How the "Other Half" Lives...

Remember on my last post, I said the story of my maid's uncle was "another story". Well here it is. The day before yesterday, my maid came into our house while I was sorting out my medicines for the day and was crying here eyes out. She is from Sri Lanka and works here in Oman because it is close to most of her family (her uncle is the closest family member and is the rock of her whole family unit). He's an electrician and works at the city desalination plant where Muscat draws nearly all it's fresh water supply. He's worked there for over 23 years.

Last week he had a heart attack and was put in the hospital for a few days. They don't do angioplasties and other things here that you'd think would be done for people with blocked blood vessels in the heart... They just give you a shot in the arm to open your blood vessels and watch you to make sure you don't die. Well... They released him from the hospital and when he returned to work, he was informed that his services were no longer needed. They were bringing in a fresh new recruit from India. So, as his visa is determined by his employment, he's got to leave the country. He needs to leave anyway because he wants to go back to Sri Lanka where he trusts the doctors (go figure). His company claims he's too old. 55 is the age limit for employees here and he's 56. Also, they're probably afraid that he'll have another attack while doing something vital and kill himself on the job site... So I imagine they saw him as a liability and decided to terminate him... Nice... You'd think we had stepped out of the 18th century on employers who act like this...

Anyway... My maid is over the edge with grief. I have tried to explain to her that it's just a job... He'll get another job... I also tried to explain to her that she needs to be happy that her uncle isn't dead and that heart attacks are serious business. It turns out that he's had undiagnosed diabetes all this time... probably what led to the attack.

I drove her to her uncle's apartment to visit him. Boy did I feel like an elephant in room full of mice... Firstly, this "apartment" is a 10 story building that looks like it was built in the early 70's. It has that "70's" look about it. The ceilings are only 7 feet high and the place is falling apart. Paint is peeling off the walls, carpeting is all ripped up, half the lights don't work.

I was taken to his son's apartment, which was the nicer one. It was a single room apartment with a small makeshift kitchen area and a bathroom. The main features of this single room being a huge fuze panel on the wall and a collection of tattered particle board book shelves which act as a divider between the door to the apartment and the "bedroom" which contains two twin sized beds for a husband, wife and two children...