This is the second of six parts: 
Looking forward to a bright new future, Sellathurai Boominathan embarked on a journey, early January 2011, that should eventually take him to Canada. He had heard that work there would pay C$10.00 (S$12.50) per hour. He was aware however that the plan required him to stay for a while in an African country he had never heard of.
In fact, the air route took him to several places he had never heard of before.
He first travelled from Tamil Nadu to Mumbai on the West coast of India. From Mumbai, he flew on Ethiopian Airways to Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, then to Lome, in the West African country of Togo, then to Cotonou in Benin.
Boomi and ten other Indian men, all from Tamil Nadu, were told they had to stay in Benin to wait for the Nigerian agent Liady Furaima to make further arrangements with the Canadian visas and the flights. The Indian agent’s brother, Rajeesh, had arrived two weeks earlier to finalize arrangements with Liady Furaima. But this would take more time, and until plans were settled they had to wait.
The eleven men were housed together with Rajeesh in a small house in Cotonou, and confined to the 2nd story consisting of two bedrooms, one hall, one bath and toilet, and one kitchen. After being introduced to the stalls in the market, Rajeesh would go out to buy rice, tomatoes, vegetables, occasionally fish or chicken. The men cooked once a day for their two meals. The curry powder and chili powder didn’t taste quite right and the rice was not the puni rice they were accustomed to, but they were willing to tolerate it.
Liady Furaimo warned them not to leave the house, telling them that Africans are always drinking and fighting and as foreigners they’d get into trouble. It wasn’t so much the trouble with the drunken and pugnacious Africans that they feared, but trouble that would jeopardize their chances of reaching Canada. If they suspected that Liady Furaimo didn’t want them to go out because they might find out about Furaimo’s dodgy reputation, or they might figure out how to get their own plane tickets and false documents, or they might complain to the police or to their High Commission, or they might find work that pays real money, they didn’t share those thoughts with one another.
Soon after their arrival too, the men were told that Liady Furaimo’s company had two wood working projects, one in Benin and the other in Canada. The men were supposed to be wood engravers, and they needed to show that they had gained experience with wood carving and engraving at his project in Benin so that he could arrange the visas for them to work for him in Canada. They would need medical certificates for the residence visas, and they would need to spend time in Benin.
Those Africans were different in many ways, but they were at least the same color as the Indian men from Tamil Nadu. The Africans didn’t look down on the Tamils the way lighter skinned Indians from the north did, and in turn the Tamils weren’t bothered by the Africans’ jet-black skin. They weren’t bad looking people, the men tall and muscular, intimidating and aggressive it’s true, noses too flat and broad, but all in all they had nice features. Boomi’s experience with African men was confined to the few that his group dealt with personally, and from this handful of men he noted their strong handsome looks that didn’t match their less than admirable behavior.
Boomi thought that African women would use skin lotions like Fair and Lovely to obtain a lighter skin color, but such brands were unavailable in Benin as far as he knew and as far as he could tell from the black of their skin. The women were not unattractive, although they flaunted their bodies in a way that would shame a proper Indian lady. They dressed to show off the curves of the bosom and the behind and shook those bouncy sexy parts when they walked to attract even more attention. They braided their hair tight and beaded, held their heads high and assumed a haughty superior air. This was as much as they were able to discern about the African women from the confines of that tiny room.
Jammed in that upper story section of the house, the men were content that first month. They passed the time playing cards and talking about their families and how they’d spend the money they’d make in Canada. Delay followed delay and the men started to get testy with one another. Fights broke out over little things: Too much salt in the food, water spilled on the floor, smelly underwear left unwashed and they would shout, assign blame, and gesticulate and hurl insults. One man dirtied the toilet and they would call each other names and slander each other’s relatives. Another man’s hair caused the drain to clog and more relatives were disparaged and cursed. It was suffocating in that tight space.
The Indian men, typically disposed to drink, begged Rajeesh to buy them beer and whiskey to take off the edge of their miserable existence. Jail would have been better than this. In jail the men would be singing and dancing, they would have more space, they’d be let out of the cells to wash and exercise, and they’d have more people to talk to. It would be like a miniature community where everyone could share their stories. Families would visit and bring food and news of loved ones, stories about relatives and neighbours. They would know how long their punishment would extend and what they’d done to deserve it. Crammed in this small space without being able to contact family, without having done anything criminal and without knowing when they’d leave was much worse than jail.
Rajeesh truly believed promises of the job in Canada. Canada has easier immigrant policies than other places, so they were told. They were expecting to fill an important niche among the skills that Canada was lacking, wood carving in this case. The immigration officials would respect the certificates authenticating their skill and experience. Immigration officials don’t ask immigrants to prove their skills on the spot. They wouldn’t be given wood and wood working tools and be asked to create an engraved figurine at the airport: they would be welcomed as valuable craftsmen.
If that didn’t work out, they could take advantage of Canada’s humanitarian policy towards people from poor and war-torn countries. They might also make a case for asylum based on race or religion. Liady Furaimo was working both angles at the same time. From the money he’d received earlier from the men, Rajeesh paid for the medical certificate, the work certificate and the Benin residency visas. He also splurged now and then on local beer and whiskey. It lifted the mood in the evening but made them sick and headachy the next day.
(Passport number masked by TWC2 for this article)
Liady Furaimo told them that the visas were produced at the Canadian High Commission in Ghana where he had connections, but the men found out that the visas were actually from Nigeria, not Ghana. Everyone knows that Nigeria is the unreliablest place and Nigerians are the cheatingest people in the world, but the men had hopes that cash in the right hands would produce the desired results. Whether from Ghana or Nigeria didn’t matter, so long as the visa would get them to Canada.
Furaimo also told them that they’d need transit visas for France where they would have to stay until the Canadian visas were ready. He took US$22,000 from the Rajeesh to buy eleven tickets to Montreal via France, and told them that they would be leaving that day. In preparation for the trip, Boomi and the ten others all showered, shaved, packed their belongings, and donned their newest shirts. Ordinarily they had no reason to clean up since they never went out or saw people, and didn’t want to waste money on razors or toothpaste. As they waited in their clean pressed collared shirts for the transport to the airport, they contemplated the glorious freedom of finally leaving their cramped jail.
The wait became hours as Liady Furaimo failed to appear with the van. Rajeesh called and received the news that Liady Furaimo had been involved in an accident on the way to the airport, but not to worry, they’d be able to make the trip tomorrow. After that he stopped answering his phone. He absconded with that great sum of money.
Oh, but he had the decency to tell a friend to help them buy food.