tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22057864.post-43591004088359122712006-12-04T20:38:00.000+05:302006-12-04T21:40:47.096+05:30<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"></span><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">As Europeans in India we are expected to have staff. We have a driver and a maid. Our maid is a local girl called Kadeeja - I'm not sure of the exact spelling in English, but neither is she. She works for us for four hours a day, six days a week. She sweeps and mops the floors daily, cleans the bathrooms, does the ironing and prepares our evening meal. </span><br /></div><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">Kadeeja is an excellent cook and I can't really see the point of taking up cooking in a big way ever again. She obviously feels my house is too bare and not filled with appropriate ornamentation because whenever she has money over from buying food for the week which costs about £2.30 I get presented with something new for the house. I am now the proud owner of a neon green vase full of artificial flowers, a blue glass dessert bowl with matching dishes, dolphin wind chimes and today I received a pair of peacock feather fans. I am still wondering how to dispose of them all tactfully.<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5004704292055523378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://bp2.blogger.com/_22R1zaQSx2Y/RXRICZ3XoDI/AAAAAAAAAAM/rWy5LUc36HY/s320/Kadeeja.jpg" border="0" /></span></div><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">Having read a number of books about the household pecking order and how the driver is essentially the top dog in the household and how we should never allow the maid to ask the driver to do anything, we were initially very careful about creating and maintaining the hierarchy.</span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;"></span></div><div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;">Such advice is completely lost on my staff. The driver seems happy to do exactly as he is told by Kadeeja, runs errands, gets called back to give her a lift home and last week I found him sitting in the car shelling peas for her. So much for the staus quo!</span></div>Annehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07626595220929596458noreply@blogger.com