An International City
Venkat Mullur
March 28, 2008
Venkat R. Mullur
Crescent Springs, KY
USA
Arrival
Geneva is an international city. It was December when I visited this Swiss city on the French border. Confusingly, at the airport, there were signs to France as if the brightly signed doors were gateways to a different country. Turns out they were. Such curiosities - buildings straddling two countries, city streets marking an international border, urban rivers dividing countries, and highways running seamlessly across national boundaries – always attract my attention. Coming from India, which is surrounded by enemy countries, and where the population centers and great cities are far removed from the hostile borders, this kind of easy acknowledgement of a neighboring nation has always fascinated me.
My bags did not make it into Geneva, and the airline baggage services desk could give me no further information as to when I should expect them. Upon my prodding, the desk attendant mumbled something about Paris and construction delays at Charles DeGaulle. In any case, he didn´t seem too concerned, and I quickly resigned myself to spending the day in the same clothes I had flown in from Boston.
The taxi-ride to the Grand Pre was uneventful save for some initial confusion. I asked to be taken to the Grand Pre, pronouncing it as "grand prix" as if it were a race. "Is it in France?" the driver asked. This threw me off, and I said no, the hotel is in downtown Geneva. He turned to face me, and asked me to repeat the name of the hotel. I sensed that I had irrevocably confused him, and that my pronunciation and the American word for city center had set him off. Grand Prix Hotel I repeated and he shook his head. I remembered I had the number of the hotel in my cell-phone, and quickly offered to call them, exorbitant international roaming charges notwithstanding. A mere two seconds in French with the front-desk staff at the hotel was all it took. He handed me back the phone and repeated the word Grand Pre, pronouncing it "gron pray". My accent and obvious foreignness had perhaps prevented him from compensating for my mispronunciation.
Geneva, still sleepy and deserted at 10:00 AM in the morning, rolled by. It was chilly and gray, and the highway signs, all in French, were dripping what appeared to be dew. Within a minute or so of being on the highway, we got off into a seemingly residential neighborhood. Everywhere now I saw huge fenced-in residences converted into offices. I could tell by the signs, which clearly proclaimed the greatness and gravity of the matters that took place inside. There were international organizations – world this and world that, and of course, Swiss banks and insurance companies. I also saw tallish apartments every now and then. These were drab and ordinary, functional but with very little form. I noticed that most of these apartment blocks looked modern – a creation of the seventies - unlike what one saw in Zurich, in the German north. When I got to the hotel, I checked in, was courteously informed that that I had missed breakfast (ended at 10:30 AM), and proceeded to sleep off my jet lag. The next day, I was to meet Abou-Hasan Guyei, a West African from Orleans in France. We were both in Geneva to attend a trade conference at the Wilson Hotel, no confusion as to the pronunciation there.
Abou
The previous month, in November, in Paris, Abou and I had discussed Africa. He was sad about the corruption, the pervasive hero-worshipping, and the lack of a predictable corporate culture in business dealings. These, he said, were preventing Africa from emulating the Indian model. I wasn´t sure if he meant the economic boom occurring in India, or if he was referring to Indians in Africa, a small and often harassed minority with its own history and aspirations, distinct from the African´s. As in the Americas, the word Indian is loaded with meaning in Africa, and I did not probe him. While addressing a group of business students at a major university in a West African country, Abou had lectured them on business strategy and leadership. At the conclusion of his speech, he had declared, "look around you, you don´t have a leader here", much to the embarrassment of his African hosts who had paid his airfare from Paris and had arranged his stay at an upscale international chain hotel. But his point had been broader, and it did not appear that the students had taken him literally. He was talking as a Frenchman, and the hosts had indulged him as such, even though he was "one of them". Africa is like that, eager to be lectured from outside, but murderously fractious inside.
Africans, Abou had told me in Paris, are now eager to learn "best practices". "A few years ago they would not have tolerated my lecturing", he said. Their attitude would have been, "if you want to change Africa, leave the comfort of France, and come back to suffer the daily grind here". This would have been said, mostly, to shame the prodigal son, and to cow him into appreciating the timelessness of Africa´s problems. After a moment´s reflection, he had said, "but now, they are just eager to learn, and emulate, much as the Indians have done". And then I understood his earlier comment on the Indian model. He had meant India, the nation, which is growing way beyond the old, scornfully and arrogantly labeled, "Hindu rate of growth".
The Conference
On the morning of the conference there was a cold drizzle. Europe in winter, global warming or not, has always been wet and cold. I took a cab from my hotel. Switzerland has some of the most expensive cabs in the world and a ten-block ride in even mild traffic can run to twenty dollars. The Wilson Hotel was on the shores of Lake Geneva, and was on a windswept road that featured other, prominent luxury hotels. I saw the Kempinski on the way, not too far from the Wilson.
Many years ago, in my native India, before the current growth, I remember my father mentioning the Kempinski hotel in Bombay. He had either stayed a night or two there, or had attended a conference there – I can´t remember now. But seeing the Kempinski in Geneva brought back memories. Memories of five-star hotels as palaces, mere icons to we kids, something to aspire to on the way to upward mobility. These days I take hotels in stride, and not get cowed by the obvious grandeur and international style.
The conference had already started. The only people I saw in the lobby were hotel staff and the conference organizers, easily identified by their uniforms. At a table, I picked up a program and scanned through the listings. As is common at these soirees, I homed in on more than one topic at a particular time-slot, and struggled to decide on which one to attend.
"Can I help you", I heard British-accented English. Most people in big Swiss cities speak English, but with more than a hint of a German accent. The firm organizing this conference was from the UK, and they had flown in all the floor-staff from the UK for the sake of simplifying communications with the attendees most of whom, this being a conference on global finance and risk, spoke English. Where was conference room A? I was shown the way, and the next three hours were spent hearing expert after expert go on about the credit crisis raging in American markets. There was more than a hint of smugness when discussing American financial regulations and institutions. "No, this sort of excess can never happen in Europe, not with our all powerful European Central Bank", they went on, regaling the mostly European and Asian audience.
Ironically, such international gatherings, made necessary and possible by the forces of globalization and free markets, seem to attract a distinctly socialist crowd. Entrepreneurship and risk-taking are frowned upon as cowboy Americanism. Heavy handed regulation and arbitrary reporting requirements are extolled in paeans to effective risk management.
Business leaders in America, by and large, believe that the best risk management is the freedom to risk everything in a business venture, in a level playing field, under the rule of law. Greed has a way to correct itself, and the players who get hurt deserve to get hurt, and to not be shielded by some all-knowing financial bureaucracy or nanny state. There are limits to this of course and US lawmakers have taken action in recent years. Still, the regulatory schism between America and rest of the world is wide, and is discussed as an ongoing saga, replete with cultural underpinnings, biases, and history.
After lunch, where wine was served and consumed, the jet lag hit me, and I struggled to stay awake. Coffee I am allergic to, and so I was reduced to dipping and squeezing tea-bags to extract the most caffeine. I was afraid I couldn´t meet Abou for dinner. Earlier, at lunch, he had suggested an African diner, and I had reluctantly agreed. Geneva has UN employees and other foreign bureaucrats from literally every country, and so here, the idea of a Senegalese restaurant is really not that out of place, at least not any more than an Indian restaurant would be.
The Mixer
The day´s sessions finally came to a close with a cheery call to show up for the cocktail reception. Presumably, the attendees would be accorded a neutral, collegial ambience to discuss pressing happenings in the financial world. In practice, these "receptions" start and end predictably. They are nothing more than a less rowdy version of happy hour at any big-city bar in America.
The attendees descend upon the open bar - everyone´s suddenly a wine connoisseur - fill up, and go back to their little groups without tipping the liveried and (understandably) humorless bartender. Companies tend to send small groups to these conferences, so co-workers usually take up any given round-table, and continue on with the proverbial water-cooler chats from work, making it difficult for strangers to "mix-in". As befits any such social gathering, hors-de-oeuvres are served. Here, in addition to the usual bruschetta, crab cakes and cheese sticks, Chinese dumplings, and kebabs – every major European city now has a significant Middle-Eastern and Turkish presence – were to be found.
