Part 2

After searching and interviewing quite a few families in Istanbul, one contacted me that wanted me straight away, which to me meant that I would not have to be in that house one more night with that horrible man.
I met the mother of the new family at Starbucks in the housing complex, so we could interview one another. It seemed rushed, and I noticed that she didn’t ask too many questions about me…I thought it was odd, because I would be with her children, but I blew off the feeling, because she sounded like she was in great need.
That same night, she picked me and my stuff up from the original house. When I got to her house, I met the kids and the husband, all seemed to be well, however, one lady (the son’s nanny) looked extremely depressed, and because she was from Turkmenistan, I could only understand some of the Russian she spoke.
The first couple of days at the home weren’t too bad, although there was one instance where the mother screamed at me, I blew it off as she has a lot of pressure on her from work. She blew up about something very trivial, for some reason she expected that I read her mind, I still don’t understand it…
My second day of work it was mother’s day. the nanny and I were to walk around a play area at a very classy outdoors restaurant while the mother and father and their parents were eating, then once they were done chatting, we were to hurry and eat (we had to stand to the side of the kids while they ate, then we were after, I suppose to “show us our place.”)
The next day, the woman from Turkmenistan disappeared completely. At first, no one would tell me what happened to her…then the mother came up with a story: That the woman had gone to send money to her family, and the police caught her (she was an illegal worker who had been there one and a half years). It wasnt until a week later that I found out what really happened from the maids that worked in the home.
The woman had been trapped in the house without pay for the last year and a half. One day, she got out with no one noticing, and went to the police, told them she was illegal, and was deported back to her family in Turkmenistan. At this point, I didn’t really understand how someone could be trapped in a normal home…until a few days later.
The mother and father were both out of the home, it was a couple of days before my birthday, so this was about May 17th. I had just gotten out of the shower, and the maid came running at me with a hair dryer (which I never use) and told me I must use it (the mother had been making me use one this whole time, I think its a crazy thing to need control over.) I told the maid, the mother is gone, I don’t like to use it because it damages my hair, (the house is already extremely warm because the mother thinks any bit of cold will have deadly affects on her children…they have to wear socks and sweaters in the heat as well).
That’s when the maid pointed out the cameras…