There’s a conversation that happens in expat-land that sounds a bit like what prisoners in a jail yard might say to one another:
“what brought you here?how long have you been here? when are you leaving?”
Sometimes people answer these questions with slumped shoulders and a shake of the head, which usually means that a) they’ve been here in Abu Dhabi for far too long and aren’t leaving any time soon; or b) they just got here and still haven’t figured out the basics, like getting the vegetables weighed in the produce section before they get in the checkout line.
The most cheerful answer I’ve gotten thus far to these questions has been from a woman named Janice, who is here from the Philippines. Her good cheer surprised me because at the time of our conversation, she was energetically applying a pumice to my heels.
Now, as feet go, mine aren’t hideous but they are feet and I’ve been using them for more than forty years, so they’re not exactly pink and baby-soft, either.
Janice was mid-way through my lovely pedicure when we started our “how long have you been here” conversation, so her answers were punctuated with “rinse please madam,” and “file or clip, madam?” (One of things I’m not yet used to, after almost nine months here, is being called “madam” by anyone in any kind of service job.)
Janice has been in Abu Dhabi for six years, working in this same salon, sending money home the entire time. I say something inane, like “that’s a lot of feet.” She smiles and says “is okay, madam, I am sending my brothers to college, madam, and the tuition….” She rolls her eyes as if to suggest that it’s a lot, switches her attention to my other foot, pushes at the nails.
“But I am lucky, madam, because my brother, he is a scholar and get a discount, so that instead of 30,000 pesos, tuition it is only 15,000, and my other brother, he take a test and get a discount now of 25%, so is only 15,000 also. I send home 300 dirhams a month, ma’am, is not bad.”
My pedicure will cost me about 65 dirhams (a little less than $20).
The Manhattan cynic in my soul wonders if Janice is telling me this story to beef up her tip. I immediately swat the cynic with my mental handbag. No one could lie this cheerfully while rubbing someone else’s feet.
“No, ma’am I finish only the tenth grade,” she says, scraping at a nasty tough bit near my toe. “My parents, they say they are lucky because I do not think of myself only, I do not get married like my cousins do, at 16.” She laughs a little. Do I imagine she sounds happy to have escaped marriage at 16, children at 17?
“But boys, is important. To work construction, like my older brother, is too hard work, dangerous. He does not complain, but we know.” She inspects my toes for flaws, clips an errant hangnail. “My brothers, they will be men with families to take care of, and is better if they not work construction. One brother, he is training for the customs inspector, for the airlines. Is a good job. The other brother, he just starts, so, we do not know what he will be. Every month, is something else!” She giggles, rubs delicately scented lotion into my feet.
Kneading my calf muscles, she sighs. “But madam, I visit last month, first time in one year, and I saw all my nieces and nephews, I have 15 of them, madam. Some are just babies…and there are no babies here, madam.”
With deft fingers, she starts to apply the polish to my toes. I’ve chosen a pale pink, almost invisible. She looks up at me for a minute, then bends her head to my toes. “When I came back here, I was alone in the house, and I was all day crying because I miss them. I am homesick, madam, I think to myself.”
She sits back and admires her work. My feet look and feel wonderful. I thank her, and say “I hope your brothers work as hard in college as you’re working for them.” She looks slightly shocked.
“I am lucky, madam. My brothers, they are good boys. They study hard. I want them to have a better life.” She slides my flip-flops onto my feet and guides me to the drying lamps.
Her brothers had better do more than study hard. They’d better graduate at the top of their class, get great jobs, buy their sister a huge house overlooking the sea, and consider spending all their free time rubbing her feet.
As for me and my pampered toes? We slunk out of the salon, uncomfortably aware of our own privilege and unsure whether, if we were to swap positions with Janice, we would be able to be so cheerful about spending our days bent over other people’s feet.
When have you been hit, unexpectedly, by lessons in class privilege, and how do you handle it?
This is an original post for World Mom’s Blog by Deborah Quinn.
Photo credit to the author.
Lessons in class privilege are so necessary! Thank you for providing this one Deborah.
these lessons – or we could call them reality slaps – were not a part of what I expected when we moved to AD, in part because so many of the Emiratis themselves are tremendously wealthy. I hadn’t realized how many “laborers” (as they’re called, which is a whole ‘nother post) did all the (literally) dirty work of the city/country…
Lessons in class privilege are so necessary! Thank you for providing this one Deborah.
these lessons – or we could call them reality slaps – were not a part of what I expected when we moved to AD, in part because so many of the Emiratis themselves are tremendously wealthy. I hadn’t realized how many “laborers” (as they’re called, which is a whole ‘nother post) did all the (literally) dirty work of the city/country…
I’m with you on the better buy her a big house etc etc. It is incredible what people will do for others, especially family. Thanks for sharing this, and I loved the snippets about the pedicure throughout. 🙂
I swear, she’s going to be my go-to pedicurist from now on, although then I think to myself that probably ALL these women have similar stories of one sort or another. It’s kind of stunning.