The uniformed servers, mostly Eastern European, judging by their name tags and accents, were a young lot. One could easily ignore them, and they would just blend in - servers at an upscale hotel, anywhere in the developed world. But notice them, and one can see the under-current of communication, a parallel mixer, if you will, where we, the global finance attendees, form the background. The roll of the eye by a young male, directed to a comely female, the occasional tap near the elbow, and the smiles, always inscrutable, occur constantly. The stories they share, the lives they live, I imagine, must mostly involve migration, dreams, shared quarters, petty drama, some heart-break (easily healed though), all manner of gratifications, lazy weekend mornings, late nights working, and spontaneous gatherings turning into memorable parties. To me, the poor young represent a kind of romance that I have yet to get over.
Twenty years ago, as a young student in Miami on a fixed stipend close to the minimum wage, I had enjoyed a careless existence. Though we students, from countries such as Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, India, Cuba, Turkey and various South American countries, were constantly on the brink of financial insolvency every month and tied to complicated chains of loans and favors to balance out any deficits, I remember feeling rich and full of possibilities. America was in a recession then and I, with merely a textbook understanding of such economic events, had expected misery and glumness. On a trip to Disneyworld that first year, I remember asking my uncle, an immigrant who preceded me by some twelve years, how everyone managed to look so cheerful, well-fed, and was willing to spend $6 on beer. Wasn´t there a recession on? My uncle, somewhat misunderstanding my question, lectured me on the greatness of America. He went on to explain, rightly, that even the poorest in America live better than the rich in some parts of the world. This also explained why I felt rich, despite making close to the federal minimum wage.
Within a year, I became the proud owner of a $300 car, a Ford LTD Crown Victoria, purchased from a Cuban mechanic at the school. To fly during school breaks, I had purchased two types of flight coupons from American Express, one which allowed travel to destinations east of the Mississippi, and the other to points west. The new clothes, the sneakers, the $10 tape player, the $15 second-hand Sony Walkman, the fast food, and the Coke cans, purchased without much thought or consideration from vending machines, and disposed off into neat recycle bins all over the campus, all made me feel rich. While the natives worried about a recession, my star was on the rise. I had nowhere to go but up. Everything, all news, including the sordid confirmation hearings that Justice Thomas had to endure, George H. W. Bush vomiting over dinner in Japan, the painful layoffs at IBM´s Boca Raton plant, represented my initial learning, and immersion into life in America.
One of the more memorable stories from that initial year involved the US Border Post in San Ysidro, California. Mexicans, following a dream their own, were seen storming the border checkpoint. One particular clip, repeated on CNN for over a week, showed hundreds of them running into the US, some of them just laughing, with no fear whatsoever. The camera crews had no trouble keeping up with the intruders. I remember wondering why the Border Patrol couldn´t give chase.
At the conference in Geneva, I romantically imagined such fervent hopes and ambitions in the Eastern European wait-staff, while picturing them smoking in their cramped European-style quarters. With Europe coming together economically and politically, adding new countries almost every year, one imagines more mobility across countries, and the creation of something like a United States of Europe, suffused with the optimism and youthful energy of the younger countries of the New World.
But the conference had brought me back to reality. What I had heard from the leading intellectuals in the finance field suggested very little of that romance and dash. Just old Europe in a new bottle, as it were, called the EU. The mixer was winding down, professional networking presumably done, and, more importantly, the bar had just turned into a "cash" bar. The talk everywhere was of dinner. A group of Americans, true to form, had "researched" dinner spots in the "downtown" area, and were quickly rattling off French names as if they were cities in Texas. No sign of Abou. He had skipped the mixer, and said he had phone calls to make. I came upon a group of Canadians from a bank I knew. It turns one of them knew me. But I had no recollection of an earlier meeting or encounter, just a vague familiarity with the name, seen on emails addressed to large groups. The Canadians joked that they were staying away from the Americans on this trip. Everywhere in Europe, Canadians are treated with much respect. Seen from the viewpoint of a people that can easily be mistaken for Americans, I can understand the joke, and the seriousness underlying it. America is everywhere in Europe, and yet it is increasingly proving to be a difficult topic to discuss.
Abou finally found me. Now he arrived with news. We were meeting his cousin for dinner, at their flat in Geneva. The cousin and Abou had grown up together in Africa, and, for just over a year now, she had been in Geneva with her husband and two children. I was more than a little annoyed at this abrupt change in plans. I was not prepared, in any way, to walk into a stranger´s flat, not prepared to deal with two very young children, and certainly not sure of the courtesies expected. "Don´t worry", Abou kept saying. "I want them to meet international people like you, it´s good exposure for them", he said. Again, it doesn´t get any more international than Geneva, and so I was not sure what I could add to the milieu. Reluctantly, I agreed to go, but not before insisting that we head back to the hotel first where I wanted to rest a bit, make calls to America, and change out of my stifling suit, now smoky from the happy hour just finished.
Dinner
We took a cab to Abou´s cousin´s flat. It was a ways from the railway station, the city center, and our hotel. As we left the picturesque parts, the surroundings got grittier. Graffiti, very common in Swiss cities, adorned the compound walls of large high-rise projects. This is where the people live, said Abou. I was expected to understand what he meant by people, and I did. As we rode, I saw convenience stores and kebab stands, and, every now and then, bright neon signs outlining curvy women. It was only 8:00 PM, and there were very few cars on the roads. But we were still slowed down by traffic lights, trolley buses, and pedestrians. Most of the people I was seeing, Abou said, were UN staff, embassy staff, their families, and their servants.
The cousin´s husband worked in his country´s embassy in Bern, some two hours away. Yet, he lived in Geneva. Did he drive? "No, he has a driver", said Abou, misunderstanding my question, but quite inadvertently sharing a pertinent fact of life about the embassy crowd.
We soon got dropped off near on a road, right under an aqueduct. It could have been an overpass, but I couldn´t tell. There was no traffic, and it was dark. After taking a few intentioned turns, Abou guided me into the fluorescent-lit first floor of what looked to me a student dorm from the 70s. Abou walked over to the list of names stuck on a wall adjacent to the elevators. Most of the names were hyphenated, some hand-written, some typed, and almost all of them, to me, unpronounceable. Abou pushed the button next to a name, and, after a brief delay, the cousin came on the intercom. We took the elevator to the 10th floor, and turned left as we exited. I felt a cold draft. The walls were concrete, with a single coat of paint. No drywall. The smell of dinner greeted us as we entered the apartment. The cousin and Abou hugged, and she greeted me with a friendly smile. She appeared young and happy. I noticed she was slightly hunched from what appeared to be a load on her back. I didn´t see any straps on her shoulders, which was covered by a loose, brightly colored shawl. As she turned her back to us, leading us to the living room, I saw that she was carrying a child, her daughter, an infant. We were showed to a sparse, neat living room which was dominated by a TV of humungous proportions sitting pretty much on the carpet. The other prominent pieces of furniture were the sofa and loveseat, in the style of the 70s, vinyl, and held together by brass pushpins. The parquet floors were covered by an assortment of rugs of varying shapes and colors. The cousin spoke little English. Abou introduced me as his friend. She acknowledged this by making respectful gestures – nod of her head, hand gestures, and a reinvigorated smile. She informed Abou that her husband, the embassy official, was running late and was to be expected in about thirty minutes. The TV had football on. A French team was playing a team from Spain.
The child cried, and the cousin adjusted the straps under the shawl, and the baby´s head found the large of her mother´s back, and she went back to sleep. No doubt this closeness to her mother, the warmth of her back, soothed the baby back to her nap. "This is why we Africans are close to our mothers", said Abou, to no one in particular.
