Immigration's Story

If you land in J and don't have an onward ticket they, the blue uniformed ones, shake you down. You know the drill.

Extract a crisp green "C" note and slide it across the counter inside your documents. He smiles. His gold shoulder braid shudders. He gestures, "just a minute." You stand aside as Europeans and ill-informed immigrants stream past, pay, receive an entry stamp good for 30 days and head toward the next gold braided computer peering man.

Your man comes out and escorts you through the "Question?" line. 

He hands your paperwork over to another man and tells you to wait outside the "NO ENTRY" zone. You study lines of visitors; men, women, and families waiting in their lines for one last stamp, one final chance for freedom from the tyranny of travel-itis, a legendary disease with no antidote.

His friend nods, accepts the papers and does his thing. Open, remove cash, slide passport through a scanner, stamps it and hands it back. The man returns it to you and says, "Good-bye my little butterfly."

You grab your bag and hit the bricks. You are immediately surrounded by extended families desperately struggling to survive in a mean old world. On one side are 1,001 girls and women near a "Maid For Hire," sign. Some hold brooms, others caress irons, mops, wash rags and woks. The smell of burning cooking oil penetrates your consciousness. 

On the other side are 1,001 boys and men with a "I Will Do Anything," sign - the small print reads, "I can clean, drive, escort, bribe, talk, build, hammer, make bricks, sleep, eat and construction projects are my speciality." 

A single man singing a long song entitled, "If you want to play you have to pay," plays a mysterious six-string instrument in the shadows. You follow disappearing notes into the night. The dark night of the soul.

Peace.