Andy and I had been drinking for most of the day. It was my second weekend in Manama, the capital of tiny Bahrain. We started with the champagne brunch buffet at the Radisson Diplomat. For thirty dollars--easy to come by for a newly minted Ensign, with no dependents, receiving “hazardous duty,” tax-free pay--I stuffed myself with endless omelettes, Belgian waffles, smoked salmon, fine cheeses, shrimp, steak, and bubbly. I didn’t ask, but presumably the brunch was not local-Bahraini sourced, farm-to-table--all of it likely shipped in to this air-conditioned, top-story, cushy oasis in the desert. A diverse crowd gorged itself alongside with me: senior enlisted and other officers from Fifth Fleet not on duty that day, U.S. civilian contractors and vendors, oil men, European and Australian expats, members/friends of Bahrain’s ruling (minority) Sunni elite, and Saudi weekend warriors who came across the King Fahd causeway for a good time, which is slightly harder to find in their Kingdom, at least publicly. The wait staff was diverse, too, made up of Bahrainis of the non-wealthy-ruling-type and other nationalities, but the servers weren’t doing any of the gorging. A different weekend, I should try out the Crowne Plaza brunch, one of my new shipmates and veteran brunchers informed me.
The rest of that day, we hopped among hotel bars with various Filipino cover bands. We stuffed ourselves again later at the non-halal Friday’s, or Ruby Tuesday I don’t remember, and then finished the night crawling among a row of expat bars. Eventually, the cab dropped Andy and me off at about 2:30 in the morning. It was easier just to crash at Andy’s apartment, instead of going all the way back to the Sheraton, my temporary home.
When we entered the lobby, Ken woke up and briskly popped off the two layers of cardboard that were his bed to greet us. He wore orange rubber sandals, white basketball shorts, and a stained green polo. It was an outfit he would wear the next day and probably the following day, too. Ken greeted us effusively, even genuinely. He seemed to exude joy, even at that hour, even for our drunk, sweaty American asses. Or maybe instead of joy, he was nervous--nervous about appearing friendly enough and keeping his job. He smiled, his yellow teeth shining, his deep brown skin glowing with oil. He gave Andy a package from the desk, and they traded pleasantries and polite laughs--Ken with his limited English--and then we parted for the evening: us to pass out until ten or eleven in the morning and Ken to pop up briskly again when the next drunk Americans rolled back in (unless we were the last for the evening) and then to wake up by six to mop and squeegee the Manama dust off the lobby floor. I would sleep on an extra twin bed in one of the two unoccupied bedrooms in Andy’s new, pristine apartment. Ken would sleep on his cardboard bed in the lobby. As we headed upstairs, through the closing elevator doors, I glimpsed him easing himself back down onto it.
Manama, literally translated, means “the place of sleep.”
For my first sea tour as a surface warfare officer in the navy, I had chosen the coastal minesweeper USS Cardinal (MHC 60), forward-deployed out of Manama. I said goodbye to family and friends with the expectation that I would be stationed on the Cardinal and living at sea in the Persian Gulf and on land in Bahrain, intermittently, for twenty-seven months. By the middle of 2004, the war in Iraq had turned ugly for the Americans there. It turns out that we were not “greeted as liberators.” I did not exactly know what type of work the Cardinal would be doing. Were there mines in the Gulf we had to take care of? Would we patrol and do “forward presence”? I did not think I would be in any great danger--surface ships were not making their way through Sadr City or snaking through Fallujah--but going to the Middle East, as a member of the military, in 2004, generally speaking, still seemed like a momentous event. Older, more devout family members prayed for me, and people at my home parish preemptively thanked me for my service.
Yet, for almost my entire time in Bahrain, the Cardinal sat tied to the pier, adorned with scaffolding and contracted workers, in a mini-”yards” or maintenance period. The Cardinal was billeted to have only five to seven officers. When I arrived, I was about the tenth on board. The captain made up a job for me. I became the Electrical and Auxiliaries Officer--”Auxo” for short--not typical on a ship that small. The days were long and hot, but they were uneventful, which I guess was better than Sadr City or Fallujah. I read many navy technical manuals, and, because our galley kitchen was under maintenance, I ate many burgers from the Fuddruckers on base. We also spent many hours cleaning the ship.
We cleaned even more because we learned that we were leaving, and we had to pass off a shinier ship. Shortly into my time in Bahrain, the squadron announced that our crew would be moving to Naval Station Ingleside, Texas, to take over the USS Pelican (MHC 53), and that the crew currently on the Pelican--fully trained and “certified”--would take over the Cardinal. And so, instead of spending two years in Bahrain, I only spent two months.
