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I took an Uber ride back from the airport tonight with a young Afghan father of three who moved here three years ago after spending eight years working as a translator for the US military.
He works 60 hours a week driving for Uber and walked me through the economics of it...
He works 60 hours a week driving for Uber and walked me through the economics of it...
He grosses roughly $2,100 a week if he does 60 hours. After fuel and other costs that comes down to $1,800. He also counts the depreciation in value of his car. And that brings it down to $1,600.
That’s before taxes, of course.
That’s before taxes, of course.
His short-term dream is to get his trucking license. He has friends who sometimes make $4,000/week driving trucks, he told me. But he thinks he can make $100,000/year driving trucks. And that includes health benefits and a 401k...
His longer-term dream is to becoming a dealer in gem stones. So he is also studying gemology. Why, I asked? Well, because the Panjshir Valley, where he is from, is full of gemstones like emeralds and rubies.
The problem, though, is that there is no real commercial trade in gemstones from the Panjshir Valley. So you need to find a way to get them out and certify them and he thinks he may be able to set up a process to do that. But first he needs capital (ergo trucking) and knowledge.
He also thinks there’s a good opportunity in getting a cold storage business up and running in the Panjshir Valley. It’s fertile land.Lots of fruit and vegetables could be exported from there. But there’s not enough cold storage available...
His family is starting to settle in well in Virginia, although he admitted he’s been having some financial problems. “I need to take care of that first.”
And he knows his dreams of doing business with his home in the Panjshir Valley depend on the security situation improving. Things are still bad, he said, but his parents live in a relatively safe part of the valley. He and they are Tajiks. The Pashtun areas have been hit harder.
I’m going to be thinking of my Uber driver for a while, I suspect. He is a young immigrant with big dreams. He’s also a Muslim.
It never came up during our ride. But the whole time I was listening to his story I kept thinking of what happened in New Zealand earlier that day...
It never came up during our ride. But the whole time I was listening to his story I kept thinking of what happened in New Zealand earlier that day...
49 people died in a horrific attack in Christchurch because one of my countrymen - an Australian - had been convinced to believe that other young men like my Uber driver represent some kind of threat.
After today I’m pretty sure I know who the bigger threat is. And it’s not my Uber driver or anyone like him... I wished my driver luck when he dropped me off this evening. He has big plans. He has a family to take care of. He’s going to need all the luck he can find...
But I think he’s going to make it.
