Fifth Floor Friends

            The city where I live is not made for walking. Its streets are littered with potholes that can consume a man; the “curb” comes in the form of an occasional raised, road-side platform separating two plots of land. Environmental conservation has failed to catch on, so even if you are successful in finding a park in which to be ambulatory, the chances of stepping on some sort of sharp or infectious refuse is not zero. This may sound like a stressful situation, but when you combine the condition of the roads surrounding my house with the level of traffic and the number of people, walking to the metro station can seem like an exciting, mid-stakes video game; it keeps you on your toes.

Although I have only just mastered the art of walking around my city, it became clear early on that attempting to run on the road for exercise would probably result in a hospital stay. With this in mind, I have spent the last couple months exercising on my terrace, located six floors above ground. Most of the buildings on my block are only about four/five floors high, so I spent the first few weeks of my stay performing calisthenics in peace, knowing that I was relatively safe from the prying eyes of early morning-risers looking for their sunrise entertainment.

Slowly, though, that peace has evaporated. There is constantly construction going on in my neighborhood, as there is all over this city. When I moved into my apartment this January, I could look out of my bedroom window and see the top of the building next door, two floors below. In the picture below, you can see that it (on the right) is under construction:

A full schedule, culture shock, laziness and a painful foot injury (obtained, ironically enough by my one attempt to walk in high heels here) resulted in what you might call an “extended-leave” from morning exercise last month. But two weeks ago I woke up early, excited to restart the regimen.

Upon reaching the terrace and stepping outside, I was surprised to see that, in the span of just a few weeks, the building next door had gained two floors, both of which were partially covered in brick*. “No problem”, I thought. “May as well take advantage of the privacy to exercise until tenants move in.” With a shrug, I began my squats. Around five minutes and two jumping-jack sets later, I noticed the unmistakable smell of curry wafting over from the direction of the new floor next door. Noting the smell with a level of curiosity, I continued moving. Halfway through the workout, I was pushing through a set of burpees, which require a person to constantly move between standing and being in pushup position. While moving up to standing position on one of these repetitions, my eyes skimmed over my terrace wall, back to the building next door and were met by the eyes of a man, standing on the terrace, eating his breakfast and watching me with contentment from across the road. With a high heart rate clouding out my confusion, I decided to ignore the man and finish exercising, with plans to later ask my national friends to fill in any holes I was missing regarding people who inhabit construction sites.   

It turns out that an entire family has taken up residence in the open stairwell on the unfinished terrace of the building next door. There are at least four people whom I have seen waking up and getting ready for the day at 6:30am. They have a tarp to create a ceiling, a stove for cooking curry, and a line strung up to dry clean clothing. This is a family of construction workers.

There is not enough space to house all of the people in the city where I live and I have learned that most construction workers live near or around their current projects because they cannot afford a form of shelter, apart from the one they are building. Because of the high number of migrant workers and their willingness to work in almost any situation, it is also not uncommon for construction worker families to be exploited. They are the face of cheap labour in my city.

My fifth floor friends remind me that I am not here for the abstract. I am here to support the work of awesome, passionate people on behalf of other, equally dynamic people who are not in a place to legally represent themselves. I have been advised against interacting unnecessarily with the construction workers in my neighborhood, but their presence is a good reminder that their counterparts with IJM are real people, some of whom would also happily eat breakfast curry and watch the foreign girl contort herself in strange ways.

Where is hope? Hope is in the fact that I can sleep through the night despite the heat. Hope is in the face of the man who gave me a fair price for mangos today. Hope is in deepening relationships with new friends. Hope is in this story. Hope is in the familiar feeling I had when returning to this city after a weekend away. Poverty and brokenness is so visible here; I find hope in the knowledge that people have to consciously respond to it with either decided activity or decided passivity.

If you pray, pray for our office’s ability to affect strategic change in the Bandhua 1947 Campaign. Pray for good communication between all of the people in South Asia who are working against bonded labour, that we may combine our strengths. Pray that my body adjusts quickly to the summer weather and pray for my foot, as it continues to heal, that there will be no long-term damage.

Thank you for your support and for following along! It is a pleasure to share this year with you.

Sincerely,

                Alice

*You may be wondering how I managed to overlook the construction of two floors right next door. Well, it is really hot here. In order to stay sane, people hang incredibly thick curtains over their windows to keep the sun’s heat out. In an effort to adapt (and survive), I have done the same. Now the world directly visible from my room is, for all intensive purposes, dead to me unless I choose to look out into the sunshine.

 

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