Expatriates

There are two Carols (name changed) at the gym cum salon I frequent. Both are Filipinos and eat their meals together and go home together.

Carol 1 is my  aerobics trainer - a pleasant and energetic lady with the ideal figure we gymmers aspire for. No excess fat even around the belly. She cant be very young as her son is now also working in Dubai. Unless she is a teenage mother, which would not be very surprising in a nation that is not bound by the Victorian morals we in India practise. She takes two one-hour aerobic sessions five days a week and is the reason why the gym is well-patronised.

Carol 2 is the assistant at the salon. She looks very young and petite. She says her older child is 15 and the younger one 10. Though during our first conversation over a facial, she told me her husband takes care of the children back in their village near Manila, she later confided that she had no husband and her father took care of them. She misses her "babies" as she calls them and she goes to Philippines only every 2 years or so. She had been working in the tailoring unit of a garment factory until she got a job as a salesgirl on the shopfloor in Dubai. Till the Syrian madam who ran the salon found her and poached her after her contract period. She taught her pedicure and manicure and facial basics; haircuts were the madam's forte.

The pay was what most low skilled workers got here but the blessing was that she worked in  a cool and quiet place and there weren't many customers. So most times she looked at her phone or slept or talked to her compatriot in Tagalog. Not to mention the official rest hours from 1 to 3 pm when they lazed or napped.

She has taken a special liking to me which is why I get to hear her stories and why I get the discounts and special services she gives me in her madam's absence. I tip her in return. The "other Carol" (which sounds like adi Carol to me ) doesn't like the noisy Indian women who frequent the gym, she confides to me. Are we as a nation very loud and unmindful of people around us?

In the Ramzan month, she joined us on the floor occasionally hoping to reduce the wee excess fat around her belly. She also started dressing well and applying a lot of make-up. I hoped she found new love.

And with the change of proprietorship that month came a buxom new  hairdresser, a Moroccan who speaks only French and Arabic, who seems to be coloring and changing her hairstyle in the absence of sufficient patrons. Carol 2 acted as interpreter to those who couldn't communicate with her in French.

The salon has changed hands again but if the wave of bad luck continues, the Carols may have to find new jobs or return to their nostalgia that is Philippines.