Just when things go right, the Universe dishes this out

Just when things go right, the Universe dishes this out

(Based on a true life story)

Picture this: you're at home, sending a text message to your family to give them the good news. “Hey, Mom! I got hired for Royal Caribbean! Yes!”

It's a huge deal. For the past six months you've been studying, tasking tests, taking a three hour bus ride to the nearest big city go to the school and take the classes, and basically not sleeping much while you work two jobs; Two less than mininum wage jobs. And it has been a tough road. And when you think tough, you mean extra-expensive, exhaustingly, painfully tough. You're in Argentina for Christ's sake! Living in the middle of laboral nowhere in some small town in the mountains because its the only place in the world where you don't have to pay rent.

So your stepdad gives you the money for the STCW course needed to be a retail clerk on a cruise ship. And you think, “Oh my God! I can finally get out of this messed up country! I finally have a shot at a decent life!” Seriously, face it. You look around and the only thing you see are pseudo human beings living off the state while the increasingly dwindling working class pays their taxes just so the money can go straight to the pockets of crooked politicians and uneducated idiots whose only activity is the mass breeding of more pseudo humans... leading to a vicious social circle of vampires literally sucking the pockets of working people trying to do more than survive!!

Ever heard the Spanish terms “Peronismo”, “Kirchernismo” and “Populismo”? Look it up, skip the political niceties and look at the fruit of the tree. It's hell on Earth for people who want to multiply their God given talents.

So, what do you do when you're thirty years old, unmarried, with a native level of English but with no formal education except for high school (because in Argentina there is no such thing as scholarships or sponsorships from companies that pay you while you study), and all of your skills are not applicable for the environment around you? You fight to get out as fast as humanly possible. Period.

“Take a deep breath.” You tell yourself. “You`ve worked hard for this. One final step away from opening a chapter to a new life, and that's it. No more poverty. No more fighting to stretch that last five hundred peso bill at the end of the week.”

See, you have to remind yourself to calm down. You're angry. You tend to go off on mad tangeants and you have a right to do so. Why? Because your life, for all psychological and emotional purposes, ended the day you were forced to leave the U.S. There, you weren't happy, (dysfunctional family, but that's a side note) but you had a plan. You were an honor student getting university scholarship applications before you were even in high school. You were a star in the theatre department. You were on your way to fulfilling a life long dream of being an actress. Finally, someone in your family was going to be sucessful. But no... all of that ended after a white, bitter old man failed to renew the work visa your father had.

“Give a round of applause for EEOC. The entity that has no law defending workers from immigrational status discrimination. Thank you for doing a great job at ruining young lives!” you once said, in rusty Spanish to your Dad soon after you arrived in Buenos Aires.

Back then, you were barely sixteen years old. You were supposed to be starting sophomore year but instead you were complaining, stuck in a latin american hell hole surrounded by people who thought poverty and mediocrity was normal.

And things just got... not exactly worse but they could have been better.

Where's your Dad? No idea. He left years ago.

Where's your Mom? Remarried and happy for once. You know she does the best she can so you try to not to be a burden and be independent. And failing more than once.

Teaching English to Spanish speakers? Getting certified is too expensive on a waitressing salary.

Getting an acting job? You tried it, didn't work. Unless you prostitute yourself on national television you don't stand a chance. Even the most successful Argentinian actors left the country.

“And you never tried to come back to the states?” your friends ask. Gee... where do you begin to explain? How can you pay for the visa when it costs eighty dollars, pay for the trip to the embassy which is in Buenos Aires (and you live in another province kilometers away), and not to mention that you have to say ten hail marys and fifty lord prayers to get accepted into a college in the U.S (which costs more than an arm and a leg) just to apply for a student visa? Skip that. How do you get a passport to leave the country when you have no fixed nationality? And you have to wait years to be legal in Argentina because everything takes forever? All while earning the equivalent of one dollar and thirty cents an hour? And just to give them an idea of the value that has, you then explain (as they stare in disbelief through the Whatsapp screen) that six eggs cost 1.15, and a bus ride to Buenos Aires costs seventy-two dollars.

