It is 8am on a bright February morning, and Zubeida Begum is walking through the narrow lanes of Bhatial, a quiet rural village of about 2,000 people in the Jhelum district of Punjab, Pakistan.
The 42-year-old widow wears a large cotton dupatta, or shawl, draped over her head and shoulders as she walks past modest bungalows – most the same sandy brown colour as the earth, others painted blue or orange – and the occasional villa. These large, two- or three-storey villas stand behind gates and walls. Some have colourful mosaic tile work and black iron balconies, courtyards with palm trees or pruned gardens lined with jasmine and bougainvillea.
About 20 years ago, when Zubeida was a young mother with five children under the age of eight, she started working for a couple in their late 60s. They had moved from Bhatial to England in the late 1950s, a time when economic migrants were invited to rebuild the country’s post-war economy. After they retired in the early 2000s, they would return to the villa they built in Bhatial – one of several constructed by families who immigrated abroad – once a year for a few weeks during the winter. When they were there, Zubeida would work as domestic help for them – dusting, cooking, doing the laundry and washing up. The couple cared for her like a daughter, she says. Then, a little over a decade ago, they died.
Now, their children, who are in their 60s and early 70s and spend most of the year in the UK, own three imposing villas in the village, all constructed from imported marble and local bricks. Like their parents before them, they return in the winter, but their houses lay vacant for most of the year.
Zubeida cleans the three homes once a week – each on a different day. The closest is just five minutes away and the farthest, about 15.
“I go to these empty houses and sweep them from top to bottom using a jharhoo [a traditional brush made of dried grass] as it’s best for sweeping away dust,” she says. “I make sure everything is in order and then return to my own home.”