The Replicant in the Refugee Camp, Part 9
A near-future novel in which the latest reality event develops in unforeseen ways. Unfolding in 50 parts. Chapter 1: August.
— in the camp —
It’s a long walk, and they carry as much as they can, so some of them are already out of breath when they arrive in the women and children section of the camp. Yet a large group, with Hind up front, sees them arrive. Immediately, a number of women and some of the larger children offer to help carry part of the load. Once all the material is stacked in a central location, they take a short break, which is not to Piotr’s liking.
“Tired already?” he says, not naming them, yet looking in the direction of the chubby Katja and the slightly beer-bellied Esteban. “We haven’t even really started, yet.”
“In case you haven’t noticed,” Dewi says, “not all of us are full-on workaholics like you.”
“Says the teaching lady,” Piotr snarls, “who’s never gotten her hands dirty.”
“We’re all ready to get our hands dirty,” Kristel says, “but at our own speed. Since you’re so eager, why don’t you start driving a few poles into the ground, over there, there and there. Then we can tie garbage bins to them, and install garbage bags.”
“Finally,” Piotr says, eagerly swinging a sledgehammer, “it’s time for the men to do the hard work. Somebody hold that pole while I ram it down.”
“I believe in the power of your manliness,” Esteban says, “so much that I’m afraid it will crush my hand if your sledgehammer misses the pole.”
“What?” Piotr says, surprised somebody would doubt his technical acumen. “I never miss.”
“I never miss a beer, either,” Esteban says, deadpan, “therefore, let’s tap that pole in gently, at first. Then let me tie a rope around it and keep it in place from a safe distance while you ram it in.”
“Meh,” Piotr says, “coward.”
“A coward who loves his hands,” Esteban says. “By the by, do I get a beer for every time you miss?”
Piotr grumbles, but does not say yes to Esteban’s bet. As instructed by Esteban, he taps it in gently, at first. Then Esteban ties a rope around the pole, pushes it slightly one way, then pulls it upright again.
“Alright, as Rob Halford would sing,” Esteban says, “ram it down!”
Piotr lets rip with his sledgehammer and hits the first three times. His fourth swing totally misses, making Esteban happy that he took precautions
“Easy as she goes, Tarzan,” Esteban says. “Hit less hard, but aim better.”
Piotr swears an untranslatable Polish curse as the three of them move on to the next pole position. Three other poles are driven into the ground in rapid succession as Piotr — indeed — improves his aim while somewhat lessening his impact. “Impressive,” Akama says to Piotr, who is now panting and sweating in the oppressive August heat. “Can I do a few?”
They move to another location, and Akama — assisted by Esteban — drives in a few poles, never missing, hitting the top of the pole with exactly the force required.
“You seem to know what you’re doing,” Piotr has to admit. “How do you hit them so accurately?”
“When I wield the sledgehammer,” Akama says, “I can literally, well, smell and taste the top of the pole.”
“What?” Esteban says. “You’re saying you’re synesthetic?
“Maybe. But you also learn how to be as efficient as possible,” Akama says with a knowing look, “when you have to drive in hundreds of these for fencing off your cows and sheep.”
“Why didn’t you say so,” Piotr says.
“And denigrate your manliness?” Akama says, flashing a not-so-faux smile.
Esteban just laughs and taps Piotr on the shoulder. “It’s OK, man,” he says, “we’ll get this done, together.”
As the trio of Piotr, Esteban and Akama drive in the poles, Olga, Katja, Dewi, and Kristel start tying garbage bins to the already erected poles, using some time to figure out the best way. A number of refugee women and some of the large, older kids offer to help as well.
Dewi and Olga are trying to tie one of the large, round garbage bins to a pole, but it’s not quite as easy as it looks. There’s an art to securing things and knotting that they don’t quite understand. But they get help from an unexpected corner.
“Please, allow me to help,” one of the refugee women says in Arabic into her smartphone, hoping the translation will reach Dewi and Olga. “I am Abeer Saida, I used to help my husband with repairing his fishing nets and sails. First, here’s a knot to secure a load to a pole.”
Abeer ties a rope around the top of a pole with a practiced ease then ties the top of a garbage bin to it, quickly, seemingly without effort. Then she repeats the process at the bottom of the pole and the garbage bin. In just a few minutes, the garbage bin is tied to the pole, very securely.
“That was great,” Dewi says, “but it went a bit too fast for me. Can you please do the next one more slowly?”
Abeer nods and takes her time demonstrating the knots at the next one. At the third one, Dewi tries to apply Abeer’s knots, while being corrected — where necessary — by Abeer herself. It takes a few tries, but finally Dewi gets the gist of it. And as a true teacher, once she knows it, she rarely forgets.
Then Olga tries a few times as Abeer watches, until both women are satisfied that Olga knows the ropes — or rather the knots — now, as well.