“Do the math.” You told them. “Its economically impossible.”

So what happens when you get a job interview that allows you to earn dollars and leave the country? On a cruise ship even though you can't swim? You jump on it!! No questions asked! “I'll take swimming lessons on the ship!” you think to yourself.

Taking a deep breath, because you try to calm yourself down after letting your mind rewind, you take a moment to look around. On your bed is your open suitcase with all the things needed for that last trip to Buenos Aires. On your left is the night stand with the receipts from the trips, tests, medical exams, and the emergency passport fiasco. (That's a whole nightmare in itself!) Instantly, as you look at all of those receipts, you think of all the failures, disappointments, and tears you and your family have shed in the last fourteen years. None of you had to sell your blood for food because (thank God) it never got that desperate. But all the money needed to get to where you are today bled out of so many people in your family. Literally, the words “sacrificial blood” is written all over it.

“Straighten up. Pack your things. Get yourself together Isabel Suarez.” you say out loud to yourself, forcing your mind to focus. So, without further ado, and after saying all your goodbyes and see-you-.laters to famiy and friends, leaving all your affairs in order, you pick up that suitcase and head to the bus station, heading off to Buenos Aires and from there straight to the airport. You've got a flight to catch and a ship to sail on.

It`'s a long twelve hour flight back to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

You seem nostalgic as you sit on the plane, returning to your childhood city. But then you remembered that you moved more times than you can count so it was never really home to begin with. That's when your attention shifts to the flight attendants. For the first time you begin to see them through different eyes. If there was one thing you learned from Argentina, its that the exotic looking people serving tourists on planes and ships all came from countries where life sucks. Like you, they had to wade through turbulent waters to get there.

You know this.

You've seen this.

Forget that, you know what it feels like.

You were there. On both sides of the same scene when you were a tourist on a school field trip and when you were waitressing back in Argentina to fancy people. You remember how they treated their bills on the table like it was nothing. For them, (as well as you when you were in the American bubble of ignorance), two hundred fifty dollars on a meal was nothing. For you, that`s the same as three months of groceries.

Now you're a retail clerk about to set sail on a ship selling key chains and other useless stuff. Now, as you get off the plane and head to the hotel where all the other sailors are going, you see the prices on the candy bars and souvenirs.

All you see is, “$15 candy bar: I can eat for a week with that. $5 dollar soda? That's a week's worth of bus fare.”

Your perspective has changed.

You are no longer that child that left the country thinking life was a fairy tale.

You know the price of life.

“Yeah, life is a war." you remind yourself, walking through the airport with your head held high like a soldier. "Life only has meaning if you honor the sacrifices made by others just so that you could live.”

The tourists may never see the hardship their comfort has had on the rest of the planet's lives. But you do.

A few months later you say “Welcome” to a few tourists. You are in uniform, all dressed up on the outside like any retail saleswoman should be on with the most "genuine smile" you can plaster on your face. On the inside, you're cursing the manager for making you work double shifts, pressuring you to sell more because the store isn't meeting its target for the month, not to mention the roommate who leaves everything a mess and your shoes...are painful. But you don't mind too much. Every dollar you earn is more money to survive with once your contract is over. You get nice vacation time with family for six months and then you get back to work. There's opportunity. You grow and learn on the job. So all the hardship seems to have been worth it.

Or so you thought.

You and other crewmates are staring at the T.V in the break room.

Just when things go right, the Universe dishes this out:

“This just in: Due to the threat of Covid-19 many ports across the globe has banned the docking of ships to prevent the spread of the virus. In other news, many companies including Royal Caribbean, Costa, Celebrity and Norweigan have sent more than half of their crew back to their homeland. What lies for the future of the tourism industry which as taken a toll due to the global lockdown? More details on the 5 o'clock news.”