Part 3

I had noticed them before, the cameras, but never really glanced at them too much..but this gave me chills, and I felt sick suddenly; what the maid had said about the woman from Turkmenistan could be true after all. I ran straight to my room and covered the camera with a scarf that I had.
What to do, what to do!? The panic got at me immediately, and I began to have an extreme anxiety attack, alone in my room, realizing what I might be in for. I decided that I needed to act normal, like nothing was wrong, I felt like the only way I would stay sane was to pretend that nothing was actually happening, and to just go with the flow.
That night, the mother confronted me about covering the camera in my room, proof that the maid wasn’t messing with me. She told me that since I decided to cover the camera in my room, that I must be doing something I shouldn’t be doing, and told me that she would make sure to watch the cameras more closely. I tried to play dumb, saying that I just put it there for decoration since the walls were bland. She didn’t buy it.
I continued with my plan of pretending everything was fine (still no pay at this point) and decided to try to be friendly with her, to try and get close, ( figured that would keep her from screaming at me, which she did constantly, every day). She decided to trust me a little, and took me to the mall where she worked, but I had to stay close enough where she could see me. On our trip back to the home, I told her about what had happened at the previous house, which she responded to, saying that it was my fault men were like that towards me, and that I obviously did something to deserve that treatment. That was it, I had it, but I didn’t let her see, I carried my brave and indifferent face.
On May 18th, I was screamed at like any other day, only this day, I had to go with the daughter to swimming lessons that were held inside the complex…the area where the big boss’ office was. The mother left me alone while the girl was at her lesson, I asked the guy at the desk inside he pool area for an English speaker. He retrieved one slowly, and I knew I only had 15 minutes to do what I was trying to do.
The woman who spoke English came, and I asked her for the American Consulate phone number, she wouldn’t give it to me until I told er what was going on, at this point, I was shaking in fear, afraid the mother would show up, and they would tell her what I was asking for. I told them the basics, and the woman just turned and walked away….no help, I was stuck.
That same day, I asked the father for my passport back, he told me he was not allowed to give it back to me unless we talked to his wife first. So we sat down, I told her I wanted to leave, I couldn’t handle her screaming at me for random reasons, I can handle the kids biting, kicking, hitting, screaming and so on, I couldn’t handle playing a game that only she knew the rules to…she broke down, screaming and crying, telling me that I am a heartless person to try to leave her to take care of her two kids…even typing that right now, it still makes me feel disgusted about her. She refused to return my passport, and locked the door to the luggage closet, told the maids to not let me out, if they did without her permission, they would be fired, unable to feed their families. She also made sure that if the security at the complex saw me, they were to contact her immediately.
May 19th was my 24th birthday, the family held an overpriced birthday party, for the son, who’s birthday was the next day (they also celebrated that day as well, making it 2 days in a row). The clowns at the party (whom I had seen multiple times at the family’s friends homes for other birthdays) pulled me aside and asked what was going on, I didn’t want them to try to help, so I pretended all was well, they saw right through me.