Title: Interview with Agnes Odoli and Diana Moore (Mariam Delanou) Discussing African Domestic Workers in Cairo, Egypt

Date of interview: June 9, 2018

Location of interview: Maadi, Cairo, Egypt

Interview with Agnes Odoli, Diana Moore (Mariam Delanou), Kees (Cornelis) Hulsman

12:00 Minutes of recording, with agreement of all involved persons

Transcribed interview, edited for understanding

Kees: So, what is your story, can you tell Diana? Your father is from Liberia and your mother is from Guinea. That’s what I know. What else? How did your mother get here? Because you came here because of your mother.

Diana: She came through like, coming to find a job.

Kees: Through an agency or program?

Diana: No, she came by herself.

Kees: She must’ve had friends

Diana: No, she doesn’t have friends. There were people here she knew. Some friends, but they didn’t help her. They told her she should come, and they would go to the airport to receive her, but when she came, no one came, so she had to go to a hotel or like, a month before someone came to take us.

Kees: What type of work was your mother doing in Guinea?

Diana: Oh, I don’t know.

Kees: What education does she have?

Diana: I don’t know. Okay, here’s the thing. I don’t really stay with my mom for a long time. My mom actually travelled all the time. She loves travelling to countries and seeing things. So like, I stayed with her sister for a long time. I was like maybe six, or seven, when my mom left me with my aunt, and like, I stayed with my aunt till I was thirteen. Because my mom usually travels and sometimes she goes for like 4 years, sometimes 3 years, and she doesn’t call, nothing. She just like, appears one day.

Kees: So it's not like Agnes with her children.

Diana: No, no, it's like normal stuff, like travelling, it’s like, my aunt was mad at my mom, and my mom was like[wise] mad, because we don’t see her for some time, the day that she’s gonna call is like maybe the day she's trying to come back, to go back. So, I don’t really know what type of job she’s doing, I don’t know if she has an income or not. And, the year before we came to Egypt, that’s the time, I have to work for her. I didn’t know what tools she had, what ideas she had, what common job she was doing. It was like, she was almost like a stranger.

Kees: And, how did you come to Egypt?

Diana: Oh, I don’t know, I came with her.

Kees: Which year?

Diana: It was like, I don’t remember the year, but we’ve almost been here 7 years. So it’s like, actually we didn’t come from Liberia straight here, we travelled to other countries, foreign African countries, before Egypt. Yeah, so I didn’t know like... (rambles off 4:15) I don’t remember that.

Agnes: How old is your mom?

Diana: I think she’s... forty, forty one?

Agnes: So, when you stayed with your aunt, it's no secret that you asked your aunt what your mom does.

Diana: Well, she doesn’t know.

Agnes: Okay, when she travels, when she comes back she brings you everything, she brings your aunt things

Diana: Yeah.

Woman: but she doesn’t tell you what she does?

Diana: No, she just says she’s working.

Agnes: She flies here? Most of the time she flies to Egypt?

Diana: Usually, she travels around African countries a lot. She went to the US, but it was like when she was young, when she got married, so like she and her husband travelled to the US and they came back, and after when they broke up...I was not born at the time so I don’t know, I just hear it. So, after the divorce, she got married to, my brother was born. Which is like, I have one brother in my whole family, and his father is from Germany, but like during the war in Liberia he got killed, so after that, that’s why I’m here, and after that, my other sister and me…and after that my father, like after my brother’s father it was my father.

Agnes: What else she does?

Diana: Now she works in a salon.

Agnes: How old are you?

Diana: Me? Eighteen.

Agnes: Eighteen? You should know what your mom does. You don’t say you don’t know. You say, “yes, my mom works in a salon.” My daughter knows where I work. So she owns the salon or she’s been employed?

Diana: Umm...usually I think she is employed. First, she was not doing any salon job and stuff like that. She was home, but after she stopped, maybe like, helping someone, and after she got the later place to do her own.

Agnes: Okay so you came with your mom and who?

Diana: My little sister, the last one.

Agnes: So when you arrived, mom didn’t think of taking you to school or anything?

Diana: Not really. I like, stayed in the house for three years, I didn’t like going out actually, so like, actually she told me to go out with friends but I didn’t want to.. I didn’t want to be around them. So, I used to like stay by myself. No other person.

Agnes: And your younger sister now goes to school?

Diana: Uhh…yeah, now she goes to school. But at that time, she was younger, like seven month old when she came here.

Kees: So mom got you to take care of your sister. That is what happened. So you were the babysitter for your sister.

Agnes: That’s nice.

Diana: Not really.

Agnes: Your sister was safe.

Diana: She was safe, but I had to go back to school… (rambles off 9:23)

Agnes: So you really wanted to go back to school if you had the chance. What would you like to be.

Diana: A writer?

Kees: Well, we’re getting you into school, and ask people to explain the words, because there are many words which you don’t know. And if you want to become a writer, than you certainly need to have a big vocabulary.

End