From "have not" to "have"

My last job with “Big Oil” was an assignment to a country not a million miles from here. For part of the time I was assigned to a site building an oil production facility. It was located about two hours drive from the nearest “large” town. For twelve months I travelled each Monday morning to the site and returned on Friday to my wife who remained in the capital. During that week I lived in a “single-wide” mobile home. This was located on a camp that dated back to days when the Seven Sisters controlled the country’s oil wealth. A high security fence enclosed a self-contained community. Within the wire were a well financed school, medical center, social club and swimming pool, supermarket, barbershop and beauty salon and even a 9-hole golf course with lighting so that oil company employees could complete their golf round without concern for the early tropical dusk. The camp had secure electric supply, treated water and mains sewage. We even had satellite TV and mobile phone service. It was remote, but not a hardship assignment.

On my drive to the construction site each morning I passed another community. This had no security fence, no supermarket, no swimming club, and no golf club. There was a few-room school but it had fewer teachers, no finance and no facilities. There was electricity and water. I never asked what happened to the sewage but in that community a well-developed sense of smell was not an asset.

There are a couple of verses in Matthew that always jar when I hear them. They are the ones that go, “whoever has will be given more . . . . whoever does not have, even that which he has will be taken away from him.” Jesus was not talking about worldly possessions but those verses came to mind each morning when I left my trailer and travelled to work. The gulf between those who had and those who had not was so embarrassingly evident.

The people of that country elected a new government almost ten years ago. So far, the gulf between rich and poor has not been removed. Still, I remain hopeful. During my adult life I have watched as an island country in Asia with no natural resources but a hard working and educated people became a commercial powerhouse. There is no reason why oil wealth should not be used to help nations closer to home follow that path.

I took the photograph above one afternoon when college students were on their way home. These are the future of that country. I am always nervous when taking street photographs. There are photographers who seem to merge with the crowd. I always feel that everyone is looking at me. I am tensed for that angry shout. That shout has not come yet and when I look at the images nobody is looking at the camera. Maybe I am invisible after all.