Okie Dokie Sirr

They are a salt-of-the-earth kind of race with good values and a relatively strong will to work. Thin, meagre and malnourished they go about their daily work on my construction site in sweltering 50 degrees Celsius heat and sand storms. Health and Safety? What’s that?

The guys used to pass out from exhaustion and heat stress which we responded to with a glass of Rehydrate-water and “keep your legs up and take it easy for a few minutes”.  They would climb to heights only seen in Cirque du Soleil while carrying a 5 pound hammer and constantly stopping to adjust the hard hat. Once he reached the top his work mate would throw a safety harness which normally (if collected) would end up strapped around the leg and neck in some peculiar knot. They would sleep under suspended loads, jump from the building edges, walk across the highway and handle power tools in a manner that would make Wild E Coyote proud.

One of the challenges I faced with the cultural differences is that the Sub Continental guys always jingle their heads from side to side as a notion of agreement. The scale of the agreement is relative the speed of the jingle. So you can image the scenario here: as I shout across the packed hall at the guy who fell off the scaffolding : “Are you okay?” to which he jungles his head from side to side. Erm? Is that a “Yes I am fine” or “No, my leg bone is stabbing into my face”.  To make things worse that not one of them spoke English and my Tamil/Gujarati/ Hindi English was rather limited. I knew the basics like “hello, goodbye, lift that, push this and Where can I find a good curry”.

So what I did to solve this predicament is I taught them to nod. European style. Your head goes (on one plain) from left to right and back to left again and that means “No”. If you drop your chin down to your chest and back up and down again that means “Yes”. After a while I would walk around site and ask a guy if this-that-and-the-next-thing was going okay to which I would get a little Indian fella straining his neck muscles like a WWF wrestler. He would spike his eyebrows up and focus hard into the distance and get the chin moving up and down without the habitual jingle kicking in. It took a while for them to come right – often getting a sprite of symptoms similar to Parkinson’s when I asked them a question – but they got it right.

We had a lot of interesting interactions. The day the one guy painted himself into a corner (literally) and we made him camp there overnight until the paint was dry. The time we trained them how to sit on toilet seats because squatting for them is more natural. The problem with squatting on a toilet seat is when you walk in second you get these foot shaped poo-outlines on the toilet seat. They are also used to splashing themselves clean as opposed to the horrid tragedy that is toilet paper. The answer to this? A little dirty bucket with a cup in it…sitting next to the toilet.

There are no labour representatives or unions. They would be packed 9 in a room no larger than shipping container with one communal toilet per floor. The guys would eat rice with gravy, drink warm water, shower twice a week and celebrate at the sight of shampoo. All of this neglect yet on the other side of the coin we have to understand that, to them, this is their big break. A chance to earn a “living” wage and send 70% of that back home to their massive families. They got to travel on an aeroplane, swim in the ocean, see a tumble dryer and actually use the seats on a train…instead of hanging off the roof.

Thinking back now to the time I got them all saying “Okie Dokie Sirr” on site, with endless toothless smiles during our weekly toolbox talk, I can’t help but feel warm inside. Out of all the good things Dubai taught me the lessons I learnt about the culture of these people rates in the top 5. They developed a kind of patience and understanding in me that I can see my peers in South Africa do not have.

And with a neck-straining and jugular pulsating nod I will end this blog…Okie Dokie Sirrrr