House Maid

Many women come here from Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines to work as servants/house maids.

Most of them come over with agencies and live with the family they work for. They get paid about an average of $50 a month. They send almost all of the money they make home to their families. Most of their contracts last at least 2 years.

My Arabic Mom says that Sri Lankans smell.

I'm writing from khalti Saba7's house, Maysoon (my Arab mom)'s older sister, Saba7. They have a servant. She speaks English. She's been here for about a week.

The way servants work is they are ignored.

She works hard, has no day off, and can call her family maybe one or two times a week. She talked to her family once since she's been here. She's the same age as me, and we live completely different lives.

I asked her how she's dealing with the culture shock. She said it's hard, and she misses her family. I asked her about her country. I know a little bit about the Philippines, my first boyfriend having been a first generation half-filipino. She was very happy to talk about how many islands there are, how far she is from Manila, and the other chit-chat subjects I have when the topic of "The Philippines" comes up in a conversation.

I really feel for her. Maybe it's because I come from a place where servants and house maids are super uncommon. I mean, if we want to compare socio-economic status, Saba7's family is probably not as affluent as my very much middle-class American family, however compared to the rest of the people here...also, just having a servant is a type of status symbol, I'm thinking.

Weird Boy Problem

Hibba has a stalker.

Here, you have to buy credit for your phone. Most of the time, you buy a little plastic cards with scratch-codes on them. Sometimes, to be hospitable I guess, the store employee punches in the card's code. Some guy punched in Hibba's code, and got her phone number. He called her. I guess that's one way to do it.

The first time he called her was about a week ago. Not only did he tell her that he loves her and is crazy about her and her eyes are like honey, but he also told her what she was wearing that day, and sent her half a dozen text messages with the same subject.

She told her parents. Her mom called him from her phone, pretending to have a wrong number. Her stalker sent her a message saying, "Why did you tell your mom to call me and pretend like she had the wrong number?"

Freaky, if you ask me.

That was a week ago. Today, the creep sent her over 25 texts while she was at school (in a test, even). He kept calling her, and she didn't pick up.

The way people solve social problems here is by appealing to their families, not to the police. Hibba's dad is taking care of business, now.