Tag Archives: Empleadas

Not Maid for Each Other

First of all, I’d like to thank Amber for noticing in one of the photos of Marta in the last post, my computer screen showed that I was googling “how do i turn off the camera shutter sound iphone 5?”  I cracked up when she called me out on it.  I was trying so hard to be sneaky for y’all!

Alas, my relationship with Marta was not to be.  She broke up with us today.  Abruptly.  She changed her clothes at 1:30, after beginning work at 8 am.  That was my signal that she thought she had done enough work for the day and she was leaving.  HOWEVER, this is not the way things were going to go if I had anything to say about it.  I think I mentioned last time that Eric and I had made a basic list of things that needed cleaning around the apartment.  Basic things – clean out the microwave, do the dishes, do the laundry, clean the bathroom, etc.  She refused to work by a list and got an attitude with me.  So this time, I decided that I would see when she was ready to leave, then I would check my list and see what had not been done.

I also went around the apartment to see how things looked.  There was still dust in corners where she hadn’t moved our suitcases out of the way to sweep and mop.  There was dust under the beds that was easily visible.  There was dust in the tub that she had cleaned so perfectly last week.  She asked last week that I buy a squeegee for her to clean the showers, but when I looked at the glass in the showers, it was just as dirty as ever.

But she had an answer for everything.  She told me the soap scum on the shower glass was permanent.  I pressed her on it, and she insisted that there was no possible way to get it off.  No cleaner, no brush, no rag, nothing would remove it.  Eric noticed that the edge of a door was dirty from people closing it – you know how people press on the edge of a door to close it instead of using the doorknob?  She said it was just that the building was old and there’s no way to clean it.  My mother had me cleaning that stuff when I was 7 with soap and water.  After she left, it took Eric about 2 minutes to restore it to a beautiful white color.

I could go on with these stories.  I didn’t yell.  I tried to reason with her.  I asked her about things.  I told her that if I was paying her for a full day’s work, that meant that I got to say when she left.  She didn’t just get to pick up and leave at 1:30 because that’s when she wanted to go.  So there was one more thing.  Some dust in Eric’s office’s doorway.  A really easy thing.  I asked Eric to point it out b/c I was kinda afraid she was reaching her limit with me and it was time to put some man-of-the-houseness behind things.  I wondered if she would talk back to him like she did to me.  He asked me to get her attention and tell her that he had one more thing for her.  But that was the breaking point.  She said she was done.  It was better that she left and that she didn’t work for us anymore.  She took her stuff, let me check her bag, and offered to give our number to another girl she knows (to whom I’m sure she’ll say we’re tyrants).  And that was it!  I shouldn’t have given her the full $25, but I did.  Just was time for a clean break at that point.

I guess some of you will be shocked that I was assertive enough to run a large-ish Nicaraguan woman out of my house.  I didn’t yell.  I didn’t get mad even.  I just tried to use what I would call common sense.  She just wasn’t having it.  I did stand my ground.  I did respond when she gave me answers that were just plain sorry excuses.  I didn’t let her take advantage of me.

I don’t know what her experiences have been like in the past.  I really would like to know.  She told me that she had 3 years of experience working in Panama, but then she told me today that she only got to Panama in January of this year – a few weeks AFTER we arrived here.  I don’t know.  Anyway, that short chapter is over.  I’m not upset, just sad that I have to go through the process of meeting a new person and starting to get her accustomed to how I do things again.  Sigh.  I know, I know…again, poor Julie.  She’s having trouble with The Help.  Downton Abbey has been good therapy for me.  They totally get me.

Before she left, however, and before she got upset (I hope), she made some pork chops with ajies (or ajis?  I’m not sure) – little peppers – and onions and garlic, plus a squash pureé out of that big ole squash that you saw a few posts back.  Not bad.  She wasn’t the best cook, but the idea is a good one.  I’ll have to try it later.

Pork chops, squash, and our plant from...the bank? Why? Because...Panama.

Pork chops, squash, and our plant from…the bank? Why? Because…Panama.

More on our trip to the bank – or rather – the reason for it, in coming posts.

For now, I’ll leave you with a picture of Eric and the guy who stalked him for a good 20 minutes while he waited for a lady to bring him the coffeemaker we wanted from the storeroom.  It was pretty funny.  I have no idea what he thought Eric was doing, although I suppose he looked a little strange carrying the plant (above) from the bank around…

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Day Two with Marta

Day Two is going much better.  I am calmer.  I have Reiki music going, I’m making lists of things that need to be done, and I’m slowly checking things off.  I started the day off by greeting her warmly, smiling, and asking how she was.  We’ve been chatting a little too.  I asked her how long she’s been in Panama, and she’s been here a few weeks less than we have!  She has two kids.  Her son is here with her, but her daughter, Jennifer, is still in Nicaragua with Marta’s sister.  She misses her, of course, but she says it’s only for a time, and things will get better.  She tells me that she lives in a place here in Panamá where people steal.  It takes her two hours to get here.

