Chapter 117 : That Time I Built a First-Generation New Town in South America (4)

TL: Skye

Caracas, Venezuela.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Sophia, San Marcos's Senior Secretary for Foreign Affairs, sat across from Venezuelan Foreign Minister Carlos Mendoza.

A draft of the Labor Dispatch Agreement lay on the table.

Mendoza flipped through the documents and spoke.

"It's a good proposal, but... we can't simply send them over for nothing."

"What do you mean?"

"We're sending our own citizens. Naturally, there has to be something in it for us."

Sophia narrowed her eyes, and Mendoza continued.

"We're asking for a monthly fee of one hundred dollars per worker, paid to the Venezuelan government."

Sophia set the documents down.

"Minister."

"Yes."

"I've heard Venezuela's unemployment rate is currently over sixty percent."

"......"

"That means six out of every ten citizens are unemployed. Naturally, the streets are overflowing with people out of work, and the longer this situation continues, the worse your already precarious public security will become."

Sophia spoke calmly.

"We're taking those unemployed people off your hands. We pay their wages, we feed them, and we provide their lodging. We're doing the Venezuelan government's job for you."

"That may be true, but..."

"Shouldn't you be paying us instead?"

Mendoza's expression hardened.

Sophia picked up the documents again.

"I'll be frank. If this agreement goes through, the Venezuelan government can send tens of thousands of unemployed people overseas. Your unemployment rate falls, and social unrest eases. Add in the remittances those workers will earn and send home, and it will benefit the Venezuelan economy as well."

Sophia looked Mendoza straight in the eye.

"You're already gaining plenty from this arrangement. Isn't asking for an additional fee a little excessive?"

Mendoza bit his lip.

She was right.

From the Venezuelan government's perspective, simply sending its unemployed citizens abroad was already a major benefit.

But domestic political considerations made it difficult to send them away empty-handed.

More than anything, conditions at home were simply too dire.

"...We need at least a minimal fee if I'm going to persuade the National Assembly."

He knew it was unreasonable, but Venezuela's economy had deteriorated to the point where they had no choice but to grasp at something like this.

Perhaps sensing his intentions, Sophia thought for a moment before answering.

"Twenty dollars per worker per month. In exchange, the Venezuelan government will take responsibility for everything from recruitment to screening."

"Twenty dollars? I distinctly said one hundred."

"At twenty dollars, tens of thousands of workers would still bring hundreds of thousands of dollars into the Venezuelan government's coffers every month. Wouldn't that be enough to persuade the National Assembly?"

Mendoza did the math.

Ten thousand workers meant two hundred thousand dollars a month.

San Marcos wanted a total of one hundred thousand workers, which meant two million dollars a month.

For Venezuela's public finances, ravaged by hyperinflation, that was no small sum.

Mendoza sighed and lowered his head.

It was miserable.

Venezuela had once been known as South America's largest oil-producing nation, and now it had been reduced to exporting laborers to a neighboring country and collecting a per-head fee...

"...Very well. We'll agree to twenty dollars."

Sophia nodded and took out a pen.

"A wise decision, Minister. This will bring significant benefits to both countries."

Mendoza did not answer.

He merely squeezed his eyes shut and signed.

*

Once negotiations concluded, the Venezuelan government immediately began recruiting workers.

A recruitment office was set up near Bolívar Square in central Caracas.

[Recruiting Construction Workers for San Marcos]

Conditions: $500 monthly salary + 3 meals per day + housing provided

Qualifications: Healthy men aged 18 to 50

Preferred: Construction experience

Once the announcement went up on the government's official website, word spread across social media.

"San Marcos is hiring construction workers."

"San Marcos? Where's that?"

"Not far from here. Somewhere in the Caribbean."

"They give you three meals a day?"

"Three meals and housing. The salary's five hundred dollars a month."

"Five hundred dollars?! You can't even make ten bucks a month here right now!"

"Apparently their country's doing incredibly well. I heard they built highways, steelworks, even a nuclear power plant."

"Seriously? What if we get there and they change the deal?"

"Exactly. Isn't that country even poorer than us?"

"Hey, what country is poorer than Venezuela right now?"

"...Fair point."

"I'm going to apply tomorrow. Wanna come?"

"Of course. Better to haul bricks over there than starve to death here."

Food.

That single word was enough.

In Venezuela at the time, only a small minority could afford three meals a day.

Most families ate once a day, twice if they were lucky.

And for countless households, even that amounted to nothing more than a piece of bread and some water.

In a country like that, three meals a day and a guaranteed salary sounded like magic.

And so, at five the next morning.

The line outside the recruitment office grew longer and longer as time passed.

It wrapped all the way around the square and spilled into the neighboring alleys, and applicants began entering one at a time for interviews.

"I have twenty years of experience pouring concrete. I can operate cranes too."

