The Help

Sometimes it is difficult for me to believe it, but we actually have a maid. Yes, there is a woman who comes to our house every day to clean and cook us lunch. Her name is Carmen and she is from Zumba, a small town several hours south of Loja. She moved here to study at the local university.

Having a maid is a very common practice in Ecuador, and seems to be much more widespread than in the States. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the fact that there are a lot of very poor people in this country and labor costs are extremely low (I don't even want to admit how little Carmen makes - even though we pay her the going rate and she gets lots of time off).

I have justified this little foray into exploitation by telling myself that since Carmen is a student, and in the process of improving her life, she will not be stuck in a life of servitude forever. We are providing her with a little extra income; a way to help her continue with her studies. I did all kinds of odd jobs when I was a student, including cleaning rooms at a Motel 6 (which was probably the worst job I've ever had, even worse than flipping burgers at Burger King).

Carmen is a nice, quiet girl who shows up every day on time and does her job rather half-heartedly. Lucho's family has given me lots of advice on how I should treat her and what I should tell her to do. And the truth is that her standard of cleanliness is a little different from mine. But I just can't get motivated to be a micro-manager. I can't bring myself to tell her exactly what to do, step by step. I'm just happy that she washes the dishes and sweeps the floor.

I've noticed that a lot of people treat their maids like little children, or worse, and assume that they are lazy, slow, untrustworthy, etc. But when I think about it, if I were a maid - putting in long hours and making hardly anything for my efforts - I would probably be pretty lazy too. And I might act like I was dumber than I really was so that I wouldn't end up with even more work. One of my old supervisors used to say, "People are never as stupid as they pretend to be." And I've definitely found that to be true, especially people who are stuck in menial jobs.

This morning before I left for work I noticed that Carmen hadn't shown up yet. Usually when she is late I wonder if she will show up at all, but this morning I didn't give it a second thought. Then a couple of hours later Lucho called me to tell me that Carmen had quit. Apparently she found another job that is related to her studies (and probably pays more).

When I got home in the afternoon I had a mountain of dishes and laundry to do (Lucho said later that he wanted to help me clean the kitchen, but I had already done it - great timing, don't you think?). As I was cleaning up I realized that it was kind of nice to clean things exactly the way I want them to be cleaned, and to fold my clothes and and to put them away exactly where I want them to go. Maybe having a maid isn't all its cracked up to be. Maybe I'll just do it myself for a while.