there is this new burmese maid that came to work in the house of my boss-lady around 2 months ago . she is a tiny small thing with a flash in her eyes. i guess she is aged 11-13 years old, but cannot tell for sure. she smiles only when she thinks no one is watching her. i have no clue how she came, sufficed to say that she is now here.
the other day, i heard that she was beaten and scolded by first my boss then her sister, another maid. it is heartbreaking to not be able to do or say anything against this, as it is a normal practice (having maids and physical/psychological forms of punishment) of retaining servants.
the other maids laughed because they had also been through this treatment, and know better than to spill something, or do anything outside of carrying out their multiple duties in proper order.
upon hearing this story, i felt wounded on the inside.
i mean, what do you do?
burmese maid ~11-13 years old
(c) baystar_one...2347
: thunda :
she is not faceless.
she is not nameless,
and in her
you can see the weight of the world,
resting upon
frail brown shoulders.
almost completely unseen,
alone, un-trusted, beaten at times,
and barely existing;
one wants to hold her close and tell her to be strong.
but one doesn't,
and she remains as she was and is.
un-saveable,
her life not in her own hands.
---
3 comments:
heart wrenching.
smile. ask her her opinion (about anything). tell her something she can't figure out herself. praise her infront of her to your boss, even in a sideways way. express your approbation, there are myriad ways-so it's better for the girl (do you know her name?) and for your boss and of course for you-you may not be able to stop anything but you can certainly be discouraging directly and indirectly. tell her lots of things, you know how to.
---
the thing is though, i really cannot speak with her, as her language is burmese. i do speak with all of the other maids and check to see if they all understand that their lives are not meaningless. there is a strength and a unity coarsing through their experiences, and this is what i try to convery to them. make them feel important or special at every opportunity. you talk about the double-standard nature of culture, and this is it; blaringly loud and vibrantly known, like a solar yellow mu-mu on a flagpole. and of course it's considered normal here to do things like this, but i always attempt to change their perspectives on "reality" for them, and try to show them there are more important things than their being maids to focus on; they are more important than their positions. i think in that, i can give them another outlet for expression, that they might not have had otherwise.
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