One day in Angola, I had to embark on an unusual journey due to sudden events.
It was when I was still working at the Sanggu Public Housing, and one morning a worker from the masonry platoon did not arrive for work, and it turned out that he was booking a night at a local clubhouse, but he was detained because he could not pay the bill.
This seemingly tragic story led me into a strange and ironic situation.
The mason foreman put the blame on me and asked me to ransom the worker.
In the company, people were reluctant to ask about such things, but I finally decided to take on the responsibility. After reporting the cause of the incident to the leadership, I took 30,000 yuan in reserve money and set off with a black military driver to the Benfiga area, where the club was located.
When I arrived, the driver couldn't find the exact location, so I had to call and finally found the club in the black village behind the Red Star supermarket.
The whole process made me feel that it is not easy to do things in a foreign country, communication difficulties, unfamiliar geography, everything is so unpredictable.
When I entered the clubhouse, I realized that the environment was very different from what I expected. The high walls, the solid gates, and the observation holes on the black-lacquered gates all made me feel the special nature of this place.
The black driver I was working with seemed uneasy, and I chatted with a hostess in the clubhouse about the business.
The hostess told me that most of the guests here are students and workers from China, who have chosen this unusual way to make a living away from their homeland in order to make a living.
I felt a kind of helplessness and persistence in her words, and it was not easy to be a human being.
Eventually, I found the worker, who appeared in front of me with an apologetic face and a greedy smile. I paid 30,000 yuan and left the clubhouse with him.
On the way back to the office, he told me about his experience and how he was trapped in the clubhouse. All this gave me a deeper understanding of his situation.
After returning to the company, I fined the worker 200 RMB to warn the other employees.
This seemingly absurd experience became a topic of conversation within the company for a period of time, and it also gave me a deeper understanding of life in a foreign country.
This experience made me deeply aware of the impermanence of life, and everyone has their own struggles and helplessness. In this strange country, we try to survive, but the way of survival is very different, and some people choose a more difficult path, perhaps out of necessity, or out of necessity.