A similar learning process happens with Kristel and Katja, who also struggle to get a bin tied securely to a pole, until another refugee woman, however reluctantly, intervenes.
“Please excuse me,” she says, her Farsi translated through the cloud mechanism. “I am Ablam Saleh, I used to weave tapestries and Persian carpets back in Iran. I know my way around ropes, let me show you.”
And while Ablam’s way of working is essentially different from Abeer’s, there is — of course — more than one way to do things, like there are more ways that lead to Rome. Katja and Kristel need some time before they understand Ablam’s method. They wave away Ablam’s offer to let her do it instead of them, because they made a promise to do it.
“That’s like a holy declaration?” Ablam asks.
Kristel and Katja look at each other, afraid to say something insensitive. “More like our word of honor,” Katja eventually manages, “a promise to ourselves and all the people watching the show.”
“And because it’s the right thing to do,” Kristel adds.
“But you can still help,” Katja says. “We can work together.”
“It’s just that we clumsy westerners will be slower than you,” Kristel says.
“Our own honor system would dictate that we’d do it, not you,” Ablam says, “but these are desperate times. So I think collaboration is the best alternative.”
“Why is that?” Katja wonders, unable to suppress her curiosity. “Because it makes you feel like beggars?”
“Beggars cannot be choosers,” Ablam cuts off the line of enquiry. “Let’s just do this.”
Two teenagers also watch eagerly as Abeer and Ablam demonstrate how to secure the garbage bins to the pole, and join the impromptu workforce. Initially, the three men are way ahead as the mixed group of women and children figure things out. But once they know exactly what works best, they quickly catch up. By lunchtime, all the garbage bins that the reality event participants planned for today are installed.
“Not bad,” Olga says, “not bad at all. I think we deserve some lunch.”
“Please,” Hind — who also actively helped out — says, “have some tea with us. We insist.”
“That’s OK, I think,” Olga quickly scans the rest of the six participants for protests, “but we’ll eat our own lunch. We’ll feel guilty if we take your food.”
“Indeed,” Dewi says, “we’ll have your tea, but you must have some of the cookies we brought.”
The group go to a communal tent where tea is served to share cookies and catch their breath. The atmosphere is hopeful, excited. Their normal, despondent and dreary routine is broken as something — anything — is happening. The energy in the group is such that they don’t wish to stop after tea. The participants gave the refugees a large number of garbage bags, so they can start gathering trash, and don’t need to stop once a garbage bin is full.
Already — without prompting from the western participants — Hind and the other refugee women are setting up a schedule for garbage pick-up.
“Before we go back to the camp’s entrance to pick up the rest of the material for the other camp sections,” Dewi says, inspired by the refugee women’s initiative, “it would make sense if we already collect some of the trash and bring it near the gate.”
“Good thinking,” Olga says, “much more efficient this way.”
Together with some of the refugee women and children, they pick up some of the worst trash, gathering it in as many garbage bags as they can carry. It doesn’t seem to make that much of a dent at first sight, but they have to start somewhere.
As they arrive at the camp’s gate, they decide to keep on going and dump their trash directly at the garbage collection center a hundred meters up the road, to the mild surprise of the locals working there.
“The greatest journeys start with a single, small step,” Olga says, “as someone much wiser than me had it.”
“A small step for a man,” Esteban (mis-)quotes, “and a huge amount of trash still to be canned.”
“We’ll get there, if we work hard enough,” Katja says. “Let’s go and see if we can set up the rest of the garbage bins.”
They return to the camp’s entrance, but the remainder of the material — after all there are about four times more men than women in this refugee camp — is too much for them to carry. They take as much as they can, and head for the section of the Middle Eastern men — which has a few sub-sections of its own, but the participants try to work around that for the time being.
In that section, a large group of men is eyeing them up, suspiciously. They say nothing, just look at the sweating participants — it’s another stifling August day — with arms crossed, emanating anger, distrust and disdain. Esteban and Akama recognize four of them, but refrain from greeting them.
“Ignore them,” Esteban says to his seven companions, “we’re here to do our thing, whether they like it or not.”
“Indeed,” Olga says. “We’ll set everything up. If — in a few days’ time — they complain that the women’s section is clean, while theirs is not, then they only have themselves to blame.”
In this grim, oppressive atmosphere, they set to work. Akama, Piotr and Esteban anchoring poles — they’ve established a certain labor sequence that fits them well — followed by Olga, Dewi, Kristel and Katja securely tying the garbage bins to them.
They keep working, sweating like crazy in the midday heat, the negative attitude of the onlooking refugees not holding them back but rather motivating them. We’ll show you.
A bit further back, several other groups of refugees are watching as well. They’re radiating unease, not about the work the participants are doing, but about the way a single group is treating them. It’s a troubled stalemate under a brooding sky, as dark clouds are blown in from the far horizon.
