People for Sale

Well, if the nanny (“housemaid”) search wasn’t depressing enough before (we had interviewed 4 Sri Lankan candidates, none of whose English I could understand), today brought it down to a whole new level of hurt. Today, we left behind the discouraging world of classified ads and unknowingly entered the far more discouraging world of housemaid “agencies.”

All I knew of the agencies was that they were a viable alternative to word-of-mouth or classified ad searches, and that, instead of interviewing the candidates in person, we would be reviewing the written applications of women who were still living in their countries of origin. If we found someone we liked, I was told, we could arrange to have her relocated to the U.A.E. for a trial work period. Then, if the trial was a success, we would sponsor her work visa.

I should have been tipped off by the drive alone. En route to the agencies (supposedly we could find 6 or 7 agencies all in the same place), we took a highway that led us out of the glittering city of Dubai, past all of the under-construction skyscrapers, and onto a stretch of road that appeared to lead to nowhere. And just when the desert landscape began to look truly untouched, we came—literally—to the end of the road. Never mind the fact that I was holding the baby on my lap in the back seat (Britney would love it here: no car seat laws!), our driver bounced over the edge of the pavement as the street ended and the dusty dirt roads began. Suddenly we were in a place that was worlds away from the polished and shiny U.A.E. shown on American television: we were in Ajman, a horribly poor, undeveloped city where the store fronts looked as if they were moments away from collapse and the inhabitants didn’t look much different.

We arrived at the strip of walk-in agencies and I considered putting my wedding rings in my pocket. Poverty surrounded me and, for the first time since our arrival, I wondered if we were safe.

The first agency we encountered was a large, crowded room containing many desks, and the walls were heavily adorned with oversized posters of Arab sheikhs (Daddy later informed me that they were images of Sheikh Zayed, the “founding father” of the U.A.E.). Along the back wall were several tired-looking women sitting along a sofa, and tattered suitcases lay at their feet. A man wearing a long white robe (and a baseball cap!—religious reverence plus a dash of home team loyalty??) made eye contact with us, and Daddy stated that we were looking for a housemaid. The man pointed to several books that looked like photo albums strewn about on tables, and we could see from the handwritten titles (“Sri Lanka,” “Bangladesh,” etc.) that we were supposed to pick a nationality and peruse away.

It had been suggested to us by another ex-pat that Filipino housemaids usually had a better mastery of English (even though, according to the stereotype, they may treat the children more like a job and less like family), so we gravitated toward that book. I was surprised by what was inside: pages of barely completed handwritten applications, providing information such as height, weight, level of school completed, languages spoken, cooking skill, etc. Hardly any personal information other than marital status and number of kids, and certainly nothing as intimate as a writing sample (for us, it is important that our housemaid can not only understand English but also read it, so as to read books to the children). But what got me most were the photographs: many were ancient-looking images of women standing in front of the most ridiculous of backdrops: a farmhouse! a windmill! and practically none of the women had a smile on their faces. Most looked like the picture was being taken against their will. I could not believe that we were supposed to select a woman to be uprooted from her home and flown to a foreign country based on such benign statistics such as height and age. (I flagged just one application as being of interest—“April”—and only because hers was the only smile in the bunch.)

And then it got worse: Daddy asked the man if he had any candidates available to meet right away, and the man picked up a set of keys before nodding and heading out of the room. Were the women locked up somewhere?? The man returned a few minutes later with a petite woman following timidly behind him; he presented her to us and walked away.

We smiled and tried to start a conversation: How old are you? How is your English? Do you like children? But the woman would hardly lift her head, and answered with barely audible “Yes, sir”s (even in instances where a yes or no was not appropriate, which answered our question about her grasp of the English language). I could not believe that she was not even attempting to be engaging—didn’t she want to impress us? didn’t she want to get out of that place?—but it seemed that she was too downtrodden to even hope to improve her situation. When it became clear that she wasn’t the right person for us, we thanked her for her time and assured her that we might return after visiting a few other agencies… and I could not help but feel like she was just another loveless puppy being passed over for adoption at the pound. Just by being there, I wondered, was I an accomplice in some human trafficking effort, or worse, some type of slave trading?

The rest of the agencies were more of the disheartening same: books of applications, unemotional shopkeepers referring to the candidates as if they were microwave ovens, and the occasional women sitting listlessly on couches, an aura of surrender surrounding them. Needless to say, we did not come home with a housemaid today.

Looking at the women sitting on those sofas, suitcases packed at their feet, no expressions on their faces, just waiting to be selected for what can only be described as purchase, I saw that even Dubai has a dark underbelly, and is mortal just like the rest of the world.