Tag Archives: Random commentary

New Empleada Day!

Yep, it’s my favorite day of the month: New Empleada Day!  Yes, I know we’re spoiled, and honestly, I do understand that we are very fortunate to have the luxury of having someone clean our house and cook for us once or twice a week for however long each empleada lasts…with maybe a month break between them.  It’s absolutely amazing.  It’s ridiculously cheap, and we are discouraged from paying the women more than $25/day or so.  If we were to pay them more, we would be encouraging them to seek out “rich American” employers, thus making it hard for Panamanians to find empleadas who are willing to work for a reasonable rate.  So we do as the Panamanians do.

Today, we have the pleasure of hosting Elena, a beautiful Venezuelan woman in her late 40s who has thus far been absolutely fabulous.  And being Venezuelan, she has the added bonus of knowing how to make arepas…so guess what’s on the menu for tonight!?

This hiring process was ever so slightly different from the last few in that I received a resume from a man.  I was amazed!  Eric was completely floored and, I believe, rather against the idea of his working for us.  I have to admit that I struggled with myself on this one…and I’m still struggling with it.

He is a 28 year old educated married man from Venezuela with a background in electrical engineering.  I immediately told myself not to discount him simply because he was a man, even though it’s pretty unheard of to have a man for a maid.  There’s not even a word for that, is there?  Not a maid, but not a butler either.  Interesting.  So I looked at his experience.  Clearly an educated guy.  He had been with his previous jobs for longer than most of the women had been with theirs…most of the women had 3 or 6 month stints with any one job.  However, he had no previous cleaning experience.  On the other hand, he was obviously willing to do whatever he could to provide for himself and for his wife.  Endearing and admirable.

But isn’t that what all these women are doing as well?  I’m just not as predisposed to admiring it because it’s more expected of them?

I almost wanted to give him a chance just for the experimental value of it.  I wanted to see how it would go….how he would do…how I would react…whether Eric would be able to handle it.  I thought about how it would actually be upon his arrival at our house.  He’d come in and I would be the one to show him around, as usual.  That’s been my role, since I speak more Spanish and because Eric is always working in his office when the empleadas come.

There would be awkward things, of course…I’d have to show him where my underwear belongs so he could put it away after he washed it.  Why is that not awkward for Eric when a woman does it?  Somehow, for some reason, it would just be…strange…for a man to be here all day.  For him to be in the house, silently cleaning while I go about my business – working, taking the dog out, going to the grocery store.  I almost feel like it would be…somehow disrespectful for me to ignore him all day.  Isn’t that strange?  I’ve slowly grown ALMOST accustomed to doing it with the female empleadas, just because I know that’s how things are done around here.  You’re not expected to entertain your housekeeper, to talk to her all day as she cleans.  Sure, I’ll chat with her as she cooks if I’m in the room, ask about her family or where she’s from, see how her children are doing, or ask a question about how to say something in Spanish.  But why is it that I feel like it would be so different if a man were in the house all day?

When it came down to it, Elena had experience as a caterer, and that sounded like a good thing for a housekeeper who will be cooking for us to have.  Plus, it’s legal to be ageist here…for better or worse…and we’ve found that women with a few more years of experience under their belts tend to be harder workers and better cleaners.  So, I gave her a chance first.  Or rather, third, after two Panamanian women failed to respond when I offered them a trial day.  (I try to help out the Panamanian population first when possible).

Who knows…maybe Elena won’t work out and we’ll end up giving that man a try.  Either way, it gave me a lot to consider.  I’d be interested to see what y’all think about the situation.

Aside

*A note on viewing photos

I’ve been told that if you are one of the folks who receives an email when I post something and you click on the link within the email, you may not see the main photo on the post.  If you go to www.frompariswithlove.org instead, the photo will show up.  I’m not sure why.

Also, sometimes the main photo, like this last one of my face, end up being huge.  I’ve tried editing them and changing sizes and everything.  Sometimes it works, like with one of the maid pictures, but of course for the big pictures of Eric’s head or my face, they demand to remain HUGE.  Sorry ’bout that.  I considered for a minute putting the picture through one of those programs that softens out wrinkles and makes your complexion look perfect, but you know what?  I want plus-sized (aka NORMAL!) models.  I want regular people in movies and magazines.  I want my kids to feel like they don’t have to starve themselves to be pretty.  I don’t want to feel like i have to buy $100 cream to get rid of smile lines that I’ve earned by laughing with my friends and my husband.  So there you go.  A giant picture of my face, with all it’s “flaws” or, if you like, all the marks of the wonderful experiences of my life.

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!