Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia

lungs screaming
for relief from the rushing water. I remembered her flashing brown
eyes and her special way of lifting her chin while filling the room
with laughter. I recalled the soft feel of her fair skin, and
considered with a grimace the quick work of the cruel earth on such
softness. I looked at my watch and saw that it was 10:10, and I
felt my chest tighten with the knowledge that Nadia would laugh no
more. It was the most dramatic hour in my young history, yet I knew
that my friends’ schemes for fun, as bad or sad as they were,
should not have caused Nadia’s death, or Wafa’s premature marriage.
Such cruel actions were the worst of all commentaries on the wisdom
of the men who consume and destroy the lives and dreams of their
women with emotionless indifference.
     

Chapter Nine: Foreign Women
    After the sudden departure of Randa, the
marriage of Wafa, and the death of Nadia, I sank to the lowest
possible level of existence. I can recall thinking that my body no
longer required the fresh breath of life. I fancied myself in
hibernation and wanted to feel the shallow breathing and lowered
heartbeat experienced by creatures of the wild that will themselves
away for months at a time. I would lie in my bed, hold my nose with
my fingers, and pinch my mouth closed with my teeth. Only when my
lungs forced the expulsion of air would I regretfully recognize
that I had little control over my vital functions.
    The house servants felt my pain keenly, for I
was known as the sensitive member of our family and had always
shown concern for their situations. The meager amounts of cash
doled out each month by Omar seemed a high price to pay for being
so far removed from those they loved.
    In an effort to rouse my interest in life, my
Filipino maid, Marci, began to revive my thoughts by telling me
stories of people from her country. Our long talks served to thaw
the impersonal relationship that exists between master and servant.
One day she timidly revealed her life’s ambition. She wanted to
save enough money, working as a housemaid for our family, to return
to the Philippines to study nursing. Filipino nurses are in great
demand worldwide, and it is considered a lucrative career for women
in the Philippines.
    Marci said that after she graduated, she
would return to Saudi Arabia to work in one of our modern
hospitals. She smiled as she reported that Filipino nurses made a
salary of SR 3,800 each month! (Approximately $1,000 a month,
compared to the $200 a month she earned as our maid.) With such a
large salary, she said she could support her entire family in the
Philippines.
    When Marci was only three, her father was
killed in a mining accident. Her mother was seven months’ pregnant
with a second child. Their life was bleak, but Marci’s grandmother
tended to the two children while her mother worked two shifts as a
maid in local hotels. Marci’s mother repeated many times that
knowledge was the only solution to poverty, and she frugally saved
for her children’s education.
    Two years before Marci was to enroll in
nursing school, her younger brother, Tony, was run over by an
automobile and suffered extensive injuries. His legs were so
crushed that they had to be amputated. His medical treatments ate
away at Marci’s school fund until the small tin can was bare. Upon
hearing Marci’s life story, I wept bitter tears. I asked her how
she could maintain her happy smile day after day, week after week.
Marci smiled broadly. It was easy for her, she said, since she had
a dream and a way to realize her dream. Her experiences growing up
in a wretchedly poor area in the Philippines left Marci feeling
extremely fortunate to have a job and to fill her plate three times
daily. People from her area did not actually die of hunger, she
emphasized, but of malnutrition that left them vulnerable to
diseases that would not have flourished in a healthy community.
    Marci shared the stories of her people so
vividly that I felt myself a part of her history, her land, her
rich culture. I knew I had underestimated Marci and other
Filipinos, for, until then, I had given them little thought other
than to consider them simple folk lacking in ambition. How wrong I
was!
    Several weeks later Marci expanded her
courage to talk about her friend Madeline. By telling me about
Madeline, she opened up the question of the moral values of my
land. Through Marci, I first learned that women from Third World
countries were held as sex slaves in my own