Respect to Arab Family
While I was enjoying my dinner in Applebees restaurant on C_Ring Road, in came a family of four who were seated next to our table. At first I did't really notice them until they required a fifth chair and then my impression of this family grew to respect. The chair was for their Indonesian maid who was also invited to join them at their table as part of their family. This is the first experience I have witnessed since I lived here in Doha for the past 5 months. They treated her with respect and ensured she was comfortable, never demanding anything of her.
This experience has given me a better understanding that not all families in the region treat the maids badly. I have always heard bad stories about my fellow Indonesians who work in arab countries and have been degraded, asulted, malested, raped, thrown in jail because of small mistakes they made, and most of them have to work long hours, low pay, no holiday and sometime they dont get paid at all. I never heard any good story about them until I witnessed this family in Applebees.
To the families or individuals that have maids, please treat them fairly as a human being, please compensate them fairly, please treat them with respect as you wish to be treated. They deserve to be respected and cared for as we all do. They come here under the impression that they will work for better pay to support their families at home, lets fulfull these expectations.
To the family I saw in Applebees, you set a great example and I thank you. I hope this trend continues.
It's too bad because the majority of people use car seats or even seat belts for their children. Kids all bouncing around like popcorn popping. Its scary.
Is there a childrens carseat law in Qatar?
My sister in law is due in February and I hope she will be using them.I know that other members of the family do not use them for their young children so I am assuming that there is not a law requiring the use of them. I want to send them them seats made by Britax. The infant seats are good for 5 pounds to 40 pounds so the babies will not outgrow them to quickly.My other sister in law has a 2 year old and 5 year old, I would like to send the Britax carseats for her children also, these car seats are for children 22 pounds to 80 pounds (the only ones that I have found that go up to these weights).The carseats are expensive espiecally if buying four of them ( 2 infant seats around $300.00 and to older childrens seats around $540.00,we hate to send something that they will not use, shipping would also be costly. So if there is a carseat law (which I highly doubt) I know they will be put to good use, if not we would rather send other things that they will use.Another thought - my husband is visiting in March can he purchase the Britax seats there and what would they cost(again, highly doubtful)? Any comments appreciated!!
don't think that would be sufficient. People speak different accent, totally different with what you learnt.
My first visit to the UK, went to chinese take away and the chinese lady there spoke to me in english with very t hick north east accent. And i told my husband that i don't speak chinese :-)
*Hi Mila* :-)
They do have language lessons before the agency decided to send them abroad, perhaps this maid of your is very shy person and need time to feel accepted. Perhaps you can ask a relatives or family who have maid and they speak a same language to find out what's wrong with yours.
Good luck.
Yes we treat our maid very fairly. But then when you are too nice to them ... they start taking their employer for granted. My friend employed their maid. She was tooooo nice to her ... took her to all her coffee morning, seat in the dinner table with the family, bought her a phone card, pay for her hair cut, etc etc.
They went away for summer hols for 4 weeks, then neighbour reporting that different car parks outside their house everyday and the main bedroom light on most night.
In the end the husband send the maid away to the airport with the police guard.
Go and check the offices they will mention about little arabic or little english and when they are here the little means nothing
You make a good point there Mr. Pope. But, bear in mind that it would be very difficult to find an Arab speaking maid from Indonesia, India, Phillipines or Sri Lanka. And, you would not find people from other places (especially from arab countries) willing to work as maids due to socio-economic reasons. Also, locals will prefer not to hire maids from other places as they would not be as "sub-servient" as maids from the above mentioned regions.
How could you hire someone, if they cant speak any of your languages?
That makes no sense to me. If I had, a full household and my wife wants to hire a maid, at least the minimum requirement is able to speak my common language.
What are the criteria in bringing those maids in the country?
Do you have a choice about it?
Respectfully
Red_Pope
My love be with you all in Christ Jesus. So be it.
1 Corinthians, Chapter 16,
I agree there are people treat maids as slaves, but there are alot of people treat maids as part of family , and they should be part of family .
But some of maid miss use this trust or the people here don't undersstand maids.
i will tell u my experience with maids :
we tried many times to tell our maid to eat whatever she wants and whenever and we ask her what does she likes to eat ( we know they have thier own way to cook ) but till now we don't know what she wants .
We keep bringing her clothes but she keep wearing her old staff
She keep asking other people to bring her things she needs and she is not telling us
some of them they don't know arabic or english , and some they act that they dont but which make hard to deal with them or to communicate with them.
I know these are not excuse to deal with them as slaves.
That is so sweet...I have seen maybe one example of that so far. I saw a woman at Landmark the other day that only had her maid with her. The woman wasn't carrying anything but a Louis Vuitton and the maid was carrying a full McDonalds tray. When they sat down, the maid actually looked scared to eat her food. She looked MISERABLE. I have seen some sad maids here but this was absolutely the worst. My husband and I were so disgusted that we got up from our table and left.
I'm glad you had this experience. I agree that not all families, people, etc. are alike. It's nice to be reassured of that every once in a while.