This time almost exactly three years ago, I went to work as a live-in nanny/teacher for the children of a diplomat. Being in a country where, at the time, I had no friends and did not speak the language may have been difficult, but it was living in such a chaotic, highly dysfunctional household that almost tipped me over the edge. Fortunately, however, it didn’t, because I chose to spew all my frustration on to the pages of a journal instead.

I recently rediscovered the diary I kept and thought it would be interesting to reread it. Looking back on those entries, I can practically feel all the emotions that I was doing my best to hide from the ambassador and his family (they weren’t a family that welcomed freedom of expression much). However, I am also able to see the funny side of it all, and am grateful for the reminder that, no matter how bad things seem at the time, when we look back on them years, months or even just weeks later, we see just how they pale into insignificance.

I’ve copied and pasted a few entries below for anyone who is interested in knowing what goes on behind the scenes in the home of a corrupt diplomat… enjoy!

October 3rd: So far, I’ve had to deal with the following: being at the receiving end of the ambassador’s vacuous wife, Malaika’s* tedious tales of her trips to the gym, shopping excursions, hair appointments and other things I couldn’t give a toss about; getting grief from the eldest son, who doesn’t believe in saying please and thank you and refuses to maintain personal hygiene or eat anything other than pizza; having my hair and shoulders caressed and, at one point, having my chest touched by the ambassador, who wanted to determine “whether I had a chesty cough or a dry cough”. Both Shamir* (the chef) and Angela* (the maid) are quiet as mice when the ambassador and his wife are present, but if ever it’s just the three of us, they offload everything on to me. To be fair, I should be grateful that I have my job and not one of theirs; both slave away, from roughly 7.30 every morning to past midnight, despite the fact they’re only contracted to do eight hours of work per day, and neither have had a day off in the past six months. The ambassador has taken their passports and refuses to issue them ID cards, probably because he’s scared they’ll run away (this happened with a previous member of staff apparently).

October 5th: Last night I went out for dinner and ended up getting back around 1am, then had to wake up at 7.30 this morning. I felt awful, as Shamir had to stay up to let me in (I haven’t been given my own set of keys yet), though he insisted he would have been up anyway, as he likes to keep Angela company when she’s doing the ironing (at 1am?!?) When I went to pick up the younger child, Anush*, yesterday, her teacher informed me that she’d wrapped her hands around a little boy’s throat. I made the mistake of telling Malaika about it and she went mental, firstly at Anush and then at her brother, claiming it was his fault because he bullies her. I actually started to feel a bit sorry for Shad* (the brother), but when I went to try and console him, he put his hands over his ears and squeezed his eyes shut, something he’s been doing every time he sees me for roughly a week now. Malaika now has it in her head that Anush’ teacher is racist and anti-religious, and she harped on about this for a good fifteen minutes, before changing the subject to her fitness regime and asking whether I thought it was best to spend half an hour in the gym before seeing her personal trainer, or whether that was too much. I went to reply but, as usual, she cut me off and asked instead if I liked the new colour in her hair. I simply nodded, tired of being interrupted each and every time I spoke to her. Anush coughed up her eggs at one point, as her mother had forced too much into her mouth. When Shamir came to clear up the mess, he walked behind Malaika and pretended to stab her with his knife- I had a feeling today was going to much the same as yesterday…

October 7th: Last night, it all kicked off here. I was taking care of Anush in the evening, when I heard Malaika screaming at Angela, and Angela doing her best to defend herself. It went on for what seemed like forever and Anush asked me: “Why is mummy so angry?” I had to pretend she’d seen a giant spider. As I was leaving the house that evening, I bumped into Angela on the stairs, who told me she’d been accused of being disloyal. On the train, some twenty minutes later, I got a message from Angela informing me that there was an ambulance outside the house and she was worried Shamir was suffering from high blood pressure as a result of being put under so much stress. She ended her message saying “I’m worried I’ll be next Milly”. What could I do? I was tempted to turn around and go back but realistically, was there any point? When I did get home, about two hours after receiving Angela’s message, I was let in by a man I didn’t recognise, who informed me there was an embassy dinner taking place upstairs. When I asked what had happened to the chef, he told me he was in bed resting. I went into Shamir’s room and was shocked by his appearance; his usually smiley face was all puffy and grey, there were big bags under his eyes and he looked forlorn. I asked him what on earth had happened, and he told me he’d asked for a short break to eat something at around 6pm, as he’d been too busy preparing for the embassy dinner to have lunch. Malaika had agreed to this, but ended up cutting his break short and demanded that he returned to the kitchen. The paramedics who filed Shamir’s medical report asked for some form of ID, which of course he didn’t have, as the ambassador has his passport. Alarm bells must have started ringing at that point, as they called the police and Shamir was interviewed by several policemen. He told them all about his living situation and gave both mine and Angela’s numbers to the police, should they need us to testify. They advised him to ask for his passport back, politely but firmly, and if the ambassador still refuses to give it to him, then he must call them back. God knows where this will lead… I sincerely hope we all manage to escape from this hellhole though!

