A few thoughts on Equality

There is a young man from Sri Lanka that comes each day to clean our hotel apartment. It makes me uncomfortable and so sorry for him and many of the other men here and their plight for the future. I have chatted with him a little and know that his name is Masud. His Father recently passed away so he is now the sole support for his Mother and two younger sisters. He is 27 years old and has had no opportunity for further education. His is a poor country. He comes to Abu Dhabi in hopes of some semblance of a better life. He sends home $400. per month and keeps a small amount for himself. So if you do the math and consider that he works possibly 50-70 hours per week, he makes very little by our standards. Each week I give him a "bonus", a small amount really but one that hopefully will help him financially and also give him another day or week of hope. The many service workers here are from these poor countries; it would be very beneath the locals to work in service occupations. As I look into the faces of these service workers, who are mostly men, I see their incredible sadness and exhaustion. They are here without wives or family except maybe a brother or two. This is not how families should be~living apart day after day. But these brave souls leave all that is familiar, to be looked down upon and many times treated extremely poorly here by some that think they are a "lower class" ~~ just to send money back to the wife and babies back home. I look at them though as a class of hard working craftsman who have built and created Abu Dhabi to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world. There are buildings here that are absolutely stunning. Since we were here three years ago, entire island cities have been created in large part due to these men. I hope that I can help the good people here, especially the downtrodden and those who are so less fortunate. I don't think you really know how blessed you are until you see first hand another place and another life that you can't even imagine. I feel blessed every day for food, water and a nice place to lay my head; as many don't have those basic luxuries. I think I will try to be more thankful; maybe that is just one of the things I am supposed to learn here :-}