Before going into the specific details of training a housemaid, I’ll first reiterate many of the common reasons one has chosen to engage a housemaid in the Kingdom. To those not familiar with the Kingdom a housemaid may sound luxurious and unnecessary. Bear in mind that most Saudi homes are quite larger than western homes. Even apartments are much larger than typical apartments in the West. Additionally the climate here requires daily (and sometimes several times daily) dusting, vacuuming and mopping, especially during sandstorm season. Then there are the other typical household duties such as cleaning kitchens, doing dishes (few homes in the Kingdom have dishwashers), cleaning bathrooms, laundry, ironing and perhaps cooking. Even the woman who stays at home can find herself consumed beyond the normal hours it takes one to thoroughly clean a typical home in the West. Then if one is married into a Saudi family or will interact routinely with Saudis, this can mean having many guests en masse to the home including young children. As a result, a housemaid is very appreciated and makes life and the quality of life much easier.
Now the following advices for training a housemaid are my own personal views. I’m not aware of any manuals which outline step-by-step how to train a housemaid. To begin with she should be treated fair and equitably. She is after all an individual and not paid to be viewed as a personal slave. Treat the relationship in a friendly and professional manner. She is an employee and it is unwise to view or treat her as a “friend.” This can later lead to conflicts in the relationship.
When she first arrives and especially if she has had a long plane ride and likely suffering from jet lag, give her a few days to adjust and adapt to these differences. Begin with letting her become gradually familiar with your house and routine. It’s a good idea to list her
tasks, your expectations and the do’s and don’ts in writing as well as verbally. I do believe to as much as possible a housemaid should have set hours, a regular routine and at least one day off per week. If she is expected to assist late at night or with special events, be flexible with the schedule. For example, if it is known she is going to work extra late one night, let her have a lighter work load during the day. If unexpected guests arrive resulting in a late night, allow her to sleep in later the next day (just like you are likely doing).
When reviewing the schedule of tasks, not only explain them clearly to her but demonstrate to her how you like certain things cleaned or attended. Observe her as she in turn performs these tasks. DO NOT ASSUME she will know what cleaning products are used where. Make sure to show her (repeatedly if need be) which cleaning products are used where and when. For example, I could not figure out why I kept running out of Tide (laundry) soap so quickly until I discovered a temporary housemaid I had engaged was using it as an all-purpose cleaner for each and every room and thing!
If the housemaid is using household appliances it is imperative she is shown on where and how these appliances are used. Housemaids are notorious here for damaging and going through vacuum cleaners. They are less likely to remember changing and cleaning vacuum bags. She will likely need to be reminded to do that. Housemaids are also notorious for forgetting to clean the lint catcher from the dryer and will also need to be reminded to do so. Do not expect your housemaid to know anything about voltage and currents. A lot of homes in the Kingdom will have both 110V and 220V within the home. Special care and attention will be required to ensure that the housemaid understands then what appliance can be used where depending on voltage. I have color coded outlets and commonly used electrical appliances in my home. For example, any appliances AND electrical outlets which are 220V have red stickers on them and any appliances and electrical outlets which are 110V had green stickers.
Have patience while the housemaid learns your ways. She may not think or realize she may be arranging or putting things in places different from where you would like them to be. Simply correct her and show her where you want items stored. A housemaid will not automatically know items that are valuable keepsakes, fragile or delicate. You will need to clearly explain what must have special care and attention. Accidents can and will happen. Teach her and remind her to be careful. Again, the kind of items in your home may be foreign to her and she will simply not realize if she is treating something too rough.
Be firm and professional when needed but avoid losing your temper with a housemaid. This will cause intimidation and resentment and disloyalty. On the subject of loyalty, some housemaids will become very loyal and protective of you and your family. Some will view you solely as the pay check and can only be trusted to a degree. Most individuals employing a housemaid do tend to keep valuables in secure places which the housemaid is not privy too rather than invite trouble by leaving jewels or monies in the open.
Most individuals do not allow a housemaid to clean their master bedroom unless they are also present. This is a matter of personal choice and preference.
Again, be clear on demands, rules and expectations. Some housemaids may be educated and know how to use the internet and email. Are you going to allow them access to your computer or suggest she go to a cyber café on her day off? In this regards, if you do not have a password on your computer, it’s probably a wise idea to do so. And on this subject, if you have wireless internet or any routers or modems, make sure she knows such delicate items are not to be touched and should not be picked up and dusted.
When one hosts a party or has a large group of guests and as a result, the housemaid has additional work to perform, it is a good gesture to show ones appreciation by giving her extra riyals at the end of the evening. If you allow a friend to “borrow” or use your housemaid’s services make sure that either your friend compensates the housemaid or you give her extra.
