slum dwellers do not have access to clean water.

Sri Lanka is still in a bid to privatize its water, so it is likely that clean water will become increasingly difficult to access for urban dwellers. In the dilapidated building scores of families live in cramped rooms, stacked on top of each other. I saw a few young girls with their mothers being younger than me, who most likely do not go to school. Another friend told me that most people living in this section of Colombo, come down from Jaffna and Batticola to sell cheap imported goods in Pettah’s maze of markets.

I tried to find out more about these young women’s work life and answers to how they stay so happy, but much will remain unsaid until I improve my Tamil. You can talk about vegetables for only so long! I am defnly the oddity and I think I surprised my hosts when I told them I cannot really sew. On the other hand, they make and wear really pretty dresses from simple, cotton prints. They even gave me a strand of beads, somewhat feeling sorry for me that I did not have (or wear) gold necklaces despite my apparent wealth. They were very glamorous young women with their own gold strands, ear cuffs, nose rings and anklets.

So while at work I have to commend Sri Lankan garment workers for keeping the industry afloat after the quota phase out, I cannot help but be frustrated that the lived realities of these women have not changed and possibly has gotten worse. I don’t even think colleagues who visited factories in their case study countries even went to the workers’ homes, relying on the forged experiences within a factory compound. Instead, we should commend garment workers for carrying the industry, their communities and families…Maybe I will find other ways to cope with this duplicity and fraudulence. (However, I am concerned that I spoke out of line to management about the cleaning staff decision ---we’ll see soon enough if I am barred from this organization for my audacity…)

Where does Supramani sleep when it rains?

Treatment as a foreigner is heavy baggage to carry around. On the one hand, service is expedited, people are smiling extra wide and you easily pass through military checkpoints. On the other, people assume you have loads of cash to hand out, so you get special and differential treatment with pricing. At market it is impossible to bargain fairly, so I expect to pay at least 30% more. I am lucky to have met a fantastic, kind Muslim Tamil man who has become a friend and my regular three-wheeler driver. Zulfi speaks good English and has taught me loads about Sri Lanka, especially about what is a fair price. Indeed, Sri Lanka has lagged behind Singapore and Thailand in terms of development, with poverty rate rising concurrently with the heightened conflict (and many jaded youth join armed forces on one side or the other, for consistent income), but money certainly isn’t everything.

It seems natural as a Westerner to offer cash to people who teach you a language or to cook or to show you around. Perhaps it’s just in the West where these niche services have become commodified and turned into small-scale industries. But it is more of an insult to offer people money for these kinds of lessons in life because showing genuine interest and being courteous are often more valuable. Where I live there are several people working as domestic staff and I’ve asked the cook to show me how to make rampas, dal curries, barota, string hoppers and sambol. Nason speaks very good English and has become a default translator between the other, inquisitive Tamil-speaking workers. He is from the historic mountainous city of Kandy, his wife died 15 years ago and has a daughter aged 18. The subject of his daughter is very touchy, as he hasn’t been able to bring her up and she has been working presumably during her entire teenage years. Despite all my questions, with me getting in the way of his expert cooking, he is happy to explain to me about all the food he prepares. Learning how much time it takes to make barota: kneading flour, rolling into fist-size balls, twirling dough around in a manner that is impossible for this researcher’s wimpy hands, until it is very thin, then folding like an envelope and baking it on skillet for a few minutes; makes the food taste even better!

I have been very lucky finding this apartment. The landlady, Gowri, and husband, Shiva, are Hindu Tamil Sri Lankans who studied and practiced immigration law in London for 20 years before resettling in Colombo. She comes from a wealthy, diplomatic family and has connections in government; her brother is an MP in Parliament. They generally support UNP, or president’s opponent, Ranil’s party. Her upper crust lifestyle permits her to own a mansion with 6 apartments connected off the side of house for long-term leases and short-term holidayers. Gowri is an amazing gardener, very authoritative with her staff and clients, and threw an amazing rooftop New Year’s Eve party with Hindi music, arrack (local liquor) and fireworks (more like nuclear warheads!). Shiva is a devoted Hindu, and the most generous man I’ve met in a long time. He worships regularly at their household shrine of Ganesh, the elephant god of success and prosperity, as well as in their rooftop meditation garden. On smog-free days you can see the ocean from the roof.

I am situated in Wella Watta, or Colombo 6, a predominantly Tamil neighborhood. It is extremely bustling, off sea-aligning Galle Road. Bombay sweet shops, market stalls nearly toppling on top of each other, cheap DVD shops, bakeries, restaurants, lottery kiosks with booming voices encouraging the poor to test their luck, a culinary institute, a mosque, a Muslim Ladies’ College and a Hindu one, a few temples, a Catholic church and boys’ school, rickety seaside shanty houses, breastfeeding beggars, no-legged men on skateboards, teenage soldiers on duty, children in their starched, white uniforms, sari boutiques, sacks of every kind of legume and spice, king coconuts with the tops cut off so you can slurp the milky white liquid then scoop their flesh, and roaming cows make up my immediate neighborhood.

Although I love my neighborhood, a 25-minute (4 km) ride to work, and I meet many people, I am torn about my role as a tenant and observer of the poverty around me. A young man with a slight mental disability, Supramani, gardens, sweeps, runs errands and does small repairs around my residence. His work is integral to the smooth functioning of this home business, yet he is treated almost like an animal. Not to impose my outsider’s view on the situation, but I’m not sure why Supramani has to sleep on the ground outside the house. Monsoon season is almost over, but with climate change there’s been continual downpours lately and I wonder where he sleeps when it rains so much. This thought keeps me up at night as I sleep with one spare bedroom.

There also seems to be many young women who come from Muskeliya, a tea village, to Colombo in order to work. Dakshani, a cross-eyed, talkative 16-year old maid will be heading back to Muskeliya to visit her tea-picking mother for Thai Pongol (January Full Moon day). While it is a Buddhist holiday, Hindus celebrate by painting their cows and hiking Adam’s Peak. (The best decorated cow gets a prize.) It is traditional to give small gifts to friends and people who work for you around Thai Pongol and Hadjj (the Muslim holiday). I have both holidays off, so I may try to go into tea country to see the festivals. Dakshani doesn’t know Kamalam or her daughter who also works as a maid in Colombo, and says that most people in Muskeliya will be hiking on evening of Thai Pongol.

I grapple with life among people who are treated as inferior, when their knowledge and life experiences are far superior and valuable than I can describe. How can I sleep at night knowing that another person, around my age, must sleep out in the rain? By offering him shelter or extra cash, I disrupt the entrenched system of hierarchy and risk being booted out myself. Not to mention I’m not sure how Supramani would react. For the time being, I can only offer respect, small Thai Pongol gifts, a genuine smile and curiosity about their histories. But I am still revolted that I cannot outright revolt at this structure of inequality and persistent poverty trap. In my myopic mind I can only think of improving literacy or English skills, but those thoughts do nothing when you have immensely wealthy people desperately trying to preserve their nauseating wealth derived from the heart-wrenching poverty of others.