This apartment has finally been put to rights...which means that we switched out the sofas and ours are nestled comfortably in the living room, while the landlord's set is cowering under some gawd awful slip covers I bought at the grocery store. It's a bit crowded out there on the supposed-to-be-lovely terrace because we bought a patio table and chair set for six....complete with umbrella, and a deck box. We really have to get rid of those sofas....somehow. The landlord isn't taking our calls.
I got around to hiring a maid through an agency and, this time, had the forethought to make sure my keys were handy before she arrived for her first day. (See "How I Met the Maid" back in 2008) The doors, here, are the same as they were in Baku...you need a key to unlock them from the inside, and if someone wanted to, they could lock me in here, and take away the key....not that's ever happened before. Hmmmmm....
So...Charo, the new maid, shows up on her first day. My first thought....this isn't really the maid, but a girl who had gotten lost on her way to school. She's so tiny! In my head, I keep referring to her as "minute maid" because that's about how big she is.
As it turns out, she was 21 and had been in Dubai for four days. She was a little shy but managed to tell me that she had come from the Philippines on a two year contract. She had left her two daughters, age six and one, with her husband and she was finding it tough to be away from them. I can't imagine....I asked her when she could go home to visit them, and I think she said it would be at the end of her contract. I hope I have that wrong....it's so long!
On her second day Charo asked that if I had anything that I don't need or want she would be more than happy to take it off my hands. I tried to get her to be more specific about what she needed but she just said "anything". She didn't have a pillow and I got a bit sheepish about the two king size beds resplendent with 8 pillows each! And I still had ones I wasn't using....
I've made a couple of trips to Ikea to pick her up a few things, though I wish I knew what she needed the most. The other day she fished some wire hangers out of the trash and asked for those. She's always very grateful for a bottle of water and accepts all offers of juice or soda. She eats her lunch (a small bowl of rice with something on the side), here, before she leaves for her next place. At first she asked permission to sit on the floor in the foyer to eat, but I insist she sit at the diningroom table. I sit and chat with her, and am learning what a sweet young woman she is. She thinks I'm very kind, and I think she's very strong despite being no bigger than a minute. I wasn't sure I would see her again after that first day, she seemed so homesick, but she's still here trying to earn money for her family back home.
I do wonder, though, if a little bird has told her about my last place of residence because she only refers to me as "Madam".
I got around to hiring a maid through an agency and, this time, had the forethought to make sure my keys were handy before she arrived for her first day. (See "How I Met the Maid" back in 2008) The doors, here, are the same as they were in Baku...you need a key to unlock them from the inside, and if someone wanted to, they could lock me in here, and take away the key....not that's ever happened before. Hmmmmm....
So...Charo, the new maid, shows up on her first day. My first thought....this isn't really the maid, but a girl who had gotten lost on her way to school. She's so tiny! In my head, I keep referring to her as "minute maid" because that's about how big she is.
As it turns out, she was 21 and had been in Dubai for four days. She was a little shy but managed to tell me that she had come from the Philippines on a two year contract. She had left her two daughters, age six and one, with her husband and she was finding it tough to be away from them. I can't imagine....I asked her when she could go home to visit them, and I think she said it would be at the end of her contract. I hope I have that wrong....it's so long!
On her second day Charo asked that if I had anything that I don't need or want she would be more than happy to take it off my hands. I tried to get her to be more specific about what she needed but she just said "anything". She didn't have a pillow and I got a bit sheepish about the two king size beds resplendent with 8 pillows each! And I still had ones I wasn't using....
I've made a couple of trips to Ikea to pick her up a few things, though I wish I knew what she needed the most. The other day she fished some wire hangers out of the trash and asked for those. She's always very grateful for a bottle of water and accepts all offers of juice or soda. She eats her lunch (a small bowl of rice with something on the side), here, before she leaves for her next place. At first she asked permission to sit on the floor in the foyer to eat, but I insist she sit at the diningroom table. I sit and chat with her, and am learning what a sweet young woman she is. She thinks I'm very kind, and I think she's very strong despite being no bigger than a minute. I wasn't sure I would see her again after that first day, she seemed so homesick, but she's still here trying to earn money for her family back home.
I do wonder, though, if a little bird has told her about my last place of residence because she only refers to me as "Madam".
1 comment:
That's an amazing story. We don't realize how much we have and how lucky we are. This is one of the reasons I don't like to believe in reincarnation...
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