In general treating a housemaid with respect and kindness rather than as a dictator or indifference will make a world of difference in the response and productivity received from her services.
Filed under: culture, gender, relationships, Saudi Arabia, Saudi culture, Saudi customs
hi
It was really good to read this about how to treat and train
a housemaid, but I know, unfortunately, many do not take these into account in treating maids.
I hope from you to comment on how to train a housemaid if she does not speak Arabic or English. We had a housemaid like this, and I knew how it took patience and time to train her.
When the housemaid does not speak a common language, then more emphasis is placed on showing/illustrating by example. If possible, it may not be a bad idea to try and make some basic charts which identify items and key words in the housemaid’s native language and the language you need her to learn.
For example, my housemaid does speak english but no arabic. As a result, she has created a notebook where she writes the english word and (phonetically) writes the arabic word since she is eager to understand arabic too.
I have these small room posters from my own arabic lessons which have pictures of items commonly found in the specific room. Beside the picture is the arabic word for the item. I’ve also let my housemaid use these aids to assist as well.
Thanks for your comment, Coffeeboy.
Excellent, excellent advice! Thanks for sharing.
It must be hard for these women sometimes. They are dealing with electrical devices and other mechanical items for which they had no previous experience.
Everyone needs to keep in mind that some of these items they are requested to use are almost non existant where they come from, especially for people of their socio-economic backgrounds. Some of these items would feed their families for an entire year.
There needs to be a lot of understanding on BOTH sides here.
My MIL had a really nice maid named “Fozia” who was a Sri Lankan Muslim. She had worked in Saudi before and spoke conversational Arabic and pigeon English. We all loved her and she became more of a member of the family than just a maid.
The tales she told of every day treatment by Saudis was horrific. I think this poor treatment comes from a lack of understanding and empathy.
Please keep in mind these people are not slaves, they come to a foreign country not because they want to rob you, but more often than not they are the bread winners for an entire extended family back home.
Keep this in mind.
I think the general attitude towards maids and other hired help stems from a very recent history of slavery in the region. I read an article a few years back which I’ll paraphrase: “The UAE banned slavery 30-odd years ago. Now they call them guest workers.” Sad, but true to an extent. You can give people a lot of money. You can put them in fancy cars and nice homes, but you cannot change the core of who they are in 10, 20, or 30 years. The superiority commonly felt towards maids from the subcontinent and beyond will take time to weed out. It would certainly help things along if labour laws were created to protect these individuals.
Well, I have heard of horrific stories concerning maids. Either what is done to them or what they do to the family members. But in my opinion, on both accounts, had the maid been treated kindly and with respet, I don’t think any ill doings would have occurred period.
Usually and most of the time, you will find that the very maid that did something to a family member or what have you, that her action was directly due to her mistreatment and she snapped! I never understood that? How could you treat a maid worse than you would treat an animal even and then expect them to be STILL smiling, decent, caring, appreciative, attend to your kids in care, cook and clean and do what ever is expected of her in earnestness???
There was a story that was told to me by a Saudi friend of mine about this maid in Saudi who took an infant and stuck the poor child in the oven and yes, turned on the oven and the child died! Yes, it is pretty sickening………..But, (and please keep in mind, that this maid had NO right in any way, shape or form to do what she did to this poor, innocent child) supposedly after investigating, it was found that the maid was extremely badly mistreated by the mother who beat her, called her names, abused her night and day. So, it was a vendetta in the maid’s messed up mind. Still, it is in my opinion, she had no right to do this to the baby and I believe the maid got the death penalty. I don’t remember where she was from.
But, stories like this are unfortunately very common, especially in Gulf countries. I personally feel it all boils down to whether or not one has fear in God period…………..People have forgotten the essence of “IMAN” which is simple “faith” in English…………..if one REALLY has it, they will never ever mistreat anyone, maid or not, because they will ALWAYS be aware that God is watchful in all actions and doings………
You’re right, Manal: No justification for what the maid did, but she must have been pretty tormented herself. Maids trying to throw themselves off balconies to their death a little too common in the UAE. Mental illness born out of severe abuse, I suspect.
I have mixed feelings about domestic help- I sincierely feel that any maids, nannies or so on should be treated exactly as a member of the family, same food, living conditions and be treated with kindness and compassion. It is an accident of birth that some are born with the ability to employ and some are born to be employed.
However I have only ever heard bad stories about Saudi families and their treatment of their maids- there was the case recently of the girl who was tied up by her employer in the bathroom, had her fingers and toes amputated and contracted gangrene and then the Saudi government tried HER for libel!!!! With all due respect I find it difficult to have much sympathy for Saudis when this kind of case makes the headlines so regularly
Yet, an little child… it would have been better if she’d turned on the mother and did it to her.
