Sunday, October 7, 2007

Men in the Sun


I was really surprised with this book. It begins with the stories of three different men: Abu Quais, Assad, and Marwan. All three of them want to get to Kuwait for the same reasons of finding work and getting opportunity so they can survive. Marwan has to support his mother and siblings, Abu Quais has a wife and two small children, and Assad was alone, but needed to find work so he could have the means to survive.

All three of them go to this man named Abul who helps smuggle people form Palestine into Kuwait for “the cheapest price” available, even though the cost was really steep for what the people could practically afford. And then, they risk their lives crossing the desert with the sun beating down on them like fire, and they follow this oil pipeline called “H4” to the road. They then meet up with others and eventually get smuggled into Kuwait.

I could not believe some of the stuff that happened, especially with Marwan, Assad, and Abu Quais dying in the tank in the end. After all of their plight, and their exhausting journey, they died. I was very disappointed; I wanted them to get to Kuwait. Unfortunately, this paints a very vivid, shocking picture of the Middle East for me. For one, if people are being smuggled out and risking their lives to escape, what kind of place was Palestine and how oppressive was their government that they were driven to do such things?

In the end when they die, Abul asks “Why didn’t you knock?” and I think this is significant. If the men would have knocked, even though they were suffocating, they would have given up what was going on, and then Abul wouldn’t be able to help anyone else get out of the country. There was also a good amount of trust between the three men and their smuggler, because he had agreed for them not to pay until they were done with their journey. They also trusted him with their lives, as they were in this lorry for so long and depended on Abul to get them across the hot desert. The bond between the men was important, as they only had each other to rely on for their survival.

1 comment:

Allen Webb said...

Nice post. I like seeing the cover of the book on your blog!