As Akama, Piotr and Esteban move, almost inevitably, to a location close to the aggressive group, the young refugee who quarreled with Esteban the day before — Seneth — speaks up. “You expect us to fill those?” he says into his smartphone, knowing the translation will reach the three participants.
“That’s what they’re for, but it’s your choice. You could also,” Esteban adds, tired of their passive-aggressiveness, “decide to keep wallowing in shit like pigs. It’s up to you.”
“You do-gooders from the west know what’s best for us sub-humans from the east,” Seneth says, spitting on the ground before him. “Aloof Christians with huge superiority complexes.”
Above them, thunderclouds pack together, and the rain cools down the hotheads on each side, somewhat. The seven reality event participants keep working, as unperturbed as possible, under the occasional shouts and — often mistranslated — insults from the group of aggressive, young refugees led by Seneth. Several other groups come closer, while — paradoxically — still maintaining their distance.
No fights break out — so far, several of them fervently hope — while the tension remains high. What have we started, Katja thinks, and why can’t they be nice, like the women?
Eventually, the rain relents and — as sunlight breaks through the clouds — a group of Black men arrives on the scene, carrying the rest of the garbage collection materials. They sing a song, which — translated into English — goes like:
A mighty bell is six o’clock
I went to Rhini and found the men
Driven by six o’clock
I went to Qonce and found the men
Toiling at six o’clock
Back at Tinarha I found the men
Bullied by six o’clock!
“Omar,” Olga says, “so happy to see you, and the others.” Knowing the answer, but needing something to break the tension, she asks: “What brings you here?”
“With the help of all these fine young men,” Omar says, waving his hand to encompass Jean-Pierre’s group, “we’re finished setting up the garbage bins in their section. We figured we might as well go over here, to see if we can finish this for the whole camp, today.”
“Indeed,” Jean-Pierre says, “just tell us where, and we’ll set all of you up in no time.”
“After we finally figured out the best way to do it,” a young Black man says, to the amusement of his peers.
“Yo,” another says, “it feels good to do something productive.”
While several of the replicant-candidates fear that the unexpected entrance — don’t say the word intrusion, don’t think it — may trigger another riot, nothing much happens. But while Seneth’s group retain their tough stance, the majority of the Middle Eastern refugees remain very calm.
The young refugees in Seneth’s aggressive group look on in astonishment as several Middle Eastern men from the other groups walk up to the eight reality event participants and the three dozen or so Black refugees. Inadvertently, some prepare for a fight, but the forerunners of the Middle Eastern men are quick to clear up this misunderstanding.
“Forgive us,” one of them says in clear English as he points to the group of belligerents, “but we are not like them. We do want to help, and welcome help.”
“Indeed,” another says in Arabic, “we are ashamed that you should do this. Let us do it, ourselves.”
“We do not bite the hand that feeds us,” another says in Farsi, “we welcome your help, and will co-operate to the best of our abilities.”
Assisted by the almost ubiquitous smartphones, their words are understood by almost everybody.
Omar steps forward. “I understand the pride of you people,” he says, gesturing towards the Middle Eastern men. “As we have that, too.” He gestures towards the Black refugees.
“I also understand that’s why you prefer to do it by yourself,” he continues, addressing the Middle Eastern men, “but these people from the African section are here, so let’s work together, that way we all may be finished before dinner.”
Several mixed groups are formed: eight pole drivers and eight bin securers. Especially in the latter ones a lot of pride is swallowed as — in half of them — men take their cues of how to effectively tie the bins to the poles from women.
The belligerent group scatters, knowing they lost this battle, as the rest slog onwards, setting up garbage bins everywhere. The Middle Eastern men work especially hard — as if to make up for their lack of action earlier — and this allows them to finish half an hour before dinner time.
“Alright,” Dewi says to Omar, “how about we use the last half hour to collect as much garbage as we can, and bring it to the gate, the same as we did at the women and children section?”
“Great idea,” Omar says, “why do you mention it only to me?”
“You’re today’s hero,” she says, “and the de facto leader. You tell them.”
“I thought we lived in the enlightened 21st Century,” Omar says, “where women and men are treated equally?”
“A fight for another day,” Dewi says. “Let’s enjoy this small victory and take it home. Now tell them.”
“Yes ma’am,” Omar says, not without irony.
Everybody follows Omar’s lead and half an hour later a large, mixed group heads for the camp’s gate laden with full garbage bags. At the gate, they don’t stop but follow Katja’s, Kristel’s, Dewi’s and Olga’s lead and keep walking until they’re at the local garbage collection center, where they finally offload the collected refuse, to the bafflement of the few locals that were about to go home.
“Score!” Katja yells, unable to control herself as she raises her fist. High fives, hugs and elated shouts follow. “It’s been a good day,” Katja says, as a single tear rolls from a green eye over a freckled cheek. She wipes it away and smiles.