I wouldn’t mind being your house maid Carol, but you would need a lot of patience….
I am happy to say that I have encountered a number of Saudi families who do treat their housemaid with kindness and respect. And yes, I have been in households where I can see the housemaid is overworked as well.
Saudi Arabia had slaves until about 20 years ago if I am correct here on dates and as a result for many families, having a housemaid is reminiscent to them of when they had slave to do any and all sundry bidding.
Aafke, I cannot wait until the time I can have you as a houseguest!
Abu Sinan – you raise very good points on the need to carefully explain appliances, how they are used, etc and voltage. I should also point out that some housemaids newly arriving to the Kingdom have never even been in a car.
Sometimes even, overworked with very little pay!!! Never mind the mistreatment as well…………..:(
Somewhere along the line a choice must be made if the good outweighs the evil that is sometimes done to these women.
Some of the home countries have decided that the treatment of their citizens is so bad that they have limited or even banned their citizens traveling to work in the Kingdom.
If 10% of even 20% of women are physically or sexually abused then it is time to rethink allowing any of them into the country at all. Having domestic help is a privledge, not a right.
If a significant portion of Saudi society cannot deal fairly with these women then the practice needs to be put to an end.
The sad fact remains is that we’ll never have a good idea of just how many of these women are abused. The society is not open enough to allow such studies to be done or released. Annecdotally, the numbers are staggering.
As you can see from the article below, these women arent just being beaten at home, they are being beaten by their recruiting agencies.
I suggest it is getting pretty close to the stage, where for moral grounds, it ought to be made ILLEGAL to import domestic help.
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentID=2008071712023
If the standards dont change then people in Saudi will just have to wash their own clothes, cook their own food, clean their own houses and take care of their own children. Maybe Saudi society just isnt in a position where they can fairly treat these people?
I don’t think this has to do as much as you think with the recent history of slavery. In my Middle Eastern country, slavery was done away with 70 years ago, and people are still behaving the same. Many people treat their maids decently, but many do not. Nevertheless, we don’t have nearly the number of severe abuse incidents that you seem to be describing above.
I think this general treatment of maids doesn’t come from slavery, but from a feeling that the employers are higher status, and have the RIGHT to order the maids around. If you do work yourself, it’s like you’re showing you are also an unimportant person. The more important you are, you don’t even lift a finger, but ask someone else to do EVERYTHING.
Eileen
Dedicated Elementary Teacher Overseas (in the Middle East)
elementaryteacher.wordpress.com
Eileen,
Countries like Egypt and Morocco are not quite like the GCC nations. Maids are treated poorly in Egypt, but it has more to do with classism than anything else. It’s about being born into the “right” kind of family vs. imported to do the dirty jobs.
Good advice Carol, and yes they are so uneducated many of them.
Ditto on all the abuse here, suicides daily in newspapers, really depresses you.
But, on a serious note, every once in a while you hear of justice. I know a story of one who worked for my former in laws (cousins) who after a few years learned some earth shattering secrets in her time.
She promptly went home, called them with a ”price” for silence, and got every penny she asked for.
You have to remember, the servants know all. I always hire arabic speakers only, and we all speak english only in their
prescence.
To my surprise during my recent hospital stay one of the patients in the ward was an Indonesian housemaid. She was not happy with her employer so she threw herself out of a four story window. Not surprisingly she broke her back, legs, arm and had other injuries. For whatever reason she felt she had to take such drastic action rather than speak with her employer, who did get her admitted and treated at National Guard. My Mother-in-Law’s housemaid, who is Indonesian, spoke with this woman and spoke to her on the need to preserve oneself rather than take such drastic actions. And once this housemaid recovers from her injuries she will indeed be returning to Indonesia.
Thorough orientation and training sessions for all domestic help should be mandatory (and the law) and supervised over two phases:
in the domestic helper’s own country and when she arrives in the host country before going to the employer’s home.
There is alot of abuse going on with recruitment agencies in the country of origin and the country of destination where recruiters rake in hefty amounts (both from potential domestic helpers and prospective employees).
Blaming abusive employees of domestic helpers is easy but not the solution. Just as it is mandatory for domestic helpers to have health screens, so should it be that they are psychologically and emotionally ready to work abroad and empowered with information needed (language would help as well).
In addition, there should be independent watchdogs over recruitment agencies on both side who are the original perpetrators of abusive behaviour.
And finally, it is sad that only stories of abuse make the headlines. There are many, many domestic helpers living very happily with their employers or in their host country but those stories are not sensational enough to make it to the press to create a balanced view.