The conversation reverted to French, and I inspected what was laid before us. There was juice and pop, unopened cans, and folded paper napkins. Hospitality, accorded with no reservation, with no regard to the fact that I was an unexpected guest, and with an unaffected smile. I felt welcome and tried to engage the cousin in conversation. So, how do you like it in Geneva? "We like it here, but it is difficult because I cannot work", Abou translated. I wanted to know more. The husband was the chief accountant at his country´s embassy and was allowed to bring his family to this posting, but not for work. Given Switzerland´s size and economy, I understood why there might be restrictions on foreigners working. His salary at the embassy was not much, at least by Swiss standards. But as a diplomat representing his country, he and his family enjoyed (and appreciated) the free access to the world, the little or none of the travel restrictions so commonly experienced by Africans. I asked the cousin, in English, whether they had been to America. "We are planning to vacation in Etats-Unis next year", she replied in French. I understood before Abou had the chance to translate. I asked her where she would be traveling. New York. She asked me if I was American. I said yes, and to cover up the awkwardness, I nodded my head, and added that I lived in Cincinnati. "Sin-See – Naaateee", she repeated. The baby cried again, and this time, she had to be removed from the harness and fed. The cousin took the child to her breast, covering with a shawl, and continued sitting. After a minute of silence, Abou asked, "Aren´t there a lot of West Africans in Cincinnati"?
Back home in America, Erin had worked at a printing press north of Cincinnati. She had come across a good number, working "off-campus summer jobs" at the factory. As an American who had worked her way through college, she had thought it natural that students worked during the college years, and had never seen this in terms of immigration or work permits. American companies, for decades the global leaders in job creation, have pretty much been able to hire workers through a very cursory compliance with the law prohibiting unauthorized workers. Successive governments since the 70s, mostly pro-business and commercial interests, have never really taken businesses to task over hiring of unauthorized foreign workers. The workers for their part have successfully found every loophole, legal or not, to benefit from the greatest commercial job pool ever known to man. This, plus the government´s refugee resettlement policies, are some of the reasons why the unlikeliest of places in America – Marshalltown in Iowas, Hazleton in Pennsylvania, Portland in Maine, East Green Bay in Wisconsin, and Hamilton in Ohio – tend to have high concentration of foreigners, be it Mexican, West African, Caribbean, Russian, Polish, or Somalian.
I confirmed that there is a sizeable West African community on Cincinnati´s west-side. Abou laughed, and said, "We Africans are everywhere", and both the cousin and I fell quiet, bringing the talk about the New York vacation to an abrupt halt. I went back to watching TV.
The doorbell rang. It was the cousin´s husband – the embassy man - and a friend. The embassy man flashed a smiled at his wife, brushed his hand over the baby´s head, went to the threshold of the kitchen, placed his thin brown briefcase, and turned to us. He was gaunt, tall, and had a receding hairline. He appeared more Somali or Ethiopian than West African. He greeted Abou in the Islamic way, hugged him, and turned to me. We shook hands, and he sat down right across from me. His friend sat next to Abou, both to my right. The friend was loud, and never closed his mouth. He laughed at everything that Abou and the embassy man had to say. He is embassy man´s driver, Abou explained in between loud and unexpected bursts of laughter. This went on for over five minutes, and then there was a moment´s silence.
Excitement! Everyone turned to the TV, and we just heard the sound: "OHHHHHHHHH", a prolonged "oh". Turns out the Spanish team had scored a goal, and the commentator was screaming "gol". Collective groans – in French and West African patois – went up in the room, and for a moment I shared in the misery they all felt at the drubbing the French team was apparently receiving. Abruptly, someone changed the channel, and the scene shifted to Africa. I asked if it was BBC International, thinking it was a reasonable guess, this being Geneva, an international city. "No, it is African channel", Abou said, dropping his proper English style, no doubt due to the earlier excitement and the passion that it had generated. The "African" channel was brought in by dish, and thanks to a special subscription, was an add-on to the repertoire of regular cable channels. Africans in Europe have one foot in Africa one in Europe, Abou said, as if this was something unique to first-generation Africans who find themselves in foreign countries.
On TV, the "African" channel was showing a gathering of some sort. There was a crowd of well-dressed people, waiting for the chief guest, under a tent, fanning their sweating faces with hats and traditional fans. The women were mostly dressed in western-style clothes. Some of the men were dressed in white robes which didn´t look African to me. The wrapped white clothing reminded me of Hindu pilgrims visiting the Holy city of Varanasi. I noticed some of them also wore leather sandals with straps wrapped around the ankles. Like Roman senators from the Old Republic.
"They goin´ for Haj", said Abou pointing to the TV, fast shedding the business style from earlier in the day. Others wore traditional robes. Behind the waiting audience there was spontaneous dancing. People would get up from their chairs, join in the dance, make impeccable and well-coordinated moves to the rhythmic beat of drums, and return to their seats. The whole affair in the back had the air of an impromptu celebration. Was this a political gathering? "Yes, they here to see the President", said Abou.
Just as the cousin was whispering to her husband that dinner was ready, the sounds from the TV got louder. The President had arrived. He got out of the car which had pulled up right next to the stage. Those who were sitting started clapping, rather hard and animatedly. Those who were caught dancing at the precise moment followed the rhythm of the drums which had started to beat more violently and loudly. The dancing was furious, and I even heard whistling to egg the dancers on. On stage, the President inspected the scene, sporting a dour expression, and not in the least bit moved by the effect his decidedly lackluster entry had had on the audience. His robes were adobe, flowing, and he appeared frail. He said something, and the crowd just about lost it. Everyone stood up and did a jig, as if on cue, and then, abruptly, sat down.
We were seated at dinner by now, and it was the four of us at the table - the embassy man, his friend the driver, Abou, and I. The cousin, the baby still on her back, was getting ready to serve us. I did not ask if she was to join us, although I thought about it. Fresh cut vegetables – tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelons – were brought in as the first course.
The sound from the TV alternated between a dull monotone – the President´s speech - to wild whistling, drumming, hooting, and squeals. The President sounded defiant as he addressed the crowd. "African people I cannot understand", said Abou and shook his head.
Abou first set foot in France as part of his country´s football team. He had somehow managed to stay on beyond the duration of the sporting event, and had eventually met and married a French woman. They had two daughters, and one of them was a budding super-model with a talent agent at the tender age of seventeen. All this, and Abou´s professional affiliation with American software companies for over twenty years, gives Abou considerable stature among Africans in France. He heads up a West African networking group in Paris, and talks about entrepreneurship to African professionals. He lives in Orleans and has a flat in Paris which he says he uses when he works late in the city.
With his background, Abou feels that he has the earned the right to criticize Africans. Africans, both in professional and private circles, indulge him and eagerly concede to his pointed observations. Looking at the TV, he asked rhetorically, "now why would they want to come and listen to this old guy? And why do all leaders in our country look angry and dour?"
He then recollected a story from his past. Relatives from his city in West Africa had just returned from the Haj and there was a celebration in honor of the returnees. The roots of this celebration go back many centuries when the Haj journey was truly an adventure with potentially disastrous results. In addition to death and disease were war, kidnappings, and enslavement by Bedouins and desert bandits. So the celebration was truly a form of thanksgiving.
The relatives had thought the homesick Abou might appreciate this glimpse into life at home and had sent him pictures of the returned pilgrims in various states of prayer, meditation, conversation, and rest. Abou appeared to have missed the point of the photos and instead had ridiculed them. "Now who died now? Why is no one smiling", he had asked naively, trying to apply his new found French sensibility. He had then "called them up" and told them not to bother sending any more pictures unless they "first learned to enjoy life".
That was twenty five years ago. Abou, a French citizen now, has morphed into a complex creature. He is proud of his American business connections, he loves Fois Gras and Chateux Margo, he carries his daughter´s modeling shots in a portfolio and shows it to people he meets on business, he says he distrusts French people but is married to one.
Finally, and he had shared this with me earlier in the cab, he had just been to Africa to take part in the aforementioned Haj return celebration. His mother, with his financial help, had just made the Haj pilgrimage. "I had a great time", he said of the celebration. Perhaps people had smiled this time, twenty five years on.
"He angry", said the embassy man staring down at the TV, for the first time addressing me after we initially introduced ourselves. Why? "Because he not happy with the Europeans", he answered. What did the Europeans do? Without the right context, this question, addressed to an African, would require a difficult and complex answer. But my question was specific to what was unfolding on TV. There had been problems - problems with migration, he explained in English.
