Monday, April 18, 2011

The Maid - Tears Welling Up In Their Eyes

Family Enjoys Meal In Cafe, But Tells Maid To Stand At One Side


There were still seats available in the cafe, but a family apparently did not allow their maid to sit with them. Instead, she stood in a corner, said STOMPer benji.

The STOMPer tells us more (Apr 16):

"I spotted this family at Marina Square, in the cafe Bao Today.

"They apparently asked the maid to stand at one side.

"Maid abuse?

"Initially I noticed a figure standing behind me after the family came in.

"The family noticed that I took pictures of them, so they asked her to sit down. But she was still left at the corner.

"I approached her to offer her a drink but she just shook her head. Tears were welling up in her eyes.

"She said she was part of that family.

"She looked like she was quite new.

"The family finished their food and left, but their maid did not eat a single bite."



Source: Singapore Seen. Stomp - April 16, 2011
 
****** ****** ******

After a month Nora* came into the family, she was paid only S$20 for her salary.

Her salary will still be S$20 for the next two months.
(She had worked 4 months for a previous family which I had blogged earlier).

After the seventh month, it will be S$400 or S$450?.
I need to check with My Brother.

******

Prior to working in Singapore, Nora was in Saudi Arabia, working for a family staying in Abha, Madinah for four years.
If the family did not intend to move to their 3-storey house, she would have stayed back.

Although she did not like the chilly Madinah weather (she said to take lots of paracetamol over there - constant headache due to cold), working for the family was easy.
Just needed to be around the four children when both parents were in school.
She just needed to be home all the time.

The family treated her with kindness.
She was part of the family too.
Her employer bought her, his four children's minder, the same thing whenever he bought his wife, the children's mother, gifts.

The husband did the marketing, and cooking was easy too.
Lots of salads and marinating mutton before meals.

She is lucky, she said.
The family she was with, had rice daily, unlike the family staying one floor below, they had bread for meals.
She pity her friend from Lombok, who worked there.
Being Indonesians, they live on rice.
So, her friend was getting skinnier as time passed by, as she had rice sparingly, although she had free access to food all her time.

******

Nora did not intend to leave home if things turned out as planned.
But that's GOD Will. 

With the 5.5 million rupiah the employer helped to sent home every three months from Saudi Arabia for 4 years, her mother bought a piece of land for them to start chilli plantation.
But weather had been erratic all over the world.
When the chilli plants started flowering, rain started to fall, never seem to end.

June is not a rainy season.
But it was, last year.
The soaked-in-rainwater chilli plants bore no chillies.
The investment had failed.

Her three children need money to go to school.
Her aged mother, in her 60s, resorted to selling other farmers' vegetables, on commission basis.
Meanwhile, her bedridden father, due to motorcycle accident, left to fend for himself.
There was absolutely no money to send him for therapy. 

During Ramadhan, when others were preparing for Eidul Fitr, Nora prepared to leave her children, yet again.

During Eidul Fitr, when families visit others, she was in Batam, all-ready to come to Singapore, but not until two months later...

******

Nora followed Me to City Plaza last week.

Tears were welling up in her eyes when I mentioned to her, I had some 'zakat' for her to send home.
More tears were welling up in her eyes, as she topped up another S$50, her salary and gifts from others, for the money to be sent home.

It is not 5.5 million rupiah she used to send home from Saudi Arabia, not even one million rupiah.

But it is the first sent home money from Singapore, seven months after she left Surabaya, Indonesia...       

2 comments:

Naz in Norway said...

Salam..

I often wonder how such *kering hati' people could live with themselves..

:(

Ummie said...

Seeing the pix of d girl stood all by herself, had already pricked My emotion.
I wonder if their hearts are really made of stones.
Cannot imagine if the girl is at home...