I’m with you on the better buy her a big house etc etc. It is incredible what people will do for others, especially family. Thanks for sharing this, and I loved the snippets about the pedicure throughout. 🙂
I swear, she’s going to be my go-to pedicurist from now on, although then I think to myself that probably ALL these women have similar stories of one sort or another. It’s kind of stunning.
Wow. That touched a nerve with me. The being not grateful enough nerve. Excellently written as well.
Wow. That touched a nerve with me. The being not grateful enough nerve. Excellently written as well.
This may sound like denial (it probably is, in part), but what most strikes me about this story is not the privilege gulf of personal service but the cost-benefit dynamic of Janice’s kinship web. One of my sisters works harder than all of the rest of us put together (and there are 6 siblings), and—like Janice—she seems nonplussed by our attention to it. In my sister’s mind, work=family, and who wouldn’t want to experience family connectedness? My sister works as a house cleaner, which may be a step less personal than pedicurage [sic], but not 10 steps. Still, a deep and obvious difference is that my sister did not have to become a foreign worker, so she is also sustained by actual family connectedness on a regular basis. I suppose I’m thinking that it’s not exactly feet that are the problem so much as how the global flow of money makes it necessary for Filipinas to go to Abu Dhabi to net 300 dihrams a month.
Bingo. The flow of money into the Filipines from overseas is some kind of stunning figure – I have a Filipino student who told me last semester how much it was – my jaw dropped. And also, he reported, if all the overseas workers were to come BACK to the Filipines, there would be an entire series of crises in housing, food, infrastructure. And of course – she sends back 300 dh but I don’t know what she needs in order to survive here – food isn’t cheap and I doubt she has free housing…Her loneliness combined with her good cheer kind of blew me away.
This may sound like denial (it probably is, in part), but what most strikes me about this story is not the privilege gulf of personal service but the cost-benefit dynamic of Janice’s kinship web. One of my sisters works harder than all of the rest of us put together (and there are 6 siblings), and—like Janice—she seems nonplussed by our attention to it. In my sister’s mind, work=family, and who wouldn’t want to experience family connectedness? My sister works as a house cleaner, which may be a step less personal than pedicurage [sic], but not 10 steps. Still, a deep and obvious difference is that my sister did not have to become a foreign worker, so she is also sustained by actual family connectedness on a regular basis. I suppose I’m thinking that it’s not exactly feet that are the problem so much as how the global flow of money makes it necessary for Filipinas to go to Abu Dhabi to net 300 dihrams a month.
Bingo. The flow of money into the Filipines from overseas is some kind of stunning figure – I have a Filipino student who told me last semester how much it was – my jaw dropped. And also, he reported, if all the overseas workers were to come BACK to the Filipines, there would be an entire series of crises in housing, food, infrastructure. And of course – she sends back 300 dh but I don’t know what she needs in order to survive here – food isn’t cheap and I doubt she has free housing…Her loneliness combined with her good cheer kind of blew me away.
Once a week, for the last 15 years or so, a cleaning lady has been coming to my modest home in Cape Town. She does all the chores that I don’t like to do – washing floors, windows etc. She’s a single mother who has had to take in all her nieces and nephews as her sister and brother died from AIDS. Recently her younger daughter graduated from high school and she was very happy that there was now the chance of an extra person earning money for the household. Unfortunately, the girl was barely out of school and fell pregnant. Now my sweet cleaning lady, who is only a few years older than me, has a granddaughter to support too!
Through all her trials and tribulations (and trust me … I haven’t even scratched the surface here) she is always upbeat and grateful that she is able to work! I feel so helpless sometimes, because I’d love to be able to pay her more but I’ve often had to fight with my husband just to keep her for one day a week! I’m always so conscious of the fact that she relies on what I pay her, even though it isn’t that much.
In the current economic climate everyone is having to tighten their belts. Of course I could do my own housework and put the money I give her towards a necessity rather than a “nice to have”. What stops me is the thought that if I let her go, the odds of her getting another job are slim to none! Since she’s the only person bringing money into her household, I’d be responsible for all of them going hungry. This is a very sobering and humbling thought.
I thank God every day that I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to help feed another family and take care of mine too!
I’ve never in my life been able to afford a cleaning person and now that I live here, where foreign labor is so cheap, I can. TWICE a week, which seems to me the ultimate in luxury. Of course friends with live-in help and drivers and etc etc think that I’m barely scraping by. But anyway – I’m torn between feeling like I’m exploiting this lovely woman from Sri Lanka who cleans my house and being aware that she wants the money to support family back home. So I am both part of the problem and (I hope ) part of the solution – or at least, part of the temporary solution, because the real problem is WAY bigger than who cleans my house.