Before news of the crew swap though, I actually went apartment-hunting myself for a place in town. Depending on one’s rank and number of dependents, the navy gives a particular level of overseas housing allowance (OHA). I only needed a small apartment, close enough to get to base and maybe walkable to some stores. The women from the base housing office took me to see several spots. The OHA for an Ensign in Bahrain was pretty generous, I learned. And, I further learned, I could not get a cheaper apartment and pocket the remaining OHA. Therefore, the women only took me to places where I could max out my OHA. We looked at two different, brand new, extremely spacious three-bedroom apartments.
“Are you sure I can afford this? I really only need one bedroom.” I was feeling guilty and frugal at the same time. They reassured me.
Then, they took me to see a new three-bedroom gated villa, which had its own small in-ground pool. I met my own potential “Ken,” who took care of the neighboring villa pools as well and did some minor housekeeping, too. Not even twenty-two yet, not having proved that I was worth a damn yet in the navy (and later to not prove much a damn at all), I almost lived in a new three-bedroom villa by myself, with a pool, in a foreign country, with my own foreign pool-guy, my own “Ken.” But, the Texas crew swap announcement aborted my villa plans. Instead, I spent the second of the two months at the Radisson, also at the navy’s expense. I was now only a couple floors below the endless bubbly--no cab needed to get home.
Terence of Arabia. This was not the hazardous duty that many back home thought I would be living when they thanked me for my service and prayed for me.
We had a term for Andy’s Ken, for my potential “Ken,” for the ladies from the base housing office, for the workers at “Grand Slam Subs,” for the housekeepers and janitors on base and in apartments, for the men on the scaffolding on our ship, and even for the Russian and Ethiopian prostitutes at Seashells: “TCNs.” Third country nationals.
We were from the United States, country one. We were living in Bahrain, country two. They were from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Ethiopia, or other less-oil-rich Arab countries, country three.
Ken was not Ken’s name, but he (or we?) Americanized it because his TCN/Bangladeshi name was too complicated.
TCN was both an official and a casual term. Additionally, brown-skinned TCNs who were Arab or presumed to be Arab (and therefore were presumed to be Muslim) were referred to as “hajji.” This was an unofficial, derogatory term but used very frequently by us first-country nationals, and often without distinguishing between second-country nationals and third-country nationals.
TCNs, hajji and otherwise, still provide vital services to the United States military to this day, in Bahrain, in other countries. They tend also, conveniently, to be cheaper labor than second-country nationals, certainly cheaper labor than my fellow first-country nationals.
TCNs build the towers and faux paradises of Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
TCNs are exploited and die building the stadiums for the 2022 Qatar World Cup, whose matches they will likely not attend.
Money was very liquid and very available for and to me, and yet I provided very little social value to the United States or Bahrain. As an extra officer on that broken minesweeper, I provided very little military value, too. And that was as an O-1, in 2004. I imagine the dollars, today, flowing to and through the upper ranks and on the civilian contracting side are even more available. Let alone the private sector, be it in Bahrain, the Emirates, or Qatar.
Money is very available when it comes to war or sport or luxury real estate. But, it is less available for the workers who build and support the infrastructure for war (or for sport or for luxury real estate). When Ken or someone like him in Qatar dies, we have plausible deniability, as they have been twice and three times sub-contracted out.
By some people’s math, Ken and other TCNs should “be happy just to have a job.” (He was by all appearances happy, by the way). By that same logic, it is argued that maybe they wouldn’t even have a job if it weren’t for the US of A.
While there might be some truth in that, we shouldn't be satisfied with this convenient math, this self-serving logic.
It’s hard for most of us to imagine alternatives to this economic and political reality, if it crosses our minds in the first place. That might be by design. Or, it might be by our inertia. We remain asleep--passed out, even--and keep going along with the system. The chasm between this unjust present and a more just future seems vast. Crossing the chasm, though, first requires awareness and then imagination.
Likewise, it’s hard to imagine the personal reality of a Ken. That might be by design. He is, after all, not one, but two countries removed. And, it might be by our inertia, too. The chasm between his sleeping on cardboard in the lobby and our offering one of our extra bedrooms seems vast. It requires awareness and imagination to offer it.
We didn’t offer Ken a bed to sleep in or something better than the cardboard. In fact, I thought about it only after the opportunity had passed, years later I didn’t ask about Ken’s story either. Not in a sober, middle-of-the-day, genuine way, at least. I’d be curious to know what he is up to today. Does he get home to Bangladesh often? Ever? When he was a boy, what did he like doing for fun? What did he want to be when he grew up? How does he send money home? How much? Does he have kids? Will they venture to do the same travel/work he has done? If so, by choice? Has he graduated from late-night lobby duty? Did he like us? Resent us?
“Second-country-” and “third-country-nationals” the world over are showing up on the doorsteps of “first countries.” Not always, but often because of situations we have created. These are the harvests of our empires and neo-empires. With the increasing effects of climate change, more will come. How shall we reap them?
_________________________________________________________
For more on Bahrain:
