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People\'s Journeys

The Driver from Djibouti: From Doha to Dukhan

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Wed, 12/03/2008 - 20:09

You can only see Ismail’s profile  in the BMW he is driving on a desert highway stretching from Doha to Dukhan. He speaks French. I don't. So he says, in English, pointing to the beautiful homes along the way, "those are the new houses of the big people from Doha."

The car radio is tuned to QBS Country, a station that plays American country music on Qatar Broadcasting Service. "Is there any Qatari music on the radio?" I ask. Ismail fiddles with controls, but after a while, QBS Country is back on. The desert wind hums and whistles as Alan Jackson sings, "Don't rock the jukebox...."

"How long have you lived here, Ismail?"

"Eighteen months," says Ismail. "Too long."

Eighteen months is indeed a long time for migrants in Doha, but the desert land of Qatar has become an oasis for migrants. Relatively speaking, it is by far the largest destination for migrants in the world. 

"Do you send money home, Ismail?"

Ismail turned around to briefly look at me. He thought for a moment, and said, "Yes, about $300 each month."

"How much do you make, if I may ask?"

"Money is good. About $550-600 a month." he said nonchalantly.

Four  out five persons in Qatar is a migrant, implying that for every adult Qatari male, there are about 8 migrants! Three out of four migrants are men, mostly unskilled. Like many neighboring countries, Qatar does not publish data on outward remittances.

Can they?: Implications of Obama victory for migration and development

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Thu, 11/06/2008 - 11:31

What a moment in history! As soon as Obama was projected to be the next president of the United States of America, countless migrant mothers (I know one!) patted their children and said, with tears in the eyes, "You too have a chance to be the president of this great country!" Seems to me that overnight America has become more inviting to the immigrants. Has it? Will Obama follow through with his campaign promise, or will he change his stance? Should he? What would that mean from a development point of view?

On their website, Barack Obama and Joe Biden's Plan on immigration states the following:

The little Aztec girl in Vienna

Submitted by Dilip Ratha on Tue, 09/23/2008 - 17:11

So, what is this sweet little Aztec girl doing in Vienna's city center, right next to St. Stephen's Cathedral (I took this photo using my cellphone while I was there last week)?

On this beautiful September evening, this girl has just completed a traditional Aztec ritual dance with her elders, all wearing gorgeous traditional feather crowns, some of them sitting on a puma skin, a man blowing conch shell and a woman lighting a bowl of incense. They are here in Vienna, far away from their ancestral land, apparently to plead for the return of Montezuma's feather crown that was allegedly brought to Austria a few centuries ago.

But perhaps they are here for the same reason as the Hungarian breakdancers who have just performed bone-breaking contortions to what almost sounded like classical music: to earn a living. That would be understandable.  If one could climb 343 steps of the Gothic Cathedral for a breathtaking view of Vienna, I suppose one might travel six thousand miles crossing a desert and an ocean for a better life. As the dancing stops and drums go silent, the little Aztec girl sits down on a puma skin. A little Austrian boy accompanied by a Filipino nanny approaches and puts a coin in her fishy bank.

Nearly one out of 6 in Austria is a migrant. They send out about $1.5 billion in remittances. But Austria also has a lot of emigrants to neighboring Europe and the Near East. Every country is both a sending and a receiving country. They say: migration is a part of our lives.