I believe that your cleaning person is grateful for the opportunity to work. Many people are too proud to accept “charity”, however they can hold their head high (even if they do menial labour) because they have earned what they get. So don’t feel guilty! I wish I could offer my lady a full-time position. She has often told me that she’d love to work for me full-time instead of having to work for 6 different people every week! She knows that our fortunes are tied to each other – if I get a salary increase so does she, but if I don’t, I can’t afford to give her more either!
Once a week, for the last 15 years or so, a cleaning lady has been coming to my modest home in Cape Town. She does all the chores that I don’t like to do – washing floors, windows etc. She’s a single mother who has had to take in all her nieces and nephews as her sister and brother died from AIDS. Recently her younger daughter graduated from high school and she was very happy that there was now the chance of an extra person earning money for the household. Unfortunately, the girl was barely out of school and fell pregnant. Now my sweet cleaning lady, who is only a few years older than me, has a granddaughter to support too!
Through all her trials and tribulations (and trust me … I haven’t even scratched the surface here) she is always upbeat and grateful that she is able to work! I feel so helpless sometimes, because I’d love to be able to pay her more but I’ve often had to fight with my husband just to keep her for one day a week! I’m always so conscious of the fact that she relies on what I pay her, even though it isn’t that much.
In the current economic climate everyone is having to tighten their belts. Of course I could do my own housework and put the money I give her towards a necessity rather than a “nice to have”. What stops me is the thought that if I let her go, the odds of her getting another job are slim to none! Since she’s the only person bringing money into her household, I’d be responsible for all of them going hungry. This is a very sobering and humbling thought.
I thank God every day that I’m fortunate enough to be in a position to help feed another family and take care of mine too!
I’ve never in my life been able to afford a cleaning person and now that I live here, where foreign labor is so cheap, I can. TWICE a week, which seems to me the ultimate in luxury. Of course friends with live-in help and drivers and etc etc think that I’m barely scraping by. But anyway – I’m torn between feeling like I’m exploiting this lovely woman from Sri Lanka who cleans my house and being aware that she wants the money to support family back home. So I am both part of the problem and (I hope ) part of the solution – or at least, part of the temporary solution, because the real problem is WAY bigger than who cleans my house.
I believe that your cleaning person is grateful for the opportunity to work. Many people are too proud to accept “charity”, however they can hold their head high (even if they do menial labour) because they have earned what they get. So don’t feel guilty! I wish I could offer my lady a full-time position. She has often told me that she’d love to work for me full-time instead of having to work for 6 different people every week! She knows that our fortunes are tied to each other – if I get a salary increase so does she, but if I don’t, I can’t afford to give her more either!
I’m hit by “lessons” in class privledge almost daily, and find it one of the hardest things about living here in Kenya. The inequities of the world are literally at my doorstep and it’s hard not to be moved by it. I’m certainly not endowed wiht any more gifts or drive than the average Kenyan and I have so much more. I’ll never get used to the unfairness of it all. This was just a great post Deborah!
yeah – the sheer “much-ness” of my life here, which is not really that much…and then again, there are people here (different from Kenya, I imagine) who have SO SO SO much – wealth on a scale I can only barely imagine…and so to those people, I got bupkes. it’s a bit like being back in Manhattan again – so many contexts in which to situate yourself – and yet in Abu Dhabi, the extremes are way more extreme, in both directions.
I’m hit by “lessons” in class privledge almost daily, and find it one of the hardest things about living here in Kenya. The inequities of the world are literally at my doorstep and it’s hard not to be moved by it. I’m certainly not endowed wiht any more gifts or drive than the average Kenyan and I have so much more. I’ll never get used to the unfairness of it all. This was just a great post Deborah!
yeah – the sheer “much-ness” of my life here, which is not really that much…and then again, there are people here (different from Kenya, I imagine) who have SO SO SO much – wealth on a scale I can only barely imagine…and so to those people, I got bupkes. it’s a bit like being back in Manhattan again – so many contexts in which to situate yourself – and yet in Abu Dhabi, the extremes are way more extreme, in both directions.
I wish I could carry this around and hand it out every time someone asks me why I don’t have domestic help.
Kim – yes, I get it (I don’t want live-in help b/c frankly, I don’t want a witness to what goes on here behind closed doors!) … but at the same time, the woman who cleans my apartment twice a week…she needs/wants the money. Which is awful – she should be able to live in her own country (Sri Lanka) and be able to provide for herself, but that’s not possible. So. What to do – see Mamma Simona, above – if I don’t pay Farana to clean my house, then she doesn’t get that money…and she needs the money. But I am aware that in NYC she would easily make triple, quadruple, what I pay her here – which is considered a very generous wage. But I don’t have to pay her that here…so I don’t. It feels very very complicated to me, and I have a big ol’ complex about it, to boot.
