to be an immigrant in Stockholm

On the way into town yesterday, I sat next to three foreigners who were talking to eachother. Their Swedish were really bad, and I was impressed how they really tried to explain things to one another.

I pretended not to listen, but I will admit I followed their conversation wholeheartedly. Was there ever something called eavesdropping, this was it!

One guy was from Irak. The other two were from South America somewhere. They had very recently met, and didn't know bugger all about eachother, so they started off with the usual "where are you from?" and "what do you do for a living?" even though they of course didn't ask it like that (i.e. presumed they had jobs), but instead said "have you managed to get a job?". It turned out they all had managed to get a job in Stockholm.

One was a painter. "Does it pay well?" the others asked. "no, it doesn't pay well, but it pays", ha answered matter of factly. Then he started to explain how his boss treated him, with not paying his social security, not paying taxes, forcing him to work 14 hour days and getting paid peanuts.

The others nodded. It was obvious they had similar empoyers. All black workers, exploited with no legal rights at all. Yet they laughed about it and started talking about nicer things, such as the weather and spare time activities.

Then the guy from Irak said " do you have families here?" and the others answered "no". The Irakie guy looked at the South American boys and said "me neither. I'm alone. All alone". The others nodded and for the rest of the journey they sat all quiet. And that silence said more than a million words.