There's two things I'm really proud of in this week's Review. I'm going to copy and paste the first paragraph here, but it's worth looking at the photos online and reading the whole thing. The first is John's story about remittances, which he worked really hard on. He wrote it before we went to Cambodia, took a break to do the Cambodia reporting, and then came back and stayed up many nights editing and finishing. I'm proud of it because I didn't kill him. The second is about a concert Martha, Lauren and I went to on Monday in Dubai. I loved the concert, and then writing it... I don't know how to explain it, somehow it made me feel like I was helping to put these subaltern labourers' voices on the map. Of course the people who organized the concert really did, but then none of the press coverage mentioned these guys' names, or bothered to interview them. I loved interviewing them. It made me want to be a journalist. Of course I love Bollywood songs, too.

Bringing it all back home
February 19, 2010, John Gravois
Down the glass-fronted row of exchange houses along Abu Dhabi’s Liwa Street – the city’s unofficial remittance district, where hundreds of security cameras monitor a long, intermittent border-fence of plexiglas teller windows – Maridel Estrelles walked briskly one recent afternoon carrying a glossy faux-leather handbag and, as usual, a wallet full of other people’s money. Trying to keep pace alongside her was a young Bangladeshi man in a spread-collared shirt named Zilani, who carried a small, scuffed laptop folio with flimsy turquoise piping. They were rushing to catch a taxi to the Musaffah Industrial District, 30 minutes away, hoping to arrive there ahead of the clattering buses bound home for the labour camps at sundown.

Whistle while you work: An unlaboured concert in Dubai
February 19, 2010, Rose Dakin
The other night, Mukesh Manilal Patel stood in front of a jam-packed room and opened his mouth to sing. “Hera, hera”, he started, hushing the raucous crowd as his voice filled the space: up to the tall industrial ceilings, across the floors strewn with giant bean bags and down the shelves full of art supplies along the walls. It was standing-room only at the JamJar art gallery, and home-made cupcakes were Dh10 each. The winners of Western Union’s inter-labour camp “Camp ka Champ” singing competition had come to make an appearance in the heart of Dubai’s Al Quoz hub for the aspiring creative class.