Hired Help

I have felt the need all week to blog about the hired help here.  Every morning a bus rolls in from Jeddah with workers that keep our community looking nice and really clean. We have every type of worker needed to keep all of our area clean and often sparkly.

Every morning I walk into our school and I notice how the floors shine.  Our school has a man that keeps our school looking nice.  He works 7 days a week (on Fridays he gets to come late).  I have been in on the weekends and he has been outside watering the trees, polishing the floors, and fixing anything that needs to be fixed.  He is wonderful!  We also have several ladies in our school that clean.

Our third grade helper cleans my room twice a day.  She scrubs desks, empties garbage, washes doorknobs, cleans the bathrooms, sweeps the hallways, and wipes down the lockers. All of this is done daily, and sometimes more than once a day.  Our school is very clean and tidy!  These people are so nice but my heart breaks each time I see them.  They are not from this country and they had to leave their families behind in order to find a job that pays enough to support their families.   These people have spouses and children that they only see once a year.

Last week I threw a few pencils away in the garbage not even thinking about it.  When my helper came she pulled them out, sharpened them, and put them in my pencil area.  It made me realize a lot about myself.  To this lady I have everything a person could ever dream.  I have a family, clothes, good job, huge home, and all the little things that most of us never think about. To her pencils are expensive. To me it was garbage.

So, this week I have been reflecting on what I value and just life itself. Meeting these wonderful people that work hard to make my life clean and pretty, and sacrifice their own happiness makes me realize how lucky I am. I am taking the time to get to know these people and I believe this might be the most important lesson I learn while I live here.

I have been wanting to share this with you all week! Hopefully I can sleep better tonight with these thoughts off my chest. Expect lots of blogs this weekend. It is a holiday weekend, so lots of adventures are in our near future.