"I don't have any construction experience... but I'm strong. Just tell me what to do, and I'll do anything!"

"How long do I need to work? One year? Two? I can do either. I need to send money home to my family."

The interviewers evaluated them one by one.

Applicants with construction experience received priority.

Even without experience, anyone young and physically healthy passed.

By the end of the three-day recruitment period, the number of applicants had exceeded 1.25 million.

To prevent chaos at the site, interviews were scheduled to be conducted in a total of ten rounds, with the competition exceeding ninety applicants for every available position.

In the end, the first group of fifteen thousand selected workers completed preparations to leave for San Marcos.

BWOOOO-

Seven days later, the day of departure.

Port of Caracas.

Five large passenger ships sat at anchor.

Ships flying the San Marcos flag.

The selected workers boarded in orderly lines.

Their families had come to see them off at the pier.

It was a scene of painful farewells.

In one place, a wife clung to her husband's hand and refused to let go.

"You have to come back safe!"

"I'll make lots of money and be back before you know it."

Elsewhere, a child with a tear-streaked face tugged at his father's trousers.

"Daddy's going away for work. Wait ten days and I'll be back."

BWOOOO- BWOOOO-

When the ship horns sounded to announce that departure was imminent, everyone hurried through their final goodbyes and boarded.

Soon, everyone aboard the departing ships stood along the railings and waved.

Their families grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

They kept waving until they could no longer make out their faces, then gripped the railings and lowered their heads.

The sky over Caracas was overcast that day.

---

Meanwhile, at the same time.

Tortilla Farm, San Marcos.

Inside one of the barracks of the massive correctional facility located deep within the Central Basin, a man sat facing a sheet of stationery.

It was Pierson, now in his fourth year at the Farm after being sent there for drug distribution and theft.

Inmates at the Farm were allowed to send letters to their families once a month, but he had not written a single letter in four years.

Not because he had nothing to say, but because he believed he had no right to say it.

But today was different.

Today, he had to write.

Because for the first time, he had hope that he might be able to return to his family.

Pierson picked up a pencil and began writing in a steady hand.

My beloved Maria.

It's already been four years since I left you and came here.

When they first dragged me to this place, all I wanted was to die.

I'd wake up at four in the morning and cut sugarcane until sunset, and there was never any end to it. Even when my hands bled, I couldn't stop. Even when it felt like my back was going to break, I couldn't rest. I kept wondering if this was any way for a human being to live.

But you know, after about six months, something strange happened. My head started to clear.

Before I came here, I drank every day, gambled, and picked fights. I thought that was just how life worked. If I needed money, I'd take it from someone. If someone pissed me off, I'd hit them. If I was hungry, I'd steal something.

But cutting sugarcane here made me realize something. I could make something with my own hands. The sugarcane I cut became sugar, and that sugar ended up on someone's table. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing something useful for the world.

Funny, isn't it? Feeling something like that in a place like this.

Maria. I was a terrible husband.

When you were sick, I never once took you to the hospital. When Carlos said he wanted to go to school, I slapped him across the face, and when Lucia cried because she was hungry, I got angry at her.

Even on the days I said I was going out to earn money, I was actually at the gambling den.

And in the end, I wound up here...

Maria, it was all my fault.

I don't even know if I have the right to tell you I'm sorry. No, I probably don't.

But there's one thing I want you to know.

There hasn't been a single day in the last four years when I didn't think about you and the kids.

Every morning when I got up and went out to the fields, I'd look at the sky and think about you and the children.

Carlos must have grown so much. I wonder if Lucia is still a crybaby. I wonder if you're eating properly. If you've been sick.

I didn't stop writing because I'd forgotten you.

I tried to write every day. But I never knew what to say. I'm sorry? I miss you? Every time I wondered whether someone like me had the right to say those things, I put the pencil back down.

But today, I decided I had to write.

I heard from one of the guards today that His Excellency is building a new city. A really huge one. But there aren't enough people to work on it, so they're sending anyone who volunteers to the new-city construction site.

And they say if we work hard there, they'll release us as free men.

Maria, I might actually be able to leave this place and come back to you.

I know that just sending money doesn't make someone a husband... or a father.

I'm not going to ask you to forgive me.

That's not something I can earn just by saying it.

I'll show you through my actions for the rest of my life.

I want to be a good father to Carlos and Lucia. And to you... I want to become the most caring husband in the world.

Once I'm out, I'll make up for everything I failed to do over these past four years, one thing at a time.

I've changed, Maria.

The man I am now isn't the same man I was four years ago.

I've made you lose too much to ask you to believe me, but even so, I hope you'll give me just one more chance.

Your husband, Pierson...

Pierson folded the letter with trembling hands, pouring all those feelings into it.

The sky above Tortilla Farm was filled with stars.

*****

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