Scores of young men seek out greener pastures in Europe, often putting their lives in danger by traveling by sea on overcrowded, un-seaworthy vessels. Apart from the tragic consequences for the West African nation´s economy, there was, very often, tragedy at high seas. Death by heat-stroke, drowning, cannibalism, the forcible jettisoning of the weak or sick, and humiliating capture by the Spanish police off of the Canaries, these were some of the ways to describe the horrific journey undertaken every day by young people in Africa. The overland migrants, ending up in Muslim, Arabic North Africa, usually find themselves destitute and hungry in either Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, or Algeria. These nations are relatively prosperous from a sub-Saharan African perspective, but their treatment of these destitute people is far more cruel and harsh than what one could experience in the worst European detention camp. A lot of them end up in refugee camps (surrounded by barbed wires) in North Africa, with no hope of making it to either mainland Europe, any one of the many European island some miles from the North African coast, or enclaves like the Spanish have in Morocco.
The President had, for both political reasons and due to pressure from the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, taken up this issue of migrants with leaders of Spain and France. He was seeking some easing of the restrictions his countrymen were facing. He had proposed a guest worker program.
"What he got in return was an insult", said the driver in French, his mouth open, and teeth showing even after he was done making his point. He had a cheerful face that made him approachable. The embassy man agreed with the driver, said something to his wife, and continued.
France had offered money to invest in education and job training would-be migrants. Spain had made vague promises to increase aid if the President showed success in curbing the perilous journeys.
Spain, due to its sovereignty over the Canaries, offers the first line of defense to European borders. The migrants seek the Canaries, because one you get there, European refugee laws kick into effect, and Spain, even if it wanted to, could not expeditiously deport the migrants. There is no passport check on flights from the Canaries to mainland Europe, and this gives more well-heeled Africans an incentive to get to the Canaries and try to fly to Europe without immigration documents. Once in Europe, thanks to seamless travel between EU member states, it is virtually impossible to trace an African back to the Canaries or the West African nation. They blend into the sizable immigrant communities in every major European city, and from time to time, benefit from amnesties offered to illegal immigrants. Spain, in 2006, offered amnesty to over 600,000 illegal immigrants from South America and Africa.
The President had felt slighted at having his proposals shot down, and in a press conference in the capital, he had blasted the European offer as "too-little to address a problem of this magnitude".
The event taking place on TV was the President´s first domestic political gathering after the failed negotiations with the EU. It was being broadcast for a domestic audience, and the message was that the President, though unsuccessful with the Europeans, had "stood up to the Europeans". Among other things, the President was reading out his government´s achievements. Each time he announced an accomplishment, a group of very young school-girls, in uniforms, approached him on stage and presented a huge bouquet of roses. This was followed by raucous hooting and whistling, culminating in wild dancing to heart-thumping drums in the back. Then everything would go relatively quiet until the next big announcement. All through this, the President, looking more than a tad bit annoyed, sat glumly. The driver, with his mouth still open, watched intently. Obsequious Africans, Abou whispered in English, thinking that the others wouldn´t hear or understand. It was clear that he was referring to both the audience on TV and the others in this room, at dinner.
The second course was an assortment of barbecued meat - chicken thigh, breast, and beef. The cousin offered me the plate first as a courtesy to the first-time guest. I chose a chicken breast from the plate, and scooped up some onion sauce laid separately. The meat was tender and the sauce was great as a condiment, giving the meat the necessary zest for my tastes. The embassy man apologized for not serving traditional West African food. Next time for sure, he added. I said next time he and his wife would have more notice of my arrival. There was some noise beyond the living room, toward the entrance hallway. I heard a child, and then saw him walk into the kitchen from the hallway, away from the living room entrance. He had been napping, and the TV had woken him. The embassy man said it was his son, and that he was seven. The son tried to play with his sister, who by now was sucking on her thumb and looking quite comfortable. He must have done something to the baby because she cried out like she was in pain. The boy retreated hastily, seeking out his father. The boy went to an international school where he studied European history, African history, and modern math. He looked like a typical seven-year old in any Western country. He alone, in his family, did not look African. The boy spoke no English, only French, and was surprised to see me. The driver he ignored. Abou he hugged. And then he retreated to his room, going back via the living room, as suddenly as he had appeared.
For the final course, the cousin laid out pop, juice, and whole fruit – banana and apple. Abou picked an apple and expertly peeled it. I checked if he was using a Swiss Army knife, putting it to one of the dozens of advertised uses. But he was just using an ordinary kitchen knife. One single unbroken strip of peel was spiraling out of the fruit, growing in length with each skillful twist-turn motion, and was coiling neatly on a plate right below his hands. Once he was done peeling, Abou cut the apple into eight pieces, and without offering it to anyone else, he popped one of them into his mouth, revealing perfectly white teeth. Elsewhere on the table, the driver got up abruptly, and announced he was leaving. He left with little fanfare, no hugs or handshakes. No one got up, but the cousin, in her good natured way, smiled and shook her head sideways, and waved. The driver touched the baby on the head on his way out.
I wondered if he was a frequent guest, or if it was somehow part of his employment arrangement with the embassy that the cousin´s husband take care of his meals. The sort of arrangement I imagined is very common in poorer countries in Asia. Help like drivers are considered members of the household and are fed and clothed as part of their employment compensation. I never did ask, and before Abou popped the second of eight pieces, the driver was gone. The embassy man turned to me, and addressed me by name, which was a pleasant surprise. How did I find Geneva? I said I found it strange. There was a certain gloom to it, which I couldn´t explain precisely. The city center felt like a playground for the rich and famous. I recalled the five-star hotels, curiously named bars and lounges like Java Club, Wall Street Lounge, the watch stores, and the very upscale jewelry stores on the main streets. One block behind every main street, on parallel alleys, were brightly advertised night-clubs - euphemism for prostitution and nude dancing. I found this pattern – class and sleaze side by side in plain sight, odd. I said I was surprised at so many Arab and Gulf banks and airline offices in the city center. On the short cab-ride from my hotel to the Wilson, I remember seeing an Iranian bank, an Arab bank, and offices of Saudia, Etihad, and Yemen Airways. But then, when was the last time Switzerland was at war with anyone?
Was there a Swiss middle-class, and had the embassy man interacted with anyone Swiss? "The people here, they all international", he said as if answering my question, and as if that fact alone somehow enhanced everyone´s existence in Geneva. To me the international crowd in Geneva appeared to be a people apart, existing in enclaves within the city while not working their UN or embassy day jobs. The other internationals, well-heeled businessmen from all over, stayed at hotels like the Cournivan, Wilson, the Kempinski, shopped the boutiques, made speeches at boring conferences, picked up a Swiss watch or two for the missus (or mistress) back home, and a cuckoo clock for junior´s room. The whole place exuded transience, making me wonder if there was anyone left that was of this city, and had grown with it; anyone who was not a transplant or a visitor.
After dinner, we quickly dispersed. The embassy man, as part of his send-off, declared that he couldn´t wait to take his family to Asia on vacation, citing India and Thailand as possible destinations. He also said that people in his country held an Indian education in high-esteem, and that he wanted to see the current Indian boom at work first-hand. I wasn´t sure if this was part of his hospitality – to not only make a guest feel welcome, but to make him feel good about where he came from - or if he really was planning a trip to the East. He appeared sincere. I wished I could visit his country one day.
On our way out, Abou paused, stepped back, and entered the kitchen where the cousin was now putting away the dishes. He took something out of his pocket, and there appeared to be some shuffling, with the cousin protesting. No, Abou insisted, and went behind her, and appeared to touch the baby, still at her mother´s back. The cousin turned, laughed, but it appeared that Abou had had his way. He had dropped off something into the pannier.
Later, in the taxi on our way back, he said he hadn´t had time to buy anything for the children. And so, keeping with the custom in his native country, he had offered cash. That explained the earlier search for a bank machine even though I said I had cash for the cab ride. The bottle of French wine I was carrying was fine, but Abou had had the kids in mind.
