Ninety Percent of Everything: Inside Shipping, the Invisible Industry That Puts Clothes on Your Back, Gas in Your Car, and Food on Your Plate by Rose George

Author:Rose George [George, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2013-08-12T14:00:00+00:00

A ministry of small gestures

(ROSE GEORGE)

8

SANCTUARY

The Merchant Navy Comforts Service

The view—crashing waves, a sandy beach—is spectacular. It is unexpected, because all I knew of the Port of Salalah, in the Gulf state of Oman, was its status as Kendal’s sanctuary after pirate waters, as the relief at the end of the Internationally Recommended Transit Corridor. I wasn’t even sure how to pronounce its name until Captain Glenn told of a girl in the office who pronounces Salalah like “Ooh-la-la!” The spectacular view is from the terrace of the Oasis Club, a bar restaurant on the cliffs above the port. I go there twice in twenty-four hours, with whoever can grab a few hours’ leave to come with me, enough for a quick Skype home; perhaps a drink—nonalcoholic of course—a meal that hasn’t been cooked by Pinky, and some fruit that doesn’t look as sad as ours.

In the better ports around the world, sailors always head for a mission to use those precious hours. Run by church organizations—the Norwegian Church, the Seamen’s Church Institute of New York, and the UK’s Mission to Seafarers are the best known—these missions, or seafarers’ centers, offer Internet, food, drink, and a small period of solace and different company to that on your ship. The Mission to Seafarers alone runs 230 centers worldwide, and it is a godsend, because most are in or near ports, and seafarers lack either the time, money, or visa to go farther.

The Oasis Club is not godly; it is a private establishment that has become a de facto mission because of its location near the port, its free transport, and its chefs who produce steaks the size of plates. Also, in this dry state, it serves alcohol to those seafarers allowed to drink it, which includes the entire U.S. Navy. I travel in with Francis and a bunch of the Filipino crew. At passport control, Francis begins to speak Arabic to the staff while we look at him in shock. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise: really he is speaking globalization, because he used to work in Jeddah, one of the satellite destinations of Filipinos’ enormous reach. This is the first time Francis has seen uncovered Arab women. The bus driver wants to sell him a sword, and Francis fingers the metal and says, “Wow,” politely, but doesn’t buy it. Overseas Filipinos often take home a box of gifts, known as balikbayan, a word meaning “one that is returning home to the country.” A sword wouldn’t fit.

The club is packed because a U.S. warship is in port and its crew is making full use of their R&R. There is no table without chasers on it. One sailor swats a fly and says, “Yeah, baby.” In this atmosphere, you would pronounce Salalah as the girl in the office does, and it would fit. The Filipinos gather around a table to Skype home and to talk; I check e-mails and wish I hadn’t. They are an intrusion into my ship brain, which has become different.

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