Mariaam Bhatti: Tales of a Domestic Worker
I don’t know if my calmness was just another form of shock, but I took every minute as it came as I sat awaiting my fate at Dublin Airport immigration. Two superiors arrived to join the immigration officer in his office, one sitting on the desk in front of me while his female colleague stood beside him. They asked questions just like the first officer had, then all three disappeared for a few minutes “to talk” – most likely, I thought, about what the next step was going to be.
Soon enough they re-entered the room and gave me the news. I was going to be taken to a shelter “for a couple of weeks while the investigations were going on”. That was a surprise: I had expected to be shoved onto the next plane home.
That night, after a slow drive on ice-covered roads, I arrived at a seemingly isolated location. The immigration officers who accompanied me said something to the security officer there as they handed her some documents and asked if there was any food left. Then they told me they would see me in the morning and left, while the security officer produced a plateful of rice enough to feed five people, with two meatballs sitting right at the centre of the heap. She handed me the plate and asked me to follow her colleague, who walked quickly and quietly down a corridor, carrying a white plastic bag in his hand that looked like it contained some clothing.
He opened one of the rooms along the corridor and placed the plastic bag on the table as he went on to open another door that was just centimetres from the end of the bed in the middle of the room. It was a shared bathroom, I soon discovered, as he explained the rules.
I thanked him as he handed me what looked to me like a bank card; he explained it was a key for the room and he showed me how it worked before he left, closing the door behind him.
Alone in the room, I slowly looked around at the three bare single beds and the little space between them; the wooden cupboard with three shelves, each with a single bed duvet and a pillow.
I remembered I was starving. I quickly washed my hands and used them to eat as no spoon was provided. The rice was cold, dry with no sauce or gravy. I tried a bite of the meatball – my God! I spat it out quickly and wondered why it was not called a salt ball. I went to bed hungry.
I had no idea where I was or what kind of place I was in, but I didn’t worry about that. I pulled the duvet over my head leaving my feet sticking. I found my eyes staring at the dark as I lay there worried for the children I minded. I felt I had let them down.
I remembered one night, seeing something coming slowly under my door; at first I narrowed my eyes but soon smiled when I noticed it was one of the letters the eight-year-old used to write to me. One of them read ‘My heart will die if you left’. The thought filled my eyes with tears...
To be continued...
Mariaam Bhatti is a member of the Domestic Workers Action Group and Forced Labour Action Group of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.