The End
Crescent Springs, KY
USA
Arrival
Geneva is an international city. It was December when I visited this Swiss city on the French border. Confusingly, at the airport, there were signs to France as if the brightly signed doors were gateways to a different country. Turns out they were. Such curiosities - buildings straddling two countries, city streets marking an international border, urban rivers dividing countries, and highways running seamlessly across national boundaries – always attract my attention. Coming from India, which is surrounded by enemy countries, and where the population centers and great cities are far removed from the hostile borders, this kind of easy acknowledgement of a neighboring nation has always fascinated me.
My bags did not make it into Geneva, and the airline baggage services desk could give me no further information as to when I should expect them. Upon my prodding, the desk attendant mumbled something about Paris and construction delays at Charles DeGaulle. In any case, he didn´t seem too concerned, and I quickly resigned myself to spending the day in the same clothes I had flown in from Boston.
The taxi-ride to the Grand Pre was uneventful save for some initial confusion. I asked to be taken to the Grand Pre, pronouncing it as "grand prix" as if it were a race. "Is it in France?" the driver asked. This threw me off, and I said no, the hotel is in downtown Geneva. He turned to face me, and asked me to repeat the name of the hotel. I sensed that I had irrevocably confused him, and that my pronunciation and the American word for city center had set him off. Grand Prix Hotel I repeated and he shook his head. I remembered I had the number of the hotel in my cell-phone, and quickly offered to call them, exorbitant international roaming charges notwithstanding. A mere two seconds in French with the front-desk staff at the hotel was all it took. He handed me back the phone and repeated the word Grand Pre, pronouncing it "gron pray". My accent and obvious foreignness had perhaps prevented him from compensating for my mispronunciation.
Geneva, still sleepy and deserted at 10:00 AM in the morning, rolled by. It was chilly and gray, and the highway signs, all in French, were dripping what appeared to be dew. Within a minute or so of being on the highway, we got off into a seemingly residential neighborhood. Everywhere now I saw huge fenced-in residences converted into offices. I could tell by the signs, which clearly proclaimed the greatness and gravity of the matters that took place inside. There were international organizations – world this and world that, and of course, Swiss banks and insurance companies. I also saw tallish apartments every now and then. These were drab and ordinary, functional but with very little form. I noticed that most of these apartment blocks looked modern – a creation of the seventies - unlike what one saw in Zurich, in the German north. When I got to the hotel, I checked in, was courteously informed that that I had missed breakfast (ended at 10:30 AM), and proceeded to sleep off my jet lag. The next day, I was to meet Abou-Hasan Guyei, a West African from Orleans in France. We were both in Geneva to attend a trade conference at the Wilson Hotel, no confusion as to the pronunciation there.
Abou
The previous month, in November, in Paris, Abou and I had discussed Africa. He was sad about the corruption, the pervasive hero-worshipping, and the lack of a predictable corporate culture in business dealings. These, he said, were preventing Africa from emulating the Indian model. I wasn´t sure if he meant the economic boom occurring in India, or if he was referring to Indians in Africa, a small and often harassed minority with its own history and aspirations, distinct from the African´s. As in the Americas, the word Indian is loaded with meaning in Africa, and I did not probe him. While addressing a group of business students at a major university in a West African country, Abou had lectured them on business strategy and leadership. At the conclusion of his speech, he had declared, "look around you, you don´t have a leader here", much to the embarrassment of his African hosts who had paid his airfare from Paris and had arranged his stay at an upscale international chain hotel. But his point had been broader, and it did not appear that the students had taken him literally. He was talking as a Frenchman, and the hosts had indulged him as such, even though he was "one of them". Africa is like that, eager to be lectured from outside, but murderously fractious inside.
Africans, Abou had told me in Paris, are now eager to learn "best practices". "A few years ago they would not have tolerated my lecturing", he said. Their attitude would have been, "if you want to change Africa, leave the comfort of France, and come back to suffer the daily grind here". This would have been said, mostly, to shame the prodigal son, and to cow him into appreciating the timelessness of Africa´s problems. After a moment´s reflection, he had said, "but now, they are just eager to learn, and emulate, much as the Indians have done". And then I understood his earlier comment on the Indian model. He had meant India, the nation, which is growing way beyond the old, scornfully and arrogantly labeled, "Hindu rate of growth".
The Conference
On the morning of the conference there was a cold drizzle. Europe in winter, global warming or not, has always been wet and cold. I took a cab from my hotel. Switzerland has some of the most expensive cabs in the world and a ten-block ride in even mild traffic can run to twenty dollars. The Wilson Hotel was on the shores of Lake Geneva, and was on a windswept road that featured other, prominent luxury hotels. I saw the Kempinski on the way, not too far from the Wilson.
Many years ago, in my native India, before the current growth, I remember my father mentioning the Kempinski hotel in Bombay. He had either stayed a night or two there, or had attended a conference there – I can´t remember now. But seeing the Kempinski in Geneva brought back memories. Memories of five-star hotels as palaces, mere icons to we kids, something to aspire to on the way to upward mobility. These days I take hotels in stride, and not get cowed by the obvious grandeur and international style.
The conference had already started. The only people I saw in the lobby were hotel staff and the conference organizers, easily identified by their uniforms. At a table, I picked up a program and scanned through the listings. As is common at these soirees, I homed in on more than one topic at a particular time-slot, and struggled to decide on which one to attend.
"Can I help you", I heard British-accented English. Most people in big Swiss cities speak English, but with more than a hint of a German accent. The firm organizing this conference was from the UK, and they had flown in all the floor-staff from the UK for the sake of simplifying communications with the attendees most of whom, this being a conference on global finance and risk, spoke English. Where was conference room A? I was shown the way, and the next three hours were spent hearing expert after expert go on about the credit crisis raging in American markets. There was more than a hint of smugness when discussing American financial regulations and institutions. "No, this sort of excess can never happen in Europe, not with our all powerful European Central Bank", they went on, regaling the mostly European and Asian audience.
Ironically, such international gatherings, made necessary and possible by the forces of globalization and free markets, seem to attract a distinctly socialist crowd. Entrepreneurship and risk-taking are frowned upon as cowboy Americanism. Heavy handed regulation and arbitrary reporting requirements are extolled in paeans to effective risk management.
Business leaders in America, by and large, believe that the best risk management is the freedom to risk everything in a business venture, in a level playing field, under the rule of law. Greed has a way to correct itself, and the players who get hurt deserve to get hurt, and to not be shielded by some all-knowing financial bureaucracy or nanny state. There are limits to this of course and US lawmakers have taken action in recent years. Still, the regulatory schism between America and rest of the world is wide, and is discussed as an ongoing saga, replete with cultural underpinnings, biases, and history.
After lunch, where wine was served and consumed, the jet lag hit me, and I struggled to stay awake. Coffee I am allergic to, and so I was reduced to dipping and squeezing tea-bags to extract the most caffeine. I was afraid I couldn´t meet Abou for dinner. Earlier, at lunch, he had suggested an African diner, and I had reluctantly agreed. Geneva has UN employees and other foreign bureaucrats from literally every country, and so here, the idea of a Senegalese restaurant is really not that out of place, at least not any more than an Indian restaurant would be.
The Mixer
The day´s sessions finally came to a close with a cheery call to show up for the cocktail reception. Presumably, the attendees would be accorded a neutral, collegial ambience to discuss pressing happenings in the financial world. In practice, these "receptions" start and end predictably. They are nothing more than a less rowdy version of happy hour at any big-city bar in America.
The attendees descend upon the open bar - everyone´s suddenly a wine connoisseur - fill up, and go back to their little groups without tipping the liveried and (understandably) humorless bartender. Companies tend to send small groups to these conferences, so co-workers usually take up any given round-table, and continue on with the proverbial water-cooler chats from work, making it difficult for strangers to "mix-in". As befits any such social gathering, hors-de-oeuvres are served. Here, in addition to the usual bruschetta, crab cakes and cheese sticks, Chinese dumplings, and kebabs – every major European city now has a significant Middle-Eastern and Turkish presence – were to be found.
