The first job I got was technically at my mother-in-law’s.
“Sweep, mop, wash Mahmoud’s shirts”
When I’d eat she’d say “Look how she’s gobbling up the rice! She doesn’t chew.”

When I first stayed with them, I would find a week’s worth of dishes in the sink.
From the second day of my marriage it was, “Go wash the dishes.”
“Go cook for the people visiting you.”

Then every day it was, “Clean the entire house. We don’t like dirt.”
Even when I was pregnant: “Come on, we’ve got work that needs to be done. Go feed the ducks!”
All that and she doesn’t so much as ask her daughter, who lives with her, for a glass of water.
After I go to bed, they’d cook food just for themselves, leaving me the dishes to wash.
I used to ignore them and pray God to forgive my parents who did this to me.
I didn’t want to come to this country.
I wanted a home that I could control. I didn’t want to be controlled by anyone!
At the end, when my husband got sick, and stayed at home for 6 months,
My mother-in-law said, “I don’t want anyone staying with me. I want to stay with just my daughter.”

I decided to get a job then.
The first job I got was at an organisation.
“What are your qualifications?” They asked me.
“I have a business diploma,” I told them, and they gave me work at the literacy department.

I got introduced to a lot of people, and I had no idea how I was going to deal with them.
At the beginning, when I first signed the contract, I was scared.
But during the first round, I helped two people pass.

The organisation owner’s sister used me.
The pay was 130 LE. She would take 30 and throw me a 100.
That’s besides instances when she’ll tell me things like, “We have an official visit tomorrow. We need to tidy up the place.”

I stopped trusting anyone.
Maybe because I felt that everyone wanted to use me like my mother-in-law did.