Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [115]
“Faris, it’s Trident. It’s a famous brand. They can look it up on the Web!”
“These are not educated men, Jennifer.”
“Apparently not.”
“They don’t know how to look anything up. They might not be able to read.”
I sit in silence for a moment. “I bet they took it all home,” I say. “I bet they just want it for themselves.”
Faris nods slowly. “They probably do.”
We sit in silence. “I guess I wouldn’t want it back now anyway then.” I look up at him.
He nods gravely. “You probably wouldn’t.”
SIXTEEN
the power of peanut butter cups
There are moments, even whole days, when everything falls into place. Reporters give me coherent stories, photographs come in on time, and the men actually return from lunch at a decent hour. Progress is irrefutable. But just when I am feeling most hopeful, I run up against obstacles that it is not in my power to remove. I can edit poorly written stories. I can assist shoddy reporting. I can enforce deadlines. But some things, only Faris can remedy.
Staffing is one of these. Every time I feel I have enough reporters, somebody quits. They all leave for the same reasons: They are not paid enough, they receive no health insurance or other benefits, and the administration treats them shabbily.
My reporters are attractive to international employers, who constantly poach them, because they are educated and speak English. When the Red Cross offers Hassan a job with decent pay and benefits, he has no choice but to accept, though he loves being a reporter. He and his Yemeni wife have just had a baby, he’s having expensive medical problems, and he’s just taken a Canadian second wife. But he also leaves because of the Doctor. For months, the Doctor has been harassing Hassan, withholding his salary until I march into his office to remonstrate. This happens with monotonous regularity. The Doctor claims that Hassan isn’t working. I tell the Doctor that Hassan certainly is working, and that if he weren’t, I would be the first to know. Hassan has no idea why he is singled out for abuse, and the Doctor gives me no reason other than Hassan’s alleged laziness—which is laughable. He is one of my most reliable men.
I am heartbroken to lose Hassan. He is a passionate journalist, dedicated to improvement, and without a disagreeable bone in his body. Unlike the other men, he relishes criticism of his work so he can learn. But Faris refuses to invest in his staff. Every time I tell him how important this is, that without decent reporters the entire enterprise is worthless, he tells me he pays them a livable wage. While it may be true that $200 a month is relative riches in Sana’a, it is obviously not enough to support a family or to keep reporters from looking for other jobs.
“It takes me months to train a reporter,” I tell him. “When they quit I have to start all over again with someone new. The paper is constantly losing its most valuable people.”
Faris shrugs. “So you can feel you are doing some good in the world,” he says. “You train them so well they get other jobs and succeed.”
I didn’t come here to train journalists so that they could leave the profession, I say. “I came here to make this a better paper and to help the staff to become more professional. I cannot do this when everyone keeps quitting.”
NOT LONG AFTER HASSAN GOES, Bashir gives notice. For once, his chubby face isn’t smiling. His wife is pregnant, and he has been offered a well-paid job with a telecommunications company. I’ve spent six months training him. Now all of my careful cultivation has been rendered meaningless. Again, Sisyphus springs to mind. I can’t help tearing up when he tells me. Bashir is sad too. “I don’t want to go,” he says. “But I have no choice. I don’t make enough here to support a family.”
Whenever I tell Faris that low wages and lack of benefits are losing us valuable employees, he reminds me that the paper isn’t making money. He seems to think that if only we wrote better stories, we’d all be rich. I remind him that it is not the mission of the editorial staff to make money; it is our mission