The uniformed servers, mostly Eastern European, judging by their name tags and accents, were a young lot. One could easily ignore them, and they would just blend in - servers at an upscale hotel, anywhere in the developed world. But notice them, and one can see the under-current of communication, a parallel mixer, if you will, where we, the global finance attendees, form the background. The roll of the eye by a young male, directed to a comely female, the occasional tap near the elbow, and the smiles, always inscrutable, occur constantly. The stories they share, the lives they live, I imagine, must mostly involve migration, dreams, shared quarters, petty drama, some heart-break (easily healed though), all manner of gratifications, lazy weekend mornings, late nights working, and spontaneous gatherings turning into memorable parties. To me, the poor young represent a kind of romance that I have yet to get over.
Twenty years ago, as a young student in Miami on a fixed stipend close to the minimum wage, I had enjoyed a careless existence. Though we students, from countries such as Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad, India, Cuba, Turkey and various South American countries, were constantly on the brink of financial insolvency every month and tied to complicated chains of loans and favors to balance out any deficits, I remember feeling rich and full of possibilities. America was in a recession then and I, with merely a textbook understanding of such economic events, had expected misery and glumness. On a trip to Disneyworld that first year, I remember asking my uncle, an immigrant who preceded me by some twelve years, how everyone managed to look so cheerful, well-fed, and was willing to spend $6 on beer. Wasn´t there a recession on? My uncle, somewhat misunderstanding my question, lectured me on the greatness of America. He went on to explain, rightly, that even the poorest in America live better than the rich in some parts of the world. This also explained why I felt rich, despite making close to the federal minimum wage.
Within a year, I became the proud owner of a $300 car, a Ford LTD Crown Victoria, purchased from a Cuban mechanic at the school. To fly during school breaks, I had purchased two types of flight coupons from American Express, one which allowed travel to destinations east of the Mississippi, and the other to points west. The new clothes, the sneakers, the $10 tape player, the $15 second-hand Sony Walkman, the fast food, and the Coke cans, purchased without much thought or consideration from vending machines, and disposed off into neat recycle bins all over the campus, all made me feel rich. While the natives worried about a recession, my star was on the rise. I had nowhere to go but up. Everything, all news, including the sordid confirmation hearings that Justice Thomas had to endure, George H. W. Bush vomiting over dinner in Japan, the painful layoffs at IBM´s Boca Raton plant, represented my initial learning, and immersion into life in America.
One of the more memorable stories from that initial year involved the US Border Post in San Ysidro, California. Mexicans, following a dream their own, were seen storming the border checkpoint. One particular clip, repeated on CNN for over a week, showed hundreds of them running into the US, some of them just laughing, with no fear whatsoever. The camera crews had no trouble keeping up with the intruders. I remember wondering why the Border Patrol couldn´t give chase.
At the conference in Geneva, I romantically imagined such fervent hopes and ambitions in the Eastern European wait-staff, while picturing them smoking in their cramped European-style quarters. With Europe coming together economically and politically, adding new countries almost every year, one imagines more mobility across countries, and the creation of something like a United States of Europe, suffused with the optimism and youthful energy of the younger countries of the New World.
But the conference had brought me back to reality. What I had heard from the leading intellectuals in the finance field suggested very little of that romance and dash. Just old Europe in a new bottle, as it were, called the EU. The mixer was winding down, professional networking presumably done, and, more importantly, the bar had just turned into a "cash" bar. The talk everywhere was of dinner. A group of Americans, true to form, had "researched" dinner spots in the "downtown" area, and were quickly rattling off French names as if they were cities in Texas. No sign of Abou. He had skipped the mixer, and said he had phone calls to make. I came upon a group of Canadians from a bank I knew. It turns one of them knew me. But I had no recollection of an earlier meeting or encounter, just a vague familiarity with the name, seen on emails addressed to large groups. The Canadians joked that they were staying away from the Americans on this trip. Everywhere in Europe, Canadians are treated with much respect. Seen from the viewpoint of a people that can easily be mistaken for Americans, I can understand the joke, and the seriousness underlying it. America is everywhere in Europe, and yet it is increasingly proving to be a difficult topic to discuss.
Abou finally found me. Now he arrived with news. We were meeting his cousin for dinner, at their flat in Geneva. The cousin and Abou had grown up together in Africa, and, for just over a year now, she had been in Geneva with her husband and two children. I was more than a little annoyed at this abrupt change in plans. I was not prepared, in any way, to walk into a stranger´s flat, not prepared to deal with two very young children, and certainly not sure of the courtesies expected. "Don´t worry", Abou kept saying. "I want them to meet international people like you, it´s good exposure for them", he said. Again, it doesn´t get any more international than Geneva, and so I was not sure what I could add to the milieu. Reluctantly, I agreed to go, but not before insisting that we head back to the hotel first where I wanted to rest a bit, make calls to America, and change out of my stifling suit, now smoky from the happy hour just finished.
Dinner
We took a cab to Abou´s cousin´s flat. It was a ways from the railway station, the city center, and our hotel. As we left the picturesque parts, the surroundings got grittier. Graffiti, very common in Swiss cities, adorned the compound walls of large high-rise projects. This is where the people live, said Abou. I was expected to understand what he meant by people, and I did. As we rode, I saw convenience stores and kebab stands, and, every now and then, bright neon signs outlining curvy women. It was only 8:00 PM, and there were very few cars on the roads. But we were still slowed down by traffic lights, trolley buses, and pedestrians. Most of the people I was seeing, Abou said, were UN staff, embassy staff, their families, and their servants.
The cousin´s husband worked in his country´s embassy in Bern, some two hours away. Yet, he lived in Geneva. Did he drive? "No, he has a driver", said Abou, misunderstanding my question, but quite inadvertently sharing a pertinent fact of life about the embassy crowd.
We soon got dropped off near on a road, right under an aqueduct. It could have been an overpass, but I couldn´t tell. There was no traffic, and it was dark. After taking a few intentioned turns, Abou guided me into the fluorescent-lit first floor of what looked to me a student dorm from the 70s. Abou walked over to the list of names stuck on a wall adjacent to the elevators. Most of the names were hyphenated, some hand-written, some typed, and almost all of them, to me, unpronounceable. Abou pushed the button next to a name, and, after a brief delay, the cousin came on the intercom. We took the elevator to the 10th floor, and turned left as we exited. I felt a cold draft. The walls were concrete, with a single coat of paint. No drywall. The smell of dinner greeted us as we entered the apartment. The cousin and Abou hugged, and she greeted me with a friendly smile. She appeared young and happy. I noticed she was slightly hunched from what appeared to be a load on her back. I didn´t see any straps on her shoulders, which was covered by a loose, brightly colored shawl. As she turned her back to us, leading us to the living room, I saw that she was carrying a child, her daughter, an infant. We were showed to a sparse, neat living room which was dominated by a TV of humungous proportions sitting pretty much on the carpet. The other prominent pieces of furniture were the sofa and loveseat, in the style of the 70s, vinyl, and held together by brass pushpins. The parquet floors were covered by an assortment of rugs of varying shapes and colors. The cousin spoke little English. Abou introduced me as his friend. She acknowledged this by making respectful gestures – nod of her head, hand gestures, and a reinvigorated smile. She informed Abou that her husband, the embassy official, was running late and was to be expected in about thirty minutes. The TV had football on. A French team was playing a team from Spain.
The child cried, and the cousin adjusted the straps under the shawl, and the baby´s head found the large of her mother´s back, and she went back to sleep. No doubt this closeness to her mother, the warmth of her back, soothed the baby back to her nap. "This is why we Africans are close to our mothers", said Abou, to no one in particular.
