By Nayab Malik
With increasing scholastic workloads during the last week of the semester and co-curricular activities in addition, many students living in the new residence halls are struggling to keep their rooms clean. To cope, they’re paying off the staff to clean their rooms.
“We try and take into consideration everyone’s cultural backgrounds when dealing with this issue. We know many residents have someone in their homes for housekeeping and we try to support them,” said Arooj Rana, a housing and residence life (HRL) co-coordinator for the new residence halls in Education City.
Rana went on to say that the HRL staff is considerate of residents’ housekeeping needs and so they are allowed to hire external maid services or to ask the residence halls staff for help.
“Our policies haven’t changed. If residents want to ask the housekeeping staff here to help them clean their rooms, they may do so. The staff is there to take care of common areas, and they can clean for you, but not during their working time,” Rana said.
Many students had been under the misconception that they weren’t allowed to have maids in the residence halls, but had asked for help anyway because of their busy schedules.
“I hired a lady who used to clean the old dorms, because I couldn’t clean my room myself. With being at university all day and other daily activities, I had to hire someone else to clean for me,” said Maryam A Al Doseri, a freshman at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar.
Growing up in a Bahraini household, Al Doseri had maids to maintain her family’s house as well.
“My maids basically raised me and I respected them,” she said, adding that although she grew up dependent on the help of maids, she finds that many students treat them with disrespect today.
“Some students here treat them like handbags,” she said. “They think yelling at their maids is prestigious. I think it’s disrespectful.”
Al Doseri’s concerns shed light on the maid culture in EC, especially on how a few girls have their maids carry their school bags from their cars all the way to classes and back to their cars at the end of the day.
Noora Al-Thani, a freshman at Northwestern University in Qatar said, “I don’t think it’s related to culture. I grew up with maids, and I saw them as people, not just as help. But I’ve seen some of my peers in EC have maids carry their books all the way to class and stand in wait for them outside so they can take the books back to the car afterwards.”
“It’s about mutual respect. I don’t ask my maids to do unreasonable jobs. I can carry my own books to my car. Personally, I’d be embarrassed if I had to ask my maid to do such small things for me,” she added.
However, Rhytha Zahid Hejaze, an NU-Q freshman from Pakistan, had a different view on the issue.
“I miss my maids back home and I wish they could come here. It’s just in our culture. We were born with maids and I think we never really grew up taking care of ourselves,” she said.
“I’m forever cleaning my room and it distracts me from finishing my assignments. If I had my maids here I could use that time to complete my work. I would like that very much,” she said.
