Bahrain is definitely built on a servant society...and it's not exactly hidden behind closed doors. Yes, we have a maid. We could have a live-in maid because our house is equipped with separate maids' quarters, but I just can't wrap my head around the fact that someone would be doing EVERYTHING for me. I know that servants (I don't particularly like that word, but that's what they're called here) are more common in countries outside of America, but I really wasn't prepared for just how commonplace they are here. Upon moving into our house, a very slight, young Indian woman named Rami showed up at our gate. She was sent my our landlord to be our maid. At about $50 a month, she cleans....and I do mean she cleans the hell out of everything! Our house has lots of stone and marble, so I am definitely thankful for the cleaning help, but I still like to do some of the cleaning myself (totally type-A, I know). I thought that would be the end of the help, but I walked out into the courtyard one morning still wearing my boxers and a tank and nearly collided with a man watering the garden. Okay, the term "garden" is used very loosely here...if you have a potted plant, they call it a garden. Apparently we have two gardeners that come every other morning. Nice, but being scared to death was not the way I wanted to start my day. Car washing is another hot job here. I can't tell you how many people have rung our doorbell asking if we need our car washed or our courtyard washed as well. The going rate for a car wash is 1BD, or $2.66. A lot of Americans hire the locals to come and wash their cars and courtyards almost daily....one guy down the road pays 13BD per month to have his car/courtyard washed every other day. Ridiculous!
So what? Everyone has maids here...but that's not all. It's funny how when you take a step back you truly do see the class system here. Indians/Pakistanis generally get stuck with working the household chores and doing building and road construction. Any one from an Asian country is going to be working in the restaurants or the salons. There is such a huge population of third-country nationals here that they have started a new campaign called "Hire Bahraini" in order to decrease the unemployment rate of true blood Bahrainis. It's weird that there are also so many Americans here as well, but if they aren't employed by the naval base, they're most likely stay-at-home moms (no offense to anyone!) because no one else will hire them.
I like the idea of having someone here to help me cook and clean, but I guess I was raised too well by my mother. It actually kinda bothers me to see someone else doing all the work that I would normally be doing myself, but hey...I guess I can kick back to enjoy the Middle Eastern experience for now!
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