"Baba": Daddy [Part Five]

There was one problem on the whole job hunt in Greece; my father could only speak Chaldean!

So he was summoned to the factory.

My father’s first job was at a can factory. Not like canned corn or anything but just a factory to make cans. I guess I never really thought of a factory to make cans only; I mean someone has to make them. I remember my father telling me that it was the loudest place he has ever been. Just imagine, thousands of empty cans clanging together in a huge factory. He told me he can still hear the noise today.

After his job at the can factory, he decided to look for a better job that would at least let him keep his hearing for the rest of his life. So he picked up a job at yet another factory, but this time would be a sliding glass door factory.

Less noise this time but it was not very safe. I remember my dad was always given third shift and worked at the part of the factory floor that caught the sliding doors as they would come off the belt. This didn’t seem like an exciting job to me at all. However, the way my father told the stories of his shift shenanigans it seemed like the ideal job.

Maybe it seemed ideal because of the one man who shared his shift all the time. This man’s name was Mike and he was also an immigrant from Iraq. Mike was from a village near Bagdad so in a way my father and mike were from two different worlds. But in other ways they felt at home when they would be working. My father learned that Mike was also on his way to America and had been on the American Red Cross waiting list for almost a year.

They became the best of friends during their factory days and only God knew where their friendship would lead them.