In a Beirut parking lot, migrant workers cheer on their teams playing a cricket match, a moment of respite in crisis-hit Lebanon where working conditions are often harsh.
“Sundays are very happy. We eat together, we laugh together,” said Pradipa Silva, 42, a cricketer from Sri Lanka, as he and his teammates prepared and shared coconut rice and other traditional dishes nearby.
“The work is very exhausting” and workers are stressed and anxious, said Silva, who works six days a week as a housekeeper to help pay for her daughter's college tuition back home.
Every Sunday, players, mostly from Sri Lanka but also from the Philippines, India and Pakistan, gather in Beirut's Ashrafieh district to play cricket, a sport little known in Lebanon.
Migrant workers are employed under Lebanon's controversial “kafala” guarantee system, which rights groups have repeatedly criticized for allowing a range of human rights abuses.
Hundreds of people gathered on May 19 for a tournament that featured traditional food stalls, a DJ playing Bollywood hits and other music, teams from the British and Sri Lankan embassies, and young Syrian refugee players.
Iris Sagario, from the Philippines, ran onto the field as a member of the Roaring Lions women's team wearing an orange and blue shirt with her name printed on the back.
“I love cricket,” says the 43-year-old housekeeper, “and I look forward to playing every Sunday” — her only day off.
After winning the match, Sagario's team cheered, hugged and high-fived each other – and then won the women's trophy.
– “The Lords of Lebanon” –
The International Organization for Migration reported that there were more than 160,000 migrants from 84 countries in Lebanon last year.
Amid rising tensions over the Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza, clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces and daily shelling in southern Lebanon, some foreign embassies have advised their nationals to leave the country.
“I was worried at first,” but “my husband (employer) assured me everything was OK,” said Sagario, who was in Lebanon in 2006 during the last war between Israel and Hezbollah.
“I chose to stay here because I don't know what I will do if I go back to the Philippines. I want to provide financial support to my family,” she said.
Curious passersby sometimes watched the game through the collapsed stone wall.
Tournament organiser Fernando Sugath, 52, of Sri Lankan origin, said he had nicknamed the car park that some of the players have used for about 20 years the “Rose of Lebanon” after the famous Lord's Cricket Ground in London, known as the “home of cricket”.
Sugas said games in the car park were suspended for five years because players could no longer access the lots, but would resume in 2022.
His team changed the name of the club to St. Joseph's Cricket Club in honour of the nearby church that helped them return to the site.
– “Let's give them freedom” –
Migrant workers at cricket matches “are very lucky because we have good employers who give us Sundays off,” said Sgath, who first came to Lebanon in 1996 as a cleaner and now works as an office worker.
Rights groups have long criticized Lebanon's restrictive sponsorship system, saying it encourages exploitation and leaves migrant workers at the mercy of their employers, amid persistent reports of physical and sexual abuse, unpaid wages and long working hours.
Sugas called on all employers to give their workers “at least one or two hours off on Sundays, to give them freedom, to allow them to use the phone, to call their families.”
When the boys' game began, sluggers smashed balls into the trees along the parking lot while fielders desperately tried to catch them.
Majid Satti, 39, from Pakistan, captained the Eleven Brothers team, made up of five Pakistani and six Indian players, which finished as runners-up in the men's tournament.
Relations between the two countries have long been tense, but “there are no problems. We are all like brothers here,” said Satti, a concierge who has lived in Lebanon for 15 years.
India's vice-captain Raju Singh, 41, said the players were “not thinking about politics at all”.
Singh, an electrician, wore the team's traditional white cricket uniform, long white trousers and white shoes and was one of those responsible for the coin toss to decide which team would field or bat first.
The Lebanese 500 lira coin he uses was worth about 35 US cents until 2019 but is now worth less than one cent due to Lebanon's economic collapse, which has led to some migrant workers being abandoned by their employers and others being forced to leave the country.
Singh said he loves cricket and travels nearly 30 kilometers (20 miles) every Sunday to play in matches.
“When I'm done and I get home, I'll wait for next Sunday,” he said.
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