Mariaam Bhatti: Tales of a Domestic Worker
I soon realised my stay in the reception centre wouldn’t be ‘a few weeks’ like the immigration officers had said. In reality it would be many months, if not years. It is such an awful thing to feel that you have no control over your life anymore; you just have to wait, day after day, not knowing where it will lead you.
The reception centre had its ups and downs just like any other place. The most depressing thing was the conditions that we lived in over Christmas. Apparently the water pipes were frozen due to the heavy snows and sudden cold; water was supplied by truck to the residents in the morning and late in the afternoons, but it was hardly enough for everyone. People kept relieving themselves as usual when nature called, despite having no water to flush, and the stench of human waste soon wafted through the corridors. Many people were affected diarrhoea and other illness as a result of these conditions, myself included.
While waiting to see the centre doctor, I witnessed another resident who had been very ill before he finally got an appointment to be seen. The poor guy was the sixth in the queue, three placed behind me. When I looked at his state, the too-regular trips he made to the bathroom and returning to lie on his back on the bench, I stood up and asked the person who was first in the queue if we could let him be seen first. He and everyone else were kind enough to agree.
When the doctor arrived, he called out ‘Number one!’ and the first in the queue approached to explain what the rest of us agreed, that the seriously ill man should be seen first. But the doctor looked at the man lying on the bench, his sweaty forehead wiped by another man whose wife was giving him some water, then turned to the first man and said: “No, everyone will be seen in the order of their appointments.” We could not believe our ears.
That incident confirmed my thoughts and feelings about the people who worked at the centre. Many of them seemed cold and irritated by our presence there, or they simply did not like their work. You would swear that they were trained to behave that way. No matter how nice you were, it would take you at least three months to earn just a little smile from the staff. I remember it took me about four weeks to master every staff member’s name and I made a great effort to smile and greet them with their first names, but it was four months if not more before I earned a smile and a ‘hello’ back. The media were not allowed there, there was no such thing as a suggestion box, and people never complained for the fear of being targeted for deportation.
As much as I was grateful to have been ‘rescued’ from my former predicament, and as much as I appreciated the roof over my head and the (very basic) food, I had to ask – what was a €19.10 weekly allowance going to help me with? I could not work or study. In such a place and atmosphere, I soon realised that the only thing that would keep me sane would be to look for voluntary work to keep myself busy. And so the hunt began…
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.
