Yesterday the lady who owns the house we're renting came by. She told me there would be a maid coming by today to clean. I guess that means I wasn't towing the line? Maybe not, cause "everyone has a maid" - it's just something you do here, so I shouldn't take it personally. Corey has told me that "even maids have maids". But then, Corey also said that it was communicated to him that the landlord lady was upset/embarrassed cause our sidewalk in front wasn't clean. Who knew? Looked fine to me, but that's probably just cause most all of the sidewalks look about the same for this slightly ignorant American - I couldn't tell that it wasn't swept or what is supposed to be swept? I see workers over at the park across the street on my morning jog, and they're brushing up fallen leaves with palm branches. Is that what she wants? I'm assuming she doesn't expect us to cut the grass out there too, right? If she does, she hasn't told me where the clippers or weed-whacker is. (They don't use mowers). So hard to keep up with these unknown expectations!
Corey said it's probably good to have a maid come, cause then she can make sure this house is up to the local cultural standards, which we are clueless about. As far as we're concerned, we might just as well be camping. We've got all the needs for a great camping experience: Mosquitoes? Check. Coat everyone with repellent several times a day? Check. Need to filter the water before we drink it? Check. Dim lights after the sun goes down? Yup. Ants come and eat the food if you don't clean up? Yes sir, we got it all - Corey said it's like we're staying in a really big Deluxe KOA. He makes me laugh. Our apartment in Chile was like a really
nice motorhome (note the
small kitchen table for our family of 9 that we had there...) And now we're having this experience here - which is more like living large at the posh Brazil KOA for a few month.
So, I was told the maid would be here at 8. And that she had a key, so no need to worry about letting her in, she knows her way around the house too (was a maid here before) so just go about my business as usual. She also asked if I had cleaning supplies. I said yes (I have a broom, squeegee, the floor towels, and a little bit of soap. She asked again if I had supplies and I tried to say yes, but I don't know if they are the right cleaning supplies that she'll need. Corey told me to next time just say no, I don't have anything to clean. Ok. I was gone on my morning walk when she arrived. Corey hadn't left for work yet, and I had given him the heads up. But he said it was a little weird (again, for us Americans and our culture of personal/private space) to just see her walking by the window, not announcing her arrival or having a token greeting per US culture, just coming into our home and yard and beginning her servitude. He also said the landlord was going to the store to buy cleaning stuff. She came back and dropped off four bags of supplies. I had some of the things she bought, but whatever. The kids took them back to the maid.
She seems nice enough, but she's older than us, and I guess for me that's part of what just doesn't seem right. It's like if people have to be maids, it should be a right of passage, like teenagers working at a fast food chain before they get a real job. It shouldn't be something that my mother does to support herself for the rest of her life. A lady her age should have moved beyond this by now, right? Or is that just my American way of thinking. I guess I feel bad about it, but maybe she's grateful for work, I don't know. We're trying to figure out what is behind our feelings and why we feel the way we do. She was here all day - from 8 until 4 and I gotta say the house looks great, I didn't notice if she took a break for lunch, I hope she ate something. When the kids were having a break for ice cream I wanted to offer her some but didn't know if you're not supposed to do that? I didn't see where she was at or what she was working on at the moment, as I was making sure little people didn't leave the kitchen with their bowls of food and make a mess upon the just cleaned floors. During the day she cleaned out the "maid's quarters" and outside storage area where the pool stuff and water/gas tanks and other things that I-don't-know-what-they-are are (like this contraption pictured below...)
I think this is what gives our faucet and shower head water it's heartbeat. Have I mentioned our water has a heartbeat? That machine there above makes this pumping sound that is in sync with the water movements whenever we turn the water on or flush a toilet - I think it is what makes us have a slight bit of water pressure, it's like it has a pulse. Kinda strange. Although Corey learned that without this thing we wouldn't have any water pressure at all, it'd just drizzle out. So it's a good thing that our water has a pulse, not a bad thing. Still, that was one of the things that I first noticed when we got here that made me feel the reality of the fact that I was not in Kansas anymore.
What else... she also cleaned out underneath the crate couches and table in the front room and dining room, that impressed me.
That's our crate dining table. We had quite a bit of dust in between the slat pedestals. She swept and mopped the floors, sprayed off the side patio ~
That's a view of the patio looking southward. The door on the left there goes to the front yard deck. Below is a view of the patio from inside the front living room looking northward. Floors all very clean
She took the hose around to the front deck (I didn't know we had a hose), And also raked up leaves in the yard and swept off the walkway. She just did a great job everywhere. She left before Corey got back from work with money to pay her, but said she'd come by again tomorrow (I think) and that she needed to go, cause it was "tarde" and her home is far away. So, that was our first maid experience. For all that work of 8 hours, we are paying her R$120, which is about $40 bucks I think. If that is all she is expecting then we definitely got a steal. She's scheduled to come again on Tuesday, not sure if that will be 8 hours again? But still, I do feel bad about servitude in general - like I can do this stuff or would like to have my kids do this work, it's good for them. And now that I saw a little bit of what is expected I know what to do, but maybe she's glad to have work and would feel bad if I didn't want her to come back, like I didn't think she did a good job. The kids did clean their own rooms and bathrooms, though. And she didn't come back into the room areas at all, and I did all the dishes and kept the kitchen clean, and did laundry, trying to do my part as a homemaker.
