Empathy Exercise..

Construction Worker

My name is Robert, a 35 years old migrant worker from Israel. Two years ago i was hired to work for a well-known Construction corp in Singapore. When i first arrived, everything was settled, I was taken to a building near the airport and then i realized this is my dormitory. Well, not as bad as i thought. There were 10 other migrant workers on the truck but none of them speak my language. We followed our manager through the building and went up to 3rd floor, second door to the right. When we got in, there were already 5 people inside. I looked around, this dorm have three rooms and one bathroom, it was small. Things were piled up like a trash hill just right behind the doors. The manger told us 5 people in a room and if we're not happy, living room is another choice. The room was tiny, no bed just 5 mattresses laying on the floor, some were overlapping each other. When the manager left, we settled ourselves into the rooms, unfortunately 1 of us have no room and it happens to be the youngest one. He will have to sleep in the living room,oh and our living room have nothing but some simple plastic chairs with luggage and some unwanted trash.

After one night, i realized many problems, first of all, its too crowed. We bump into each other all the time. At night my toes were stepped on several times because the others were trying to go toilet and the room was tiny. People talks, some listen to music, the environment is frustrating, not to mention privacy, they stare at you all the time. The most terrible thing is that we only have one toilet and there are 16 of us. We need to queue for shower and toilet, sometimes it took me 2 hours just to take shower. The air is filled with nasty smell and its humid.

I still couldn't get used to the environment for the first few month but after 2 years these are nothing. I am fine with and smell, crowdness, and stranger. Tough time but still can be handled.