Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Mayhem in Djibouti

I return from my brief visit from the States to find that everyone lost their mind in the one week that I was gone. For starters, they fired our property manager for the Villas that we live in. I am still unsure of the reason, but with that decision, my house lock was changed and my maid, Kadra was gone!

I have already expressed how I love Kadra! I was livid to find that they let her go and hired a whole new set of maids.

The following Saturday, Kadra calls me from the outside gate and ask if she can come visit me. I go to pick her up and she is crying uncontrollably. All I could get from her was that she needed a job because she is the bread winner of her family and her father is terminally ill. I immediately made phone calls and asked the new property management if they could hire Kadra back. The manager, Leila, agreed since I made a compelling argument on why Kadra must stay with me. All Leila needed was a copy of Kadra’s Djiboutian ID as proof of her citizenship. A day and time was set and Kadra was on her way to being employed…again.

Well, Kadra decides to meet with Leila and invites along 3-4 other previously-fired maids from the Villas. The other girls took over the meeting and demanded more money. Reason being; they felt our houses were too big and too dirty. Leila would not budge on the $200 USD/month that she pays her maids. In the end, Kadra did not end up showing her ID and hence was out of a job.

To date, I have only spoke to Kadra via text messages but I was told that she found a new gig that didn’t pay as much, but offered free medical insurance for her and her family. Sounds like a win-win to me.

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