Last time she was here, she asked for a small step ladder before she would dust the air vents, then showed me a deep huge scar from when she had fallen before doing something similar.  I agreed that a step ladder was a small request considering possible medical bills.  So today, when she pulled out a chair to do it, I went in to spot her.  We talked a bit in there too, and she’s even smiled and laughed with me some, so I’m feeling much better about our relationship.  I just plain can’t be the boss all the time.  We’ll have to arrange something a little different.  Yes, I’ll have to make sure everything gets done before we pay her or before she goes home each night, but things will have to be pleasant or else I won’t be able to soportarlo (to bear it, to endure it).

I’m finding that my Spanish is coming along rather well.  I’m really enjoying our Spanish teacher, Marianela.  I may have said in earlier posts that she is the one who taught my friend Brie (the one who I’ve known since preschool and who moved here over 10 years ago).  I can’t say how glad I am that we decided to go with her because not only is she a great teacher, but she is just a great person.  We get along so well.  We are similarly minded people.  We’ve discussed, in maybe 6 days (long days, mind you – 4 hours of just sitting and talking to each other), religion, politics, racism, immigration, different measures of beauty, anxiety, illness, family issues (don’t worry Mom, your secrets are safe with me), women’s rights, the list goes on.  She asks me to read the Bible (in Spanish) for homework, and I tell her Bible stories in order to practice the past tense.

Mostly, we chat…but about important cultural issues.  But she also challenges me.  What DO I think about immigration in the US?  Mostly I’ve always thought about the basics and how it’s a really tough problem.  There’s no simple solution, I’m not the one who’s in a position to solve it, I have other big issues that I deal with in my work and my life, so I honestly don’t think about it too much.  But when she pushed me yesterday, we had a great conversation.  She brought up points that I’d never thought about.  And then that spurs great conversations between Eric and me.

I wish that Eric was able to have the same experience with her.  He has to drill with her.  He has to come from a 9 or 10 hour day of work with Red Hat to a table of workbook pages or to tell her where he went on vacation last year.  He’s working on past tense (one of the two of them) right now.  He’s doing GREAT, and he doesn’t see it…but it’s boring.  I get it.  He can’t speak freely like I can.  He can’t even experience Marianela’s incredible personality because they don’t have the chance to interact on a deeper level.  I’m sure they think much differently about each other than I do about either of them.  Actually, i’m sure Marianela gives Eric a lot of credit b/c this is her job and she gets it.  I’m guessing Eric doesn’t really know much about Marianela.  So I try to tell him what I know of her.

One more thing, I found out yesterday via Facebook that Sweet Briar College in Virginia will be closing at the end of this summer due to “insurmountable financial challenges.”  This is Brie’s alma mater, as well as that of her sister, and the two are devastated, as is the entire Sweet Briar community.  It’s a small women’s college – a little over 700 undergrads and 0ver 700 graduate students – and it was founded in 1901.  It has an incredible reputation.  Jackie Kennedy’s mother was an alumna.  Anyway, it was horrible news for that community, and I’m hoping to take Brie out to lunch or for drinks soon to hear the whole story, to let her vent, and to see if I can do anything for her.  She’s just the best kind of person, and I hate to hear about this kind of thing happening to her.  I can’t imagine Carolina just disappearing one day.

To lighten the mood, I’ll leave you this morning with a few voyeuristic (maybe I should say sneaky so I don’t feel so dirty) photos of Marta, just so you can get to know her a little.

Marta

So how did it go with the…uh…do I call her a maid?  Housekeeper?  I used empleada through the whole last post and I was comfortable with that.  Maid makes me feel like I’m calling her something derogatory and like I’m living in an episode of Downton Abbey (which I just started watching b/c of this whole experience).  Housekeeper makes me think of Alice on The Brady Bunch.  Empleada will have to do, but it’s tedious to write, so I’ll just call her by her name, Marta.

I could not focus on work while she was here.  I was so nervous.  I hate confrontation.  I hate having to be authoritative.  I hate everything about what I was supposed to be and how I was told I was supposed to act towards this woman in order to get her to do the job we are paying her to do.  I hate this whole system.

I don’t like the idea of someone else being in my house and touching my things.  We don’t do this in the States.  Our homes are very private places.  We close our bedroom doors when we have parties.  People ask which restroom they should use.  They ask before they go looking for a glass if they want water.  For someone to come into my home and for it to be her job to touch everything I own…I just couldn’t take it.

