MAIDS
Normally you hire a maid they get the chores done and you pay them their wage,but when you begin to exploite them there is a thin difference between them being a maid and a slave.
The other day I had to explain to a friend how having a maid works here and halfway into explaining I realised I was describing a slave. This made me remember a story that happened a long time ago,it happened to a little girl that lost her dad. We will call the girl Sarah.
Sarah's father died when she turned eight,leaving her mom with over nine children to take care of. Sarah's mother struggled for months to raise her children alone,but it was a battle,a battle that in a few months it was clear she was loosing,she had to literally cry out for help. Her extended family, in-laws included came together and said they would help. They didn't help Sarah's mom with a job,or financial assistance instead they looked at all her children and each chose the child that they would take home with them.
"We will help raise this child, they would live with us,we will make sure they attend a good school". They all pledged with consoling smiles and humble disposition. To Sarah's mother effusive thanks,they replied" Don't thanks us, thank God. This is nothing. This is a little help compared to what your husband did for us when he was alive. Oh death,your husband was a good man".
They further consoled the widow and each left with a child. Sarah happily went with one of them,her aunty. She was happy because she knew her aunty lived in a city,she could already imagine how polished and better she would look like on her next visit. Sarah's Aunty's house was impressive. Massive building, think floor rugs, furnished kitchen,a gate keeper,a quiet and neat yard,a fully stocked fridge. Sarah quickly settled into her new home, grateful for her good luck.
Sarah was enrolled into a government owned school,she didn't mind the condition of the school much,the dirty old toilets and weak classroom chairs and desks or rude teachers,she overlooked the over crowded classrooms and the difficulty she had trying to make out what her teacher said over the noise from the too many students,she didn't mind because her guardian assured her it was a temporary arrangement.
Reality struck when Sarah's aunty told her she would be skipping school one week later. Sarah was told that she would start hawking to support the family,she was assured that it was certainly for her own good,a woman that can trade makes a better wife. She would not stop school totally she would just constantly miss some days. So Sarah would sometime go to school twice a week, sometimes her aunty would still come take her home before school was over for the day.
Sarah thought life couldn't be harder till her aunty decided that she would not have new soups. Instead she would have soups that were cooked three days before that no one in the family wanted anymore. Her aunty was a drunk and she smoked, on the days she was drunk she would beat Sarah up for minor mistakes and make sure she slept out on the verandah that night. Whenever Sarah's mom visited the aunty would have Sarah sit beside her, joke and pamper her and Sarah's mother would leave happy that all was well with her daughter.
Although Sarah was still more fortunate than most children in that situation, there were frequent stories at that time of children beaten with horses whips,others hawked from sun rise till sun down and never saw the walls of classrooms as promised and others were constantly raped by their guardians but Sarah was unable to manage this her situation for long, before her father died she was totally loved and pampered,so she could not hold out much longer,she started getting thin, and then sick and her mother noticed and asked questions, Sarah hid nothing. In the end, mother quietly returned home with daughter.
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