Bye

Sadly butlers are now rare, but the few remaining aren’t too traumatised by the catchphrase.

I admire your ambitions, but I think you have to look at the root of the problem. It isn’t rude (or even violent) employers, but the fact that many people just don’t have any option better than household staff.

As prosperity and education advance, it will become too expensive to have staff, just as it has in Europe and the US, except for the really wealthy. Morocco is well on it’s way to achieving this, so try not to be to hard on her.

Cracking down on child labour might not be as good an idea as it sounds. I’m not advocating children working, but if the choice might be between working as an agricultural labourer at home, or helping in a relatively sophisticated and educated household, it might be as close as a child comes to an education. I know of instances where this has really paid off and given the ‘servant’ a leg up into a different world.

Language is critical, for instance. If your family speak only Berber, then you might just benefit from being surrounded by people speaking Arabic, French etc (in addition to Berber; I hope the dialects survive as well). The household might have a few books, even.

I know that you are being completely politically correct; but sadly political correctness, like pure democracy, doesn’t work so well here.

So, if you were still stuck in the Atlas, as a nineteen year old, let me ask you what you would prefer? You haven’t been able to go to school, but you’ve picked up the odd word of French from your brothers. Your days consist of carrying water from the spring back up an impossible slope to your house in the village, and collecting fodder for the animals. In the evening you have electricity, from a solar panel and a battery, enough to watch TV for a few hours a night. Your feet still hurt, as your broken plastic shoes are too small.

You can see your mother and elder sisters ageing prematurely from the hard labour. Your grandmother is bent nearly double, so she walks with a stick, but she still carries huge bundles of firewood back to the village day in, day out.

Your father has been asked for your hand in marriage, but the young man in question has lost several of his teeth and you aren’t keen. You’ve seen your mother go through the pain of childbirth and loose a child at home, with only the advice and dubious ministrations of the old women to help her.

One day a family from the town turns up. They have a car – you’ve never been in a car, only the vans and trucks that use the rough pistes. You can go and live with them, half a days travel away, earn some money, in fact almost as much as your father, and send half of it home to help your siblings.

You have a room with satelite TV, hot and cold running water, a toilet that flushes, your own bed. You can buy a few clothes, a mobile telephone, buy a few presents when you visit your family…

What would you do?

Whilst the above story relates to one of our staff, who is your age, the same could easily be true for a fourteen year old. And how do you think these girls will feel if you successfully remove the option?

Aren’t you denying them a chance to escape?

I’m not denying the problem existed, or that there are problems with maids or other staff here or anywhere else.

There’s enough going on elsewhere in the world to effect tourism and the economy here, so, no, I’m not worried about that!

I think balance is the key. All employees here have far fewer rights, often appalling health and safety, few have pensions etc. But these problems aren’t exclusive to Morocco. In fact, in comparison with Morocco’s neighbours on the African continent, I think the country does exceptionally well. I think you have overstated the case by inferring it is a Moroccan problem. It isn’t. It’s simply a problem that exists in Morocco, along with many other countries.

I’m not Moroccan, but my wife is, and I’ve lived here for nearly a decade – which might be more time than you spent here, for all I know. I do speak the language (both Darija and French) and I don’t live in an expat bubble. In fact, deep in the middle of the medina in Fes, I think we are probably closer to the essence of Morocco than the bourgeois colony of Bouznika.

But, you mention being a second class citizen?

When I work, I sell my time to who ever is paying me. I do my best to do what I’m asked to do. From time to time I have to carry bags, open doors, and do other things that you might think ‘servile’.

In truth, everyone works for someone; there’s a Dylan song about it. So, just because you cook and clean and your employer shouts at you, it doesn’t mean you have the right to invoke ‘second class citizenship’. You are who you are.

Incidentally, you aren’t obliged to be waited on hand and foot. You can wash you own hands, you can help the staff. I do still wash the dishes.

So next time your maid offers you the kettle and bowl, take it from her and wash the hands of the other people at the table. She can get back to the kitchen, her daughter and the doubtless many other jobs she needs to do.

If you really want to help these women, providing water and education in the countryside is an excellent place to start.

Horrible things happen to people everywhere, and I don’t think Morocco should be demonised, as a result of however many isolated incidents.

The Moroccan social structure, family strength, and network of support for the less fortunate is something the West could learn something from.

In Western economies, you are able to turn the other cheek, pay taxes, and expect the government to help the poor.

In Morocco, when someone asks you to help them, it’s a direct request, and there isn’t some expensive, inefficient and impersonal social scheme to turn to.

If helping involves welcoming a member of their family into your home to become a member of your family, I can see no wrong in it.

There are circumstances where staff are required. Somewhere above someone comments about “never having felt comfortable’ about having a maid. I wonder how they cope in restaurants or hotels; uncomfortable, one presumes. If you have a large house, or a big garden, or lots of children, which other parts of your life are you going to sacrifice in order to do all of this work yourself?

If those of us who can afford it pay people to clean our houses, drive our cars, and look after our children and gardens, we are giving people an opportunity to work and some wealth filters down.

Isn’t it mean to refuse to do this, and just sit on the money?