The Working Class - A Maid's Life

Like in many other Gulf countries, the workers in Oman primarily come from the Indian subcontinent or the Philippines.  They need the jobs and the labor is cheap (not so different from the Mexican labor force in America). One of the interesting features of this is that most expats and Omanis have live-in maids and most houses here even have maid quarters (mine are outside of my townhouse in the basement, which is also where the washer and dryer are located).  In order to sponsor a maid, however, you must be married, so most of what I'll share below is stuff I've picked up anecdotally since I'm not married and can't have a live-in maid (nor would I want one as a single person).

From what I've gathered, when an expat family needs a maid they go to a staffing agency and request sponsorship for a maid through the Omani government.  The expats pay for the trip over here from whatever country the maid is from originally and cross their fingers and hope they get a good one (I'm not sure you can "return" a maid if you're dissatisfied and get your money back).  Once the maid is under your sponsorship you are obligated to pay for her trip back to her home country once every two years (yeah, you heard that, she only gets to go home once every two years).  It seems like a decent salary for a maid here working for an expat family (Omanis apparently pay less) is about 180 Omani Rials a month (or about $468).  Now, keep in mind that the maid doesn't have any expenses other than her cell phone and maintaining her family back home (since most don't drive and they live with the family sponsoring them), so it's actually really good money for many of the maids here.  And it sure beats slaving out in the insane heat like the male workers here (more on that in another post).

And while each maid and family is different, the maids in general do everything in the households here.  Laundry, cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, dog walking, car washing, you name it.  You can see how appealing it is, especially if you're a family recently moved over from the US, since having a maid can afford a family so much more free time.  And you never have to worry about who is going to watch the kids or the pets if you want a night or a weekend off.

The interesting thing about this is what happens to people who grow up relying so heavily on maids -- many Omanis that I've met have no idea how to cook or clean or do their own laundry and the same is true for expat kids who have been raised over here.  And while it's certainly a relief to have a maid and not have to do all those things, it's also somewhat alarming that we have so many people (Omanis and expats alike) who are now unable to take care of themselves in pretty basic ways due to reliance on maids.

Likewise, you'll occasionally meet people who have handed so much of the child-rearing over to the maids that you wonder if they're even parents at all.  I've heard stories of expats who, when their maid ran away (since you can't really quit if you're a maid), freaked out and asked "Well, who is going to take care of the kids now?"  Uh, you…that's why you had kids, right?  To help rear and parent them and not just hand them off to a stranger you flew over from the Philippines?

Now look, those of you who have met me know that I'm not so great at feeding myself -- I think a PB&J sandwich or a bowl of cereal is a perfectly appropriate dinner since cooking is just way too much effort.  And one of the reasons I didn't bring my dog over is because I couldn't have a maid and I'd need someone to walk and take care of him while I'm out of town.  And if I had kids I'd damned sure want a maid to help out.  So I'm by no means knocking the benefits of having a maid and it's one of the very big perks for an expat family out here to have the help and support of a maid.  There are just a lot of moments where I meet people who have become so reliant upon their maids that they've forgotten how to be self-sufficient (or, in the case of kids raised here, never learned to be self-sufficient).

With regard to the treatment of maids, as I mentioned before, you can't really quit if your family treats you terribly.  And apart from the once-every-two-years trip home, I don't know that there are many more obligations on the treatment of a maid.  I've heard stories of maids forced to work 15 hours a day with only one day off a month, who weren't permitted to use their cell phones to contact their kids.  I've seen maids quarters that were tiny little un-air conditioned boxes and must be unbearably hot for most of the year here.  And in the United Arab Emirates, apparently it's common to see small children hitting their maids in public while the parents look on.  So if a maid is unhappy with her situation here, she has a few options: (1) pay for her own ticket home (generally impossible), (2) find a new family to take over her sponsorship or (3) run away and work somewhere illegally.

But as many stories as I've heard of maids being abused I've also heard the same amount regarding untrustworthy maids.  Maids who steal, maids who bring men back to their rooms, maids who run prostitution rings out of their rooms, maids who go wild when the family is out of town and throw parties in the home…and on.  All of which is further proof why I don't want a live-in maid.  

The other thing that's really interesting is seeing how different cultures deal with essentially having servants.  As an American, I grew up in a place where virtually no one had servants and where an important aspect of our culture was to be self-sufficient and capable.  So, for the most part, when Americans do get maids over here, we tend to treat them pretty well.  Partially because we're just so excited to not have to do our own laundry and mostly because we didn't grow up in a culture with a servant class that could be abused or demeaned.  Yet that does not appear to be the case for some European countries and is definitely not the case for Arab or Indian families.  Interestingly enough, Indian maids aren't treated any better in Indian households than they would be anywhere else -- there doesn't seem to be any sort of cultural solidarity or looking out for one's own countrymen (I wonder if it has something to do with the caste system still alive and well in India?)

It's not often that I say I'm proud to be an American, but I'm so glad to be self-sufficient (even if I suck at feeding myself) and that I grew up someplace where that was valued.  And as a final story, I have a large window over my kitchen sink and at night, when I'm doing my dishes, I get a number of knocks on my door from people asking if I need a maid.  Apparently it's so shocking that a white person is doing their own dishes that everyone assumes I must need assistance!

**Disclaimer: In this post I make generalizations about some cultures and ethnicities and most everything in this post is based on things I've heard rather than seen firsthand.  Please recognize that no culture or ethnicity is homogenous and "generalizations" is just a fancy word for stereotyping people; while I hate to do that, I also want to share my thoughts and experiences, even if it means I have to engage in a little stereotyping based on hearsay.**