The conversation reverted to French, and I inspected what was laid before us. There was juice and pop, unopened cans, and folded paper napkins. Hospitality, accorded with no reservation, with no regard to the fact that I was an unexpected guest, and with an unaffected smile. I felt welcome and tried to engage the cousin in conversation. So, how do you like it in Geneva? "We like it here, but it is difficult because I cannot work", Abou translated. I wanted to know more. The husband was the chief accountant at his country´s embassy and was allowed to bring his family to this posting, but not for work. Given Switzerland´s size and economy, I understood why there might be restrictions on foreigners working. His salary at the embassy was not much, at least by Swiss standards. But as a diplomat representing his country, he and his family enjoyed (and appreciated) the free access to the world, the little or none of the travel restrictions so commonly experienced by Africans. I asked the cousin, in English, whether they had been to America. "We are planning to vacation in Etats-Unis next year", she replied in French. I understood before Abou had the chance to translate. I asked her where she would be traveling. New York. She asked me if I was American. I said yes, and to cover up the awkwardness, I nodded my head, and added that I lived in Cincinnati. "Sin-See – Naaateee", she repeated. The baby cried again, and this time, she had to be removed from the harness and fed. The cousin took the child to her breast, covering with a shawl, and continued sitting. After a minute of silence, Abou asked, "Aren´t there a lot of West Africans in Cincinnati"?
Back home in America, Erin had worked at a printing press north of Cincinnati. She had come across a good number, working "off-campus summer jobs" at the factory. As an American who had worked her way through college, she had thought it natural that students worked during the college years, and had never seen this in terms of immigration or work permits. American companies, for decades the global leaders in job creation, have pretty much been able to hire workers through a very cursory compliance with the law prohibiting unauthorized workers. Successive governments since the 70s, mostly pro-business and commercial interests, have never really taken businesses to task over hiring of unauthorized foreign workers. The workers for their part have successfully found every loophole, legal or not, to benefit from the greatest commercial job pool ever known to man. This, plus the government´s refugee resettlement policies, are some of the reasons why the unlikeliest of places in America – Marshalltown in Iowas, Hazleton in Pennsylvania, Portland in Maine, East Green Bay in Wisconsin, and Hamilton in Ohio – tend to have high concentration of foreigners, be it Mexican, West African, Caribbean, Russian, Polish, or Somalian.
I confirmed that there is a sizeable West African community on Cincinnati´s west-side. Abou laughed, and said, "We Africans are everywhere", and both the cousin and I fell quiet, bringing the talk about the New York vacation to an abrupt halt. I went back to watching TV.
The doorbell rang. It was the cousin´s husband – the embassy man - and a friend. The embassy man flashed a smiled at his wife, brushed his hand over the baby´s head, went to the threshold of the kitchen, placed his thin brown briefcase, and turned to us. He was gaunt, tall, and had a receding hairline. He appeared more Somali or Ethiopian than West African. He greeted Abou in the Islamic way, hugged him, and turned to me. We shook hands, and he sat down right across from me. His friend sat next to Abou, both to my right. The friend was loud, and never closed his mouth. He laughed at everything that Abou and the embassy man had to say. He is embassy man´s driver, Abou explained in between loud and unexpected bursts of laughter. This went on for over five minutes, and then there was a moment´s silence.
Excitement! Everyone turned to the TV, and we just heard the sound: "OHHHHHHHHH", a prolonged "oh". Turns out the Spanish team had scored a goal, and the commentator was screaming "gol". Collective groans – in French and West African patois – went up in the room, and for a moment I shared in the misery they all felt at the drubbing the French team was apparently receiving. Abruptly, someone changed the channel, and the scene shifted to Africa. I asked if it was BBC International, thinking it was a reasonable guess, this being Geneva, an international city. "No, it is African channel", Abou said, dropping his proper English style, no doubt due to the earlier excitement and the passion that it had generated. The "African" channel was brought in by dish, and thanks to a special subscription, was an add-on to the repertoire of regular cable channels. Africans in Europe have one foot in Africa one in Europe, Abou said, as if this was something unique to first-generation Africans who find themselves in foreign countries.
On TV, the "African" channel was showing a gathering of some sort. There was a crowd of well-dressed people, waiting for the chief guest, under a tent, fanning their sweating faces with hats and traditional fans. The women were mostly dressed in western-style clothes. Some of the men were dressed in white robes which didn´t look African to me. The wrapped white clothing reminded me of Hindu pilgrims visiting the Holy city of Varanasi. I noticed some of them also wore leather sandals with straps wrapped around the ankles. Like Roman senators from the Old Republic.
"They goin´ for Haj", said Abou pointing to the TV, fast shedding the business style from earlier in the day. Others wore traditional robes. Behind the waiting audience there was spontaneous dancing. People would get up from their chairs, join in the dance, make impeccable and well-coordinated moves to the rhythmic beat of drums, and return to their seats. The whole affair in the back had the air of an impromptu celebration. Was this a political gathering? "Yes, they here to see the President", said Abou.
Just as the cousin was whispering to her husband that dinner was ready, the sounds from the TV got louder. The President had arrived. He got out of the car which had pulled up right next to the stage. Those who were sitting started clapping, rather hard and animatedly. Those who were caught dancing at the precise moment followed the rhythm of the drums which had started to beat more violently and loudly. The dancing was furious, and I even heard whistling to egg the dancers on. On stage, the President inspected the scene, sporting a dour expression, and not in the least bit moved by the effect his decidedly lackluster entry had had on the audience. His robes were adobe, flowing, and he appeared frail. He said something, and the crowd just about lost it. Everyone stood up and did a jig, as if on cue, and then, abruptly, sat down.
We were seated at dinner by now, and it was the four of us at the table - the embassy man, his friend the driver, Abou, and I. The cousin, the baby still on her back, was getting ready to serve us. I did not ask if she was to join us, although I thought about it. Fresh cut vegetables – tomatoes, cucumber, and watermelons – were brought in as the first course.
The sound from the TV alternated between a dull monotone – the President´s speech - to wild whistling, drumming, hooting, and squeals. The President sounded defiant as he addressed the crowd. "African people I cannot understand", said Abou and shook his head.
Abou first set foot in France as part of his country´s football team. He had somehow managed to stay on beyond the duration of the sporting event, and had eventually met and married a French woman. They had two daughters, and one of them was a budding super-model with a talent agent at the tender age of seventeen. All this, and Abou´s professional affiliation with American software companies for over twenty years, gives Abou considerable stature among Africans in France. He heads up a West African networking group in Paris, and talks about entrepreneurship to African professionals. He lives in Orleans and has a flat in Paris which he says he uses when he works late in the city.
With his background, Abou feels that he has the earned the right to criticize Africans. Africans, both in professional and private circles, indulge him and eagerly concede to his pointed observations. Looking at the TV, he asked rhetorically, "now why would they want to come and listen to this old guy? And why do all leaders in our country look angry and dour?"
He then recollected a story from his past. Relatives from his city in West Africa had just returned from the Haj and there was a celebration in honor of the returnees. The roots of this celebration go back many centuries when the Haj journey was truly an adventure with potentially disastrous results. In addition to death and disease were war, kidnappings, and enslavement by Bedouins and desert bandits. So the celebration was truly a form of thanksgiving.
The relatives had thought the homesick Abou might appreciate this glimpse into life at home and had sent him pictures of the returned pilgrims in various states of prayer, meditation, conversation, and rest. Abou appeared to have missed the point of the photos and instead had ridiculed them. "Now who died now? Why is no one smiling", he had asked naively, trying to apply his new found French sensibility. He had then "called them up" and told them not to bother sending any more pictures unless they "first learned to enjoy life".
That was twenty five years ago. Abou, a French citizen now, has morphed into a complex creature. He is proud of his American business connections, he loves Fois Gras and Chateux Margo, he carries his daughter´s modeling shots in a portfolio and shows it to people he meets on business, he says he distrusts French people but is married to one.
Finally, and he had shared this with me earlier in the cab, he had just been to Africa to take part in the aforementioned Haj return celebration. His mother, with his financial help, had just made the Haj pilgrimage. "I had a great time", he said of the celebration. Perhaps people had smiled this time, twenty five years on.
"He angry", said the embassy man staring down at the TV, for the first time addressing me after we initially introduced ourselves. Why? "Because he not happy with the Europeans", he answered. What did the Europeans do? Without the right context, this question, addressed to an African, would require a difficult and complex answer. But my question was specific to what was unfolding on TV. There had been problems - problems with migration, he explained in English.
