The Ballad of Rehana, our ex-maid

In other big news, we fired out Maid/cook (called a "bearer" here, a holdover from Colonial Britain), Rehana. She is a short, dark Bangladeshi woman who can be smiley but has hard eyes. She is not skinny and seems to have worked in nice homes before ours. This has been a difficult process for the three housemates, because there is no sugar coating putting someone out of a job in the third world. However, in grotesquely strict economic terms, we are in a "buyers market" and she had steadily made herself less and less of a luxury and more of a liability.
Specifically, she lied about how much money she needed for the rickshaw for groceries, assumedly pocketing some for herself. Now it was really only a little more than a dollar that she fudged, but when someone is in your house all day without you, you want to have a trusting relationship.
Also, we were paying her more than any other new hirees, yet she was not satisfied. Could we have afforded to pay more? certainly, but we were also aware of how much more she was making than the other cooks, and that we were paying her double what a Bangladeshi family would. Because of translation issues we asked the "General Services" director, Mr. Zaman, to talk to her and make sure everything was set at 9000tk a month. He assured us that she was ok with 9000, but when we got home she said that Mr. Zaman said we would pay 10,000. Again, there was a sense that she was trying to take advantage of us.
She also gave Sara a lot of attitude despite Sara being the most ready to help and try to communicate with Rehana. Sara is an exceptionally kind person, and Rehana's defiance of her modest wishes would be unnacceptable in any boss-worker relationship. In short, things that should have been easy requests often turned into negotiations made impossible and illogical by our distinct language barrier.
The last straw for me was when I came home after a long muggy day and hopped in the shower, only to find that my bar of soap was missing. Afterwards I checked around and found it in the guest bathroom that we let Rehana shower in after cleaning. This was gross. I can only hope that she hadn't been previously putting it back after use. Also, she left the guest bathroom wet from the shower (which has no curtain), so that if we actually had company the toilet would have been drenched and unappealing.
Although we were not too pleased with her, we also understood that we were putting food on her table. It is hard to pull the plug on that kind of relationship. Our guilt was strong, but we also had to consider that someone who could make us happy for the same price and spoke English also needed work, and would it be fair to deny her an opportunity? Is it appropriate to even ask these questions? It feels disgusting to do so. However Rehana again transgressed our wishes and overspent on food we didn't need after we gave her a budget, so we decided to let her go.

Today she showed up to our apartment seeking her job back, and a dress she had left here to dry. Luckily I was not yet out of my room so I didn't have to deal with it. When I came home today she was still here, talking with our guards. This made me very uncomfortable but I just said hi to her and walked by, planning to get after the guards later. I learned later on tonight that she had accosted a teacher who lives next to me and demanded (and I don't mean asked) for money. Seeing her made my heart sink because I knew she needed the job, and I had trouble with the knowledge I had helped to take it away.

On the bright side, our new cook is great. A little Thai woman named Anna, she speaks and writes more English, and understands better what we want. She also doesn't fold my ironed shirts (a pet peeve). She is older than Rehana, who is probably in her late 20s, and far more motherly. I think we have found a keeper, but I was afraid a confrontation might have ensued when Rehana was down in the parking lot and Anna was leaving. Luckily Jimmy and Sara went with her to the market to help show her what we want to buy. Hopefully this is the end of our relationship with Rehana and she will find another job soon, maybe one in which she will more clearly understand what her bosses want from her (just writing that last line is too weird, but it is what it is).