I realized after I replied that it was an overly simplistic response to a seriously complex situation. I know I am being completely hypocritical. I do have someone who comes weekly to clean and someone else who babysits. I’m also writing this on a device that I could only afford becausee the manufacturer exploited cheap labor in impoverished countries. I didn’t mean to get holier than thou. I thought it was a great post! Thanks for sharing.
no, no, I don’t think you’re being hypocritical at all! I hope I didn’t give you that impression – not my intention one bit. It’s just – precisely – for some reason, “live-in” help feels more, I don’t know, exploitative, than just having Farana come into clean. Why that is, I don’t know – and it doesn’t make one whit of sense. I feel sometimes like I’m caught in this system, and I didn’t make the system, so I’m just going to try to do the best I can within it…but the system is absolutely whack, there’s no doubt about that.
I don’t understand, Kim – the point I was trying to make is that I kind of feel morally obliged to keep my domestic help because I know that’s the best way to help her and her family. I believe that “charity begins at home” and I’m happy to be making a positive contribution to her life. Should she (God forbid!) pass away, however, I don’t think I’ll take on the responsibility of another family again.
I notice – to myself – that I talk to this woman who does my toes, but I know only a few small bits about my cleaning lady’s life – her son in Sri Lanka, who is anemic and small for his size; she’s here with her sister and mother; her son is with his father in SL. More than that, I don’t know. For some reason I feel like I don’t want to “pry” – but maybe it’s really that I don’t want to know. …
I wish I could carry this around and hand it out every time someone asks me why I don’t have domestic help.
Kim – yes, I get it (I don’t want live-in help b/c frankly, I don’t want a witness to what goes on here behind closed doors!) … but at the same time, the woman who cleans my apartment twice a week…she needs/wants the money. Which is awful – she should be able to live in her own country (Sri Lanka) and be able to provide for herself, but that’s not possible. So. What to do – see Mamma Simona, above – if I don’t pay Farana to clean my house, then she doesn’t get that money…and she needs the money. But I am aware that in NYC she would easily make triple, quadruple, what I pay her here – which is considered a very generous wage. But I don’t have to pay her that here…so I don’t. It feels very very complicated to me, and I have a big ol’ complex about it, to boot.
I realized after I replied that it was an overly simplistic response to a seriously complex situation. I know I am being completely hypocritical. I do have someone who comes weekly to clean and someone else who babysits. I’m also writing this on a device that I could only afford becausee the manufacturer exploited cheap labor in impoverished countries. I didn’t mean to get holier than thou. I thought it was a great post! Thanks for sharing.
no, no, I don’t think you’re being hypocritical at all! I hope I didn’t give you that impression – not my intention one bit. It’s just – precisely – for some reason, “live-in” help feels more, I don’t know, exploitative, than just having Farana come into clean. Why that is, I don’t know – and it doesn’t make one whit of sense. I feel sometimes like I’m caught in this system, and I didn’t make the system, so I’m just going to try to do the best I can within it…but the system is absolutely whack, there’s no doubt about that.
I don’t understand, Kim – the point I was trying to make is that I kind of feel morally obliged to keep my domestic help because I know that’s the best way to help her and her family. I believe that “charity begins at home” and I’m happy to be making a positive contribution to her life. Should she (God forbid!) pass away, however, I don’t think I’ll take on the responsibility of another family again.
I notice – to myself – that I talk to this woman who does my toes, but I know only a few small bits about my cleaning lady’s life – her son in Sri Lanka, who is anemic and small for his size; she’s here with her sister and mother; her son is with his father in SL. More than that, I don’t know. For some reason I feel like I don’t want to “pry” – but maybe it’s really that I don’t want to know. …
There is so much here. I am as aware of my privilege as I am good friends with people (including Filipinos) who are do exactly the same thing for their families. Well … not rubbing my feet, but you get my drift. This is so well written and tells an interesting and important story of how some people live.
My comment doesn’t do it justice.
What struck me is her good cheer and sense of being “lucky, ” a word she used over and over again. Would I be able to see my life that way, I wonder? I fear I lack her altruism…
There is so much here. I am as aware of my privilege as I am good friends with people (including Filipinos) who are do exactly the same thing for their families. Well … not rubbing my feet, but you get my drift. This is so well written and tells an interesting and important story of how some people live.
My comment doesn’t do it justice.
What struck me is her good cheer and sense of being “lucky, ” a word she used over and over again. Would I be able to see my life that way, I wonder? I fear I lack her altruism…