Scores of young men seek out greener pastures in Europe, often putting their lives in danger by traveling by sea on overcrowded, un-seaworthy vessels. Apart from the tragic consequences for the West African nation´s economy, there was, very often, tragedy at high seas. Death by heat-stroke, drowning, cannibalism, the forcible jettisoning of the weak or sick, and humiliating capture by the Spanish police off of the Canaries, these were some of the ways to describe the horrific journey undertaken every day by young people in Africa. The overland migrants, ending up in Muslim, Arabic North Africa, usually find themselves destitute and hungry in either Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, or Algeria. These nations are relatively prosperous from a sub-Saharan African perspective, but their treatment of these destitute people is far more cruel and harsh than what one could experience in the worst European detention camp. A lot of them end up in refugee camps (surrounded by barbed wires) in North Africa, with no hope of making it to either mainland Europe, any one of the many European island some miles from the North African coast, or enclaves like the Spanish have in Morocco.
The President had, for both political reasons and due to pressure from the EU bureaucracy in Brussels, taken up this issue of migrants with leaders of Spain and France. He was seeking some easing of the restrictions his countrymen were facing. He had proposed a guest worker program.
"What he got in return was an insult", said the driver in French, his mouth open, and teeth showing even after he was done making his point. He had a cheerful face that made him approachable. The embassy man agreed with the driver, said something to his wife, and continued.
France had offered money to invest in education and job training would-be migrants. Spain had made vague promises to increase aid if the President showed success in curbing the perilous journeys.
Spain, due to its sovereignty over the Canaries, offers the first line of defense to European borders. The migrants seek the Canaries, because one you get there, European refugee laws kick into effect, and Spain, even if it wanted to, could not expeditiously deport the migrants. There is no passport check on flights from the Canaries to mainland Europe, and this gives more well-heeled Africans an incentive to get to the Canaries and try to fly to Europe without immigration documents. Once in Europe, thanks to seamless travel between EU member states, it is virtually impossible to trace an African back to the Canaries or the West African nation. They blend into the sizable immigrant communities in every major European city, and from time to time, benefit from amnesties offered to illegal immigrants. Spain, in 2006, offered amnesty to over 600,000 illegal immigrants from South America and Africa.
The President had felt slighted at having his proposals shot down, and in a press conference in the capital, he had blasted the European offer as "too-little to address a problem of this magnitude".
The event taking place on TV was the President´s first domestic political gathering after the failed negotiations with the EU. It was being broadcast for a domestic audience, and the message was that the President, though unsuccessful with the Europeans, had "stood up to the Europeans". Among other things, the President was reading out his government´s achievements. Each time he announced an accomplishment, a group of very young school-girls, in uniforms, approached him on stage and presented a huge bouquet of roses. This was followed by raucous hooting and whistling, culminating in wild dancing to heart-thumping drums in the back. Then everything would go relatively quiet until the next big announcement. All through this, the President, looking more than a tad bit annoyed, sat glumly. The driver, with his mouth still open, watched intently. Obsequious Africans, Abou whispered in English, thinking that the others wouldn´t hear or understand. It was clear that he was referring to both the audience on TV and the others in this room, at dinner.
The second course was an assortment of barbecued meat - chicken thigh, breast, and beef. The cousin offered me the plate first as a courtesy to the first-time guest. I chose a chicken breast from the plate, and scooped up some onion sauce laid separately. The meat was tender and the sauce was great as a condiment, giving the meat the necessary zest for my tastes. The embassy man apologized for not serving traditional West African food. Next time for sure, he added. I said next time he and his wife would have more notice of my arrival. There was some noise beyond the living room, toward the entrance hallway. I heard a child, and then saw him walk into the kitchen from the hallway, away from the living room entrance. He had been napping, and the TV had woken him. The embassy man said it was his son, and that he was seven. The son tried to play with his sister, who by now was sucking on her thumb and looking quite comfortable. He must have done something to the baby because she cried out like she was in pain. The boy retreated hastily, seeking out his father. The boy went to an international school where he studied European history, African history, and modern math. He looked like a typical seven-year old in any Western country. He alone, in his family, did not look African. The boy spoke no English, only French, and was surprised to see me. The driver he ignored. Abou he hugged. And then he retreated to his room, going back via the living room, as suddenly as he had appeared.
For the final course, the cousin laid out pop, juice, and whole fruit – banana and apple. Abou picked an apple and expertly peeled it. I checked if he was using a Swiss Army knife, putting it to one of the dozens of advertised uses. But he was just using an ordinary kitchen knife. One single unbroken strip of peel was spiraling out of the fruit, growing in length with each skillful twist-turn motion, and was coiling neatly on a plate right below his hands. Once he was done peeling, Abou cut the apple into eight pieces, and without offering it to anyone else, he popped one of them into his mouth, revealing perfectly white teeth. Elsewhere on the table, the driver got up abruptly, and announced he was leaving. He left with little fanfare, no hugs or handshakes. No one got up, but the cousin, in her good natured way, smiled and shook her head sideways, and waved. The driver touched the baby on the head on his way out.
I wondered if he was a frequent guest, or if it was somehow part of his employment arrangement with the embassy that the cousin´s husband take care of his meals. The sort of arrangement I imagined is very common in poorer countries in Asia. Help like drivers are considered members of the household and are fed and clothed as part of their employment compensation. I never did ask, and before Abou popped the second of eight pieces, the driver was gone. The embassy man turned to me, and addressed me by name, which was a pleasant surprise. How did I find Geneva? I said I found it strange. There was a certain gloom to it, which I couldn´t explain precisely. The city center felt like a playground for the rich and famous. I recalled the five-star hotels, curiously named bars and lounges like Java Club, Wall Street Lounge, the watch stores, and the very upscale jewelry stores on the main streets. One block behind every main street, on parallel alleys, were brightly advertised night-clubs - euphemism for prostitution and nude dancing. I found this pattern – class and sleaze side by side in plain sight, odd. I said I was surprised at so many Arab and Gulf banks and airline offices in the city center. On the short cab-ride from my hotel to the Wilson, I remember seeing an Iranian bank, an Arab bank, and offices of Saudia, Etihad, and Yemen Airways. But then, when was the last time Switzerland was at war with anyone?
Was there a Swiss middle-class, and had the embassy man interacted with anyone Swiss? "The people here, they all international", he said as if answering my question, and as if that fact alone somehow enhanced everyone´s existence in Geneva. To me the international crowd in Geneva appeared to be a people apart, existing in enclaves within the city while not working their UN or embassy day jobs. The other internationals, well-heeled businessmen from all over, stayed at hotels like the Cournivan, Wilson, the Kempinski, shopped the boutiques, made speeches at boring conferences, picked up a Swiss watch or two for the missus (or mistress) back home, and a cuckoo clock for junior´s room. The whole place exuded transience, making me wonder if there was anyone left that was of this city, and had grown with it; anyone who was not a transplant or a visitor.
After dinner, we quickly dispersed. The embassy man, as part of his send-off, declared that he couldn´t wait to take his family to Asia on vacation, citing India and Thailand as possible destinations. He also said that people in his country held an Indian education in high-esteem, and that he wanted to see the current Indian boom at work first-hand. I wasn´t sure if this was part of his hospitality – to not only make a guest feel welcome, but to make him feel good about where he came from - or if he really was planning a trip to the East. He appeared sincere. I wished I could visit his country one day.
On our way out, Abou paused, stepped back, and entered the kitchen where the cousin was now putting away the dishes. He took something out of his pocket, and there appeared to be some shuffling, with the cousin protesting. No, Abou insisted, and went behind her, and appeared to touch the baby, still at her mother´s back. The cousin turned, laughed, but it appeared that Abou had had his way. He had dropped off something into the pannier.
Later, in the taxi on our way back, he said he hadn´t had time to buy anything for the children. And so, keeping with the custom in his native country, he had offered cash. That explained the earlier search for a bank machine even though I said I had cash for the cab ride. The bottle of French wine I was carrying was fine, but Abou had had the kids in mind.
The End
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