People and Occupations (Unit 07)

Thousands of years ago, the first pearl was probably discovered while human beings were searching for food at the sea shore. Throughout history, the pearl with its shine has been one of the most highly valued gems.

Pearls have been mentioned many times in religious texts and mythologies from the earliest times.

The ancient Egyptians valued pearls so nuch that they were buried with them. It is said that the famous queen of Egypt, Cleopatra would dissolve a pearl in a glass and drink it as a sign of love and respect for the entire nation.

The Greeks thought the pearls as a sign of wealth and social position. The beauty of. pearls was associated with love and marriage.

In ancient Rome, pearls were considered the greatest sign of wealth and social status.

At that time the young women of noble families loved to wear beautiful pearl necklaces. The brave knights used to wear them in the battles for good luck.

In some fishing villages along the coast of Japan, there are amazing groups of women known as 'Ama divers'. These women worked and are still working as Ama. The word 'Ama' means 'women of the sea or sea women'. They are independent divers. They make their living by diving. They can dive to the depth of the sea up to 25 metres. And they dive without using oxygen tanks or other breathing equipment.

The Ama divers rely on their own skills and breathing techniques. They use that skill and technique to push themselves down to the bottom of the sea and back to the surface again. They can hold their breath for up to two minutes. Careful watching, lung capacity and hunter instincts are the special qualities of Ama divers.

However some of these young villagers are going to the city in search of jobs. The remaining Ama divers are now aged between 50 and 60. But there are still some who continue to dive even at their 70s. If the young people do not take up Ama diving, soon this profession will die out.

River gypsies are an ethnic group of people in Bangladesh. They are known as bedey to local people. The gypsies have their own lifestyle and culture. They live in groups and do not own any land. Therefore, they live a nomadic life, travelling from one place to another. These people roam across our rivers and waters from May to December in small country boats. These boats are their houses and these people are a part of our waters. In winter, many water bodies dry up. At that time they return to the mainland and live in make-shift tarpaulin tents on open river banks. You can see their men relaxing in the tents. Toddlers play with dogs or other pets in the dust. Women often idle away time by picking off lice in twos or threes sitting in a row.

Throughout the monsoon, they remain busy with fishing. They also dive for natural pearls in waters. Sometimes, they camp for a couple of weeks. Men catch snakes and entertain people with snake charming and sell herbal cures. Women go from door to door to sell bangles, cosmetics and other things. They also try to heal pains of old people often by sucking out blood from their body.

Many villagers believe in the magical power of the gypsies. They can make an evil spirit leave someone's body by magic or special powers.

River gypsies in Bangladesh face various problems. First, Bangladesh is getting urbanised very rapidly. Gypsy people are losing their customors among the urban population. Hence, their income is threatened. Secondly, 24,000 kilometres of previous waterways has shrunk into only 6,000 kilometres in the country in dry seasons. Scientists believe that Bangladesh will be worst affected by global climate change. The unpredictable rain and drying out of rivers have made boat movement heavily restricted. Thirdly, many river gypsies are changing their lifestyle in the context of changed reality. They are thinking of living permanently on land. The authority feels that river gypsies need help to survive in the mainstream population. Therefore, the government is offering voting rights, permanent housing and bank-loan facilities. However, changes do not come overnight.

Traditionally, river gypsies are used to water life. They have inherited from their forefathers necessary life skills to survive in waters. They have no education and training to adapt to mainstream modern society. So the state feels the need to bring them under formal education network. But they have no permanent living place. Gypsy children are born and brought up on roaming boats. Therefore, they cannot go to conventional schools. And hence, mobile boat-schools are being established for gypsy children. Some voluntary organisations are running special schools on boats to educate river gypsy children in some areas.

My dear Marwan, in the long summers of childhood, when I was a boy the age you are now, your uncles and I spread our mattress on the roof of your grandfather's farmhouse outside of Homs.

We woke in the mornings to the stirring of olive trees in the breeze, to the bleating of your grandmother's goat, the clanking of her cooking pots, the air cool and the sun a pale rim of persimmon to the east.

We took you there when you were a toddler.

I have a sharply etched memory of your mother from that trip, showing you a herd of cows grazing in a field blown through with wild flowers.

I wish you hadn't been so young.

You wouldn't have forgotten the farmhouse, the soot of its stone walls, the creek where your uncles and I built a thousand boyhood dams.

I wish you remembered Homs as I do, Marwan.

In its bustling Old City, a mosque for us Muslims, a church for our Christian neighbours, and a grand souk for us all to haggle over gold pendants and fresh produce and bridal dresses.

I wish you remembered the crowded lanes smelling of fried kibbeh and the evening walks we took with your mother around Clock Tower Square.

But that life, that time, seems like a dream now, even to me, like some long-dissolved rumour.

First came the protests. Then the siege.

The skies spitting bombs. Starvation. Burials. These are the things you know. You know a bomb crater can be made into a swimming hole. You have learned dark blood is better news than bright.

You have learned that mothers and sisters and classmates can be found in narrow gaps between concrete, bricks and exposed beams, little patches of sunlit skin shining in the dark.

Your mother is here tonight, Marwan, with us, on this cold and moonlit beach, among the crying babies and the women worrying in tongues we don't speak. Afghans and Somalis and Iraqis and Eritreans and Syrians. All of us impatient for sunrise, all of us in dread of it. All of us in search of home.

I have heard it said we are the uninvited.

We are the unwelcome. We should take our misfortune elsewhere.

But I hear your mother's voice, over the tide, and she whispers in my ear, "Oh, but if they saw, my darling. Even half of what you have.

If only they saw. They would say kinder things, surely."

I look at your profile in the glow of this three-quarter moon, my boy, your eyelashes like calligraphy, closed in guileless sleep.

I said to you, "Hold my hand. Nothing bad will happen."

These are only words. A father's tricks. It slays your father, your faith in him. Because all I can think tonight is how deep the sea, and how vast, how indifferent. How powerless I am to protect you from it. All I can do is pray.

Pray God steers the vessel true, when the shores slip out of eyeshot and we are a flyspeck in the heaving waters, pitching and tilting, easily swallowed. Because you, you are precious cargo, Marwan, the most precious there ever was. I pray the sea knows this. Inshallah.

How I pray the sea knows this.