Since I’ve known Eric, he’s had someone come clean his house once every two weeks.  This, somehow, is very different for me.  I still preferred to be at work or out of the house with this person would come, but I was much more comfortable with the situation.  For one, I think, it was because Eric handled it.  For most of the time before we came to Panama, it was Eric’s house.  We weren’t married yet.  He gave instructions, and I feel that he is very good at doing this with authority, yet being very nice about it at the same time.  He commands respect, but people still love him.  He has a wonderful personality for it.

I have to wonder, does it also have something to do with his gender – at least in these situations?

At any rate, by 10 am, I was horribly nauseous.  I told my co-worker that I was utterly useless.  I couldn’t think about anything other than where Marta was or what I was going to say to her next.  What if she did something I didn’t like?  What if she went ahead and ate the food that we had set aside for us rather than for her?  What if she…fill in the blank?  Finally, I was so nauseous that I dry heaved, then went to lie down in Eric’s office, telling him I just didn’t know what to do.

I fell asleep, and the rest of the afternoon, not surprisingly, passed without incident.  She did a great job cleaning, told me what supplies we are lacking, and even cooked the corvina (local fish) that I asked her to cook for us.  She made a sandwich for Eric, as I requested, and one for herself.  She then served herself a portion of the fish, after we agreed that this was a one-time special meal since we were not prepared with the appropriate food for her.  She made a list of foods she would like for lunch, and hopefully next week we will be ready for that.

I did note that, while no one was eating at the dining room table, she still took a chair from the table and ate her lunch at the kitchen counter instead.

I did get taken on a few parts of our deal.  Generally in Panama, empleadas work an 8 hour day, and the $25/day we pay pays for the full 8 hours.  Marta insisted that it doesn’t work like that, but that she leaves when the job is done.  This week, she left around 2:30 or 3, I was ready for her to go, and the place was very clean, considering that we were lacking a squeegee for the windows.

Eric and I had also made a very detailed list of what we wanted to be done around the house.  When Marta came in, she scoffed at the list saying that she had experience, that this was her work, and that she didn’t need the list.  However, there were several things on the list that were not completed.  Common things, such as washing our clothes.  I’ll have to address this with her, which of course, causes me additional anxiety.  I hate this stuff.  She’s used to facing off against employers.  I’m not used to putting my foot down and being forceful.  I don’t like to do it.

This is exactly the part that I don’t like about being a lawyer.  I don’t like that you walk into the courtroom and the atmosphere is antagonistic.  I would much rather we all work together to find out the truth of what happened.  Did the DOC guard actually beat my client and cause his fractured jaw?  If it happened, can’t we all agree that that is wrong?  Okay.  Let’s work from there.  Let’s all open up the information that we have and figure out what happened.  Eric said today, and I have often thought the same thing:  I should’ve been a British barrister.

One thing I did start thinking about last night though, was a possible project.  I’m interested in this whole system.  It’s got it all.  Human rights, women’s rights, politics, interpersonal communication, language barriers, culture clashes, class hierarchies, family issues…the list goes on.  What if I started purposefully talking (in Spanish) to people about their experiences with empleadas?  What if I turn into Emma Stone from The Help (or the woman who actually wrote the book…my apologies to the purists, I only saw the movie) and interview folks, get the stories, learn about the politics, the reasons why people act as they do?

What if I also talk to some of the women who work in these homes to hear their experiences with their employers?  To hear their backgrounds, where they come from, what it was like when Martinelli (the ex-president of Panama) changed the immigration laws and allowed nearly everyone to get legal status to work here?  How do the Panamanian empleadas feel about the influx of Colombians and Nicaraguenses?  How does that affect the job market and how did they have to change their tactics?  What is it like to be ignored at work all day, to be expected to work in silence?  How do you feel about the “man of the house”?  How do the kids treat you?  What is the worst experience you’ve ever had?  Do you feel that you have the freedom to seek other work?  Have you ever gone into a job knowing you just want to work for long enough to afford a particular pair of jeans and then quit as soon as you have that certain amount of money (this was another story I heard)?

I don’t know what I would do with the information…I’m not looking for a book deal.  But I do think it would get me out, get me practicing my Spanish, and that it would be interesting.  We’ll see if I’m still interested in the idea tomorrow.  But for now…it’s a thought.

If you have a second, please say a quick prayer that God would help me with this anxiety surrounding my relationship with this woman.  I don’t know why it’s such a big deal to me, but I’ve still be struggling with it all day today.  Even just writing about it now, my stomach is tight and I’m dreading seeing her on Wednesday.  I know, I know, 1st world woman in a 3rd world country problems.  But anxiety sucks.  It’s crippling.  And it doesn’t make sense.  You can’t tell it to be practical and think through things.  It doesn’t listen to that.  So instead of talking to it, I’m trying to talk to God about it instead.  And, gracias a Dios, sometimes I’m doing that in Spanish b/c that’s what is starting to come to my head more and more!