Made by maids

Her day begins at 5am and ends around 4pm,by which time she has taken care of all her household chores,packed her kids off to school,cleaned and washed dishes in two houses,cleaned two houses and is probably dog tired by the end of it all.Like most working women she needs to handle her shopping,and other jobs outside of home which unfortunately eat into her work time.Dare she be late to work and the household will yell at her,demand an explanation and sulk.She gets no paid leave,no casual leave and no sick leave.She has not benefits that a lot of women in the organised sector have.At home she has a husband who refuses to be employed,children to educate,insurance to pay and sundry functions to conduct all of which need to be handled on her meager salary.Yet there are very few days when she sulks.Most days she is the picture of cheerfulness,always laughing at her woes,always ready for a joke and punctual when most others of her breed will bunk at the slightest excuse.I have seen maids of many generations and I marvel at the change or progress that they have made.In the earlier days,they were a lot less affluent and most had husbands that were drunk and abusive.This is true of most maids in the 40 plus group.The thirty something ones all have some of the so called fancy amenities.Most have gas connections,concrete roof over their heads,a bicycle to commute on,and a cell phone to chat with friends.Their attitudes have also undergone some change.I find that they are more educated,have a clearer understanding of their rights be it at home or in the workplace,and are ready to learn.They are also learning to appreciate that when they are treated well they need to reciprocate the same.This in my view is progress albeit at a very slow pace

Corruption is fed

We are making progress,that means we fright corruption first and to do that it takes collective effort.The first step is that every payment is made by demand draft or cheque and there are signs all over government offices saying that bribing is not acceptable.There is also a phone number to call if anyone asks or takes a bribe.Funny to think that should we do so,chances are that non of our jobs will get done,the other thing that can happen is that the very guy we call will ask for a bribe.Now this is tricky so we do a little dance,we gauge the reaction of the concerned person with leading questions and a little play acting on our part.After some time we are told that if we should try and handle the procedures by ourselves,chances are that it will take a long time and we may be asked unnecessary questions.Well that has us stumped(exactly the objective),so we ask in all innocence what we need to do.She is prompt.There is a person who is very experienced she tells us who would be glad to assist and having worked in the office for years he know the ins and outs she tells us.We are given a phone number and a name and an appointment is fixed and we are sent on our way.No money has exchanged hands and no bribe has been given or asked for.Its understood that the middle man will get it all done for us,take a nice tidy sum of money depending on his assessment of how much we can afford and everyone in the chain will be paid off.Is this corruption...of course it is.Will we stand up to it,well we would like to but we also need to earn a living and we also know that standing up to them isn't in our best interests,so we pay up.Are we to blame,perhaps yes but is there a solution....I don't know and having seen systems far more corrupt I learn to appreciate(not the most appropriate word) that this city is perhaps the lesser of the evils than some other governments I know.So we are all caught up in a web of corruption but why blame the government and its workers,at least they don't take the moral high ground like some private corporates do but corruption comes in many forms and its not confined to just government personnel...some of the private ones are a lot worse by comparison