Cab Driver Blues

“That,” my cab driver says, pointing to the vast tenement blocks of Jakarta, “is where my life is.”
The area below us is along a fetid canal, its sides plaqued with grocery bags and paper. Not right there, he indicates in a broken English, but in a place just like it nearby.
It turns out this cabbie is in a chatty mood. Indonesians as a rule are a kind and friendly lot; they are intensely interested in others, in sharing their lives and finding out about yours.
My driver is 31, 41 or 51; it's hard to tell from either his English or his looks. He has eight kids. Married young, he struggles to feed his family.
“Maybe I come work in your country,” he says to me as we crawl through traffic. “What does a driver make in Canada?”
I figure a safe guess is $35,000 a year.
“A driver makes about $120 US a day,” I say.
His eyes widen. “$120?”.
“Yes,” I say. “But remember. It is expensive to live there.”
I make a list of deductions for him. Taxes, take off at least one third. Gasoline, $40 a day. Insurance. Cab licences. Even a coffee, I tell him, will cost 25,000 rupiah.
“In the end, you might take home only $20 or $30.”
“$120,” he repeats to himself again, rolling the incredible number around in his mind. What he could do with such wealth.
“Yes, but lots of bills,” I repeat, not trying to raise his hopes. “How much do you make in a day?”
“It goes up, it goes down," he explains. "About 60,000, 70000 rupiah.”
Eight dollars a day to feed a family of eight. Still, compared to the Indonesian average- $2 a day- he's doing well.
We pull off the expressway, into the gridlock below. Street kids swarm, plaster their faces to the windows of the cab and beg. A 10-year-old boy, carrying his baby sister, picks our car.
“I'm sorry about that,” the driver says to me, ashamed of the street urchins.
“Hey, not your fault,” I say, wondering whose fault it is. I gaze out across the road, studiously not seeing what's inches in front of me, while my driver dreams of Canadian streets of gold.