Mariaam Bhatti: Tales of a Domestic Worker
Lithuania was a totally different experience compared to Ireland and Switzerland. It started at the airport in the capital Vilnius, which had just one or two officers at the desks in the arrivals hall, which itself was no bigger than some living rooms I’ve cleaned in Dublin. Before my travelling companions and I had a chance to figure out which way was the exit, we were already outside – and in front of a man with a cardboard sign showing our names correctly written on it.
I nearly screamed and ran to give him a hug as if we were long-lost friends, simply because I was so happy to unexpectedly find someone waiting for me in a country that’s completely new to me. He was our driver, sent to take us to the hotel were we would stay for the duration of the four-day conference. He spoke no English, just Russian and Lithuanian, but he was friendly, nodded a lot and smiled as he loaded our bags and ushered us into his car.
The hotel was a 20-minute drive away, and I spent the journey taking in every detail outside the windows. Everything was different from Ireland. I liked the shapes of the houses, some with wooden or metal walls and roofs. Many of the buildings were gracefully old, some in an attractive ancient way, others in a shabby manner as if nobody lived there though the clothes hanging on the balconies told a different story. It also told me a story about the economy, that many people didn’t use dryers for their clothes, rather doing it the natural way, which is my favourite way of drying clothes too, or at least it reminded me of washing lines full of clothes that are a common sight back home.
Later, in the city, we discovered that restaurant meals were a third of what we normally pay in Ireland for the same kind of food and service. Clothes, on the other hand, were much more expensive. I had to persevere in the scorching heat as I had not checked the weather before I left, and had only packed clothes suitable for Irish weather!
The conference we were attending was one of the EU-initiated integration tools aimed at migrants across Europe, and my contribution was to share with other delegates from various EU countries how the financial integration course I had gained so much benefit from would in turn benefit migrants I work with in Ireland, who in this case are domestic workers. The four days included a number of cultural activities and trips around the city, which made it more balanced and enjoyable and less like typical conferences.
But there was one thing that stood out for me in that beautiful country. It took me three days to spot one person who looked like me, or at least with a brown skin. That explained why sometimes at traffic lights people forgot to cross the road when the green light allowed, because their eyes were on this alien who had landed on their planet. Even funnier when others would adjust their glasses to study me more carefully in my presence. It was like travelling into the past. And from that I began to believe the stories from my Irish friends about their reactions when they first saw black people in Ireland.
Mariaam Bhatti is a member of the Domestic Workers Action Group and Forced Labour Action Group of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.