October 10th: Anush has two more days of assessment so, like before, Malaika is getting herself more than a little worked up. She insisted that the ambassador accompany the two of us to the school this morning and began lecturing me on the importance of Anush covering up in the cold weather. During this lecture, the ambassador came into the dining room and sat down beside me. When Malaika finally shut up, the first thing he said to me was “You know, in this house it is customary to say Good Morning” (I have literally never heard him say Good Morning to anyone). I wanted to say, “Sorry Sir, I would have greeted you, but your imbecilic wife was chewing my ear off as usual”. Instead, I bit my tongue and politely bade him good morning.

October 11th: Yesterday morning and evening were both rather uneventful (thank goodness!) but a very surreal moment occurred in the afternoon — I had just returned from the school with Anush and was preparing a snack in the kitchen, where Malaika and Shamir were talking about Adam*. Malaika was furious that the driver she thought she knew and trusted was betraying her by badmouthing her to the staff, the manager at the gym, the lady in the butchers, etc. Meanwhile, he was speaking ill of all these people to her, claiming Shamir and Angela were both useless and asking why she hadn’t already got rid of them. The (female) gardener and cleaners claim he tried to push them towards Shamir and Shamir said Adam was always suggesting he take these women down into the basement and seduce them. The word ‘WHY?’ began ringing through my head. The surreal part, however, was watching these three women suddenly appear in the kitchen as if they’d been summoned, all shaking their heads and waving their cleaning/gardening implements around. It was like something out of a musical, except there was no music, just copious amounts of squawking. Malaika is now saying she wants to avoid Adam like the plague, but won’t fire him; that is the ambassador’s job apparently. Shamir and Angela are waiting until he’s been fired before they ask for their passports back, as they don’t want him to be involved in any way. How did it suddenly all become Adam’s fault?! I simply don’t know who to trust in this house any more.

October 13th: I’ve finally managed to get away from Malaika, who was talking to (or rather at) me about Adam, the new hot topic in this household. Shamir was telling me yesterday that he will probably get fired, as he’s said so many dodgy things to and about the staff, and clearly doesn’t like his employers much either. When he first met Shamir, he said to him “Your boss is old, your madam is young. But your boss doesn’t like this [makes sex gestures with fingers] does he?” Poor Shamir was a bit shocked and had no idea how to respond. It is true that the ambassador doesn’t seem to have much interest in sex; Malaika actually talks quite openly about this. She told me he’s extremely shy and never gets naked in front of her. They have separate bathrooms and, in the ten years that they’ve been married, they haven’t once taken a shower together. Once, after a rare intimate session, Malaika came out of the bedroom whooping and cheering, whilst swinging the condom around her head. This was prior to my arrival thankfully, as I don’t think I could have handled watching her do that!

October 20th: It’s been a while since I last wrote, but that is by no means because things have been peaceful and calm here. Oh no. On Friday afternoon, I was sitting with Malaika in the living room, listening to her usual nonsense and awkwardly smiling at the camera while she took pictures of my nose (she’s decided she wants a nose job). At roughly 5.30, Shad walked in and demanded that we left, claiming his favourite TV program was about to start. Malaika protested, as he wasn’t supposed to be watching TV until 6, which absolutely infuriated Shad, who began growling like an animal. I was horrified; he was practically frothing at the mouth he was so enraged. He yelled “Call Bubba, call Bubba!” over and over again, then when he still didn’t get his own way, he left the room and came back with a coat hanger, with which he tried to attack Malaika. I watched as he continued to use this coat hanger and his nails to hurt his mother, who was left with scratch marks and blood on her hands by the time he was done. Demonic child.

October 21st: Shad is convinced I only ever do “bad things”, so yesterday I asked him to list some. His list went like this: 1) You told my father on me 2) You called me stupid (the only one I claim responsibility for) 3) You’re old (cheers) 4) You talk funny 5) You’re annoying. He then said, “There are a million other examples, but it will take too long to tell you what they all are.” How am I supposed to reason with this boy? I had to get out of the house the other night, especially as, while the ambassador’s away, I’ve been given a temporary curfew of 9.30pm. Don’t even ask me why, I don’t know and can’t be bothered to question it. Earlier that day, I had put my basket of dirty clothes next to the washing machine and asked Angela to let me know when the cycle had finished so I could put them in, but she ended up washing them for me. When I spotted the clothes hanging on the line, I thanked her repeatedly, which for some reason bothered Malaika. According to Angela, Malaika had overheard me saying thank you and was annoyed, as she didn’t agree with the fact that Angela was doing my laundry. I simply can’t win in this house.