-
Quote
-
0
login to like this post
Post
by judaspriest » Thu, 24 Jan 2008 9:26 pm
Well this is hard because two FDWs (foreign domestic worker) can be as different as day and night. My ex-neighbour had (still has I guess) a Sri Lankan maid, she was there for 4+ years if I am not mistaken. Very good, hard working Sinhala girl.
We had a Sri Lankan maid who was a devout Catholic. She was quite hard working for a couple of months. She fell sick and refused to see the doctor. Only her pastor could "cure" her. And what a cure! My wife accompanied her to her church the first time to drop her off. The pastor appeared to be a nutjob fundamentalist, who'd successfully brainwashed her. She was convinced that only exorcism could cure her. The pastor would "exorcise the demons of Buddha (we have a buddha statue at home), Shiva, etc from her". After a while it got a little worse when she started waking up at night with severe acidity, and would literally raise hell at 1-2am wanting to be taken to her pastor, rather than the 24-hr clinic down the road. She would simply open the door and start walking out of the house "to her pastor".
That got a bit too much - big security risk - and we packed her off back home to Sri Lanka.
My sister had a Sri Lankan maid in 2003-2004. She was an excellent worker and a fast learner. Only later we experienced signs of her violent temper.
She had left the 2-year old baby near the lift, sitting in a puddle of urine, while she was down near the lobby chatting with her friends. When confronted she turned violent, started screaming back and threatening things. My sister got quite shaken and had to send her back. The Sri Lankan embassy was quite uncooperative and unhelpful in both our cases. When we did some investigation it later turned out that this girl could have possible LTTE or extremist connections - she would get strange calls from overseas, and would end up depressed for days, my sister couldn't get anything from her except that she had to send money "back home". That "back home" was a cover - it was not really Srilanka but actually an organisation in Canada called the "World tamil movement" or something like that, which she said "helped her family back home".
I know this sounds scary, but we simply need to be prepared for such eventualities. Fortunately it turned out OK. Here in Singapore at least things get sorted out quickly. I know of a couple of other families with Srilankan maids who're doing ok so far (8 months - 1.5 yrs employed).
Ultimately it's a combination of your luck (a large dose of it), effective and attentive screening by you, and recommendation by the agency or someone else.