Very good points Jewaira. I was still in the hospital when my housemaid arrived. Fortunately my mother-in-law was visiting at this same time with her housemaid. My MIL has a housemaid who is such a gem and she in turn trained my housemaid. As a result, by the time I was released from the hospital my housemaid already knew the routines and typical duties of our house. I can’t tell you what a relief it was on many fronts to come home and having her there and confident of her duties and expectations.
lol @ the tide… I had a maid that used PLEDGE on EVERYTHING.. I would always wonder why the pledge I just bought the day before was already done and on the to buy list!… I had to sit her down and let her see which cleaning agents were for what chores… funny thing is.. when I felt she understood.. I stopped checking up on her.. and I found the tide was finishing… (she thought it was easier to use tide on everything now!) anyway… interesting post…
I wanted to add that I do understand and get angry when I see maids that are abused… but I have also seen maids that come here NOT WANTING TO DO WORK. I mean they did leave their country to become a domestic worker… sa7? and when they come here, they feel that they don’t want to work… cry all day because they are homesick.. (ok.. i feel bad for them.. but I would think they understood that part of the deal when they were bording the flight here) and would rather sit watching television all day and sending SMS on the mobiles to their friends – that are also supposed to be working!
Om Lujain,
I think it is critical to get them into a routine and keep them busy as quickly as possible. This helps to fight the homesickness to a degree. Also, they need to have a mobile and be able to make that phone call back to their home country. However this is an area where there will likely be a learning curve on how long or short to talk depending on her budget.
Overall, I would prefer to engage a housemaid locally but that’s not really a viable option in the Kingdom.
[...] and chance for disasters when vacuuming. Even though are the outlets are color coded and my housemaid shown which outlets to use, she “forgot” three times making me have to replace three vacuums so [...]
Do you also train Saudi employers on how to treat housemaids?? If not you should consider it ASAP. So that housemaids will not end up back in their own countries with nails in their bodies, broken bones and limbs, burnt skin and penny-less for all the work they did and torture they went through in the hands of Saudi morons. If Saudis continue their barbaric behaviour in this manner, they will pay a HEAVY PRICE soon.
Sri Lankan:
Speaking personally, I have shared in earlier posts recommendations (based on my opinion) on treatment of housemaids and the importance for clear understanding and communications. You are correct that actions would be taken for the tortures that you have cited and relations and trade between countries would be severely impacted too.
hi there, well i got to this page after looking for a training system for my maids, im lebanese, and my only mistake is that im too kind with them, i read the above paragragh and it all talked about maids being abused.
My self, i have a 270sqm house, it’s not too big and i have pple over only on hollydays and still i have to maids, one to help me care for my kids and another to care for the house,
the first maid i hired, i gave her a room she wouldn’t have dreamt of, all pink and bought her all kind of clothes and i raised her salary the minute she steped foot in my house, i treated her like a sister and i made sure she knows, that i only need help and that i don’t have anybody to help me, she was good, actually very good, but then after 2 years she left and day after another i would find out that something is missing, she stol half of my clothes and diamonds, that’s 1.
The second came 1 year after i got the first one, and she got treated the same, i give them from my heart, and i never raise my voice, the contrary, my kids are in their hands, so i treat them well bcoz im scared if they hate me they will hurt my boys, and bcoz im so nice to them, now they don’t wake up b4 8 and they need to have their coffee, they sit for two hours for lunch, they go to sleep and the house is dirty, I donno what to do anymore, being nice spoils them and being bad causes disasters, and now the one i have wants to leave b4 she finishes her contract, is this fair?!?!?!
Add to all this, that i pay everything for them during their stay at my home, everything from A to Z, i even bought them phones to talk to their families and created a facebook page for each of them, and i pay their way back to their countries, that’s besides all the gifts they get from me and my husband everytime we travel.
Oh and i forgot about the third one that had just arrived to be trained, she wouldn’t wake up b4 12, she would arrange my clothes the way she likes, she does everything the way she wants it not even giving a dam shit about where i tell her to put or how, she just wants to finish and go watch tv, she would clean with her phone in her hand, and i caought her wandering in the house with a towel arround her, i talked to her zillion time but still she refused to listen, so i sent her back home….
So please, help me, now the one i have wants to leave, and 2 new girls are coming to my house, what should i do, im lost, being good ddn’t work and i don’t think being bad will work!!!
And by the way, after reading one of the comments, the first thing i do when the get off the plane, is asking them, if they wanted to come or they r forced. im a human being at the end of the day, and they r just like me, i consider them sisters but i get abused not them!!!!