"This job is only temporary so I can save enough to put myself through uni. I’ve got a degree place, but I have to do a foundation year first. No A’ Levels where I came from. With a loan and savings from working for a year, I should have enough to make it through. I’ll have to get a job while I study, though. No sweat, work over here is not so hard compared to back home.
Economics, that’s where it’s at. I’m going to learn how the world works: free markets, de-regulation, privatisation, growth, austerity… Geography was my other option but I told them, with globalisation, everywhere is coming to me! Anyway, I could teach them geography: Four thousand eight hundred and seven miles from Helmand to London, measured on my 1936 map with a school ruler held together with American string and Chinese candle wax; trudging through all those cities, towns, villages, agricultural landscapes and wilderness. Ask me about the geography of people trafficking, just ask me.
My job does sometimes feel a bit miserable in the winter rain, but I quite like it. Whenever I feel down, I think about being on that last excuse for a boat, the smell of bodies packed in: fear, sea-sickness and kids with diarrhoea. Then, I whistle while I work! And sometimes, it really is a laugh."