![]() ![]() Why were we letting them in? Why were they allowed to see family before isolating? Do they even know what isolation means? Progressives praised them as “remittance soldiers.” At 37.18 billion USD, didn’t Bangladesh boast a record high in foreign currency reserves in 2020, despite the pandemic? On the ground, they were not valiant warriors but vectors of disease, unsafe and oddly disloyal. An already-anxious middle-class was all riled up. It had been too long.Įminent citizens debated their role in importing the illness on television talk shows. Upon arrival and before being herded to the make-shift quarantines, they stole hugs from loved ones. The home country had sent out special flights. They thought they had fled the microbe, which surfaced in due time in their part of the world. 78,000 men and women returned from 26 countries since Covid-19 wreaked havoc in an unsuspecting world. For months they lived off savings until not much was left. Lit-up WhatsApp screens covered the stuffy room in soft, greenish haze.Įven before the fateful year ended, they were all back in Bangladesh. Later, in hushed, sleepy tones, they chatted with their parents, wives, friends, in-laws, brokers, and kids. On nights like these when the heat lured the tourists away from the plaza and to the lull of air-conditioned hotel rooms, the men spoke about the past and the future over sweet tea and cheap beer. Summers in Europe were getting hotter and hotter. The gelato stand diagonal from the yo-yo seller made a killing though. Some days the mini performances were wasted on the weary travelers. The blinking LED lights tore into the dark of the sky above the Duomo di Firenze. Once in Italy, they sold yo-yos that burst into red, blue or green with each spin. Sometimes they were aerially photographed crammed on a trawler on the Mediterranean off the coast of Libya. ![]() Flowers? Selfie Sticks? Day in and day out, in sentences peppered with Bangla, Sylheti, and French, they beseeched a motley lot of indifferent tourists. They hovered at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Peter’s Square and pulling god-awful shifts at Abu Dhabi airport. Before Covid-19 had fundamentally reorganized the world in which they lived, they were young, able-bodied men. Secret sociality now carries a whiff of resistance. ![]()
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