Virtually all of the crew had a debt to clear, part of their indentured servitude, a “travel now, pay later” labor system that requires working to pay off money they often had to borrow to sneak illegally into a new country. One of the Cambodian boys approached me, and deeper into our conversation he tried to explain in broken English how elusive this debt became once they left land. Pointing to his own shadow and moving around as if he were trying to grab it, he said, “Can’t catch.”
