Domestic Help

We all think what we are used to is "normal". In South Africa domestic help is “normal” and, indeed, expected. To those of us suddenly dropped into this culture it requires an adjustment and not just a little soul searching.

My son and daughter-in-law have a full time (5 days a week, 8 hours a day) housekeeper, Penelope, as well as a one day a week gardener/handyman, Body. They pay the housekeeper 140 R or about $20 dollars a day. This is more than the going rate. The gardener earns 100 R a day in addition to housing in the small separate room in their back yard. As a trusted individual, his duties also include simply being available for my daughter-in-law and her children as extra security when my son is traveling on business.

Everyone is pleased with this arrangement. Penelope and Body have fair and reasonable employment at easily afforded rate. If, however, they required the kind of wages paid in the U.S. there would be no employment. As a The ambivalence of this situation is bewildering to a diehard liberal in favor of “living wages” such as myself. Penelope is supporting an ailing husband and living in a tiny hut in a township some distance away. She spends 25 Rand (and 2 to 4 hours) a day on taxi transportation. By U.S. standards, this is dreadful. She is pleased.

The upside of this for my son’s family is that the house is never dirty. Really. I don’t remember seeing any dust, anywhere. Cobwebs, truly you are joking. The white marble floors would not be my first choice with two very small children but not to worry, they are mopped practically every day. Rugs are vacuumed daily – not that once around the center of the room I tend to do, but the move the furniture kind. Bathrooms glisten and windows shine. Dirty clothes unfailingly find themselves washed, sun dried, ironed, and replaced in drawers and closets. Beds look lovely with ironed sheets and my grandson goes to school with pleats in his jeans.

The relatively small garden and floral areas around the patio are weeded and constantly cared for; cars are washed regularly and if the latch on the patio door is stuck, or switch needs to be replaced Body is there with his screw driver.

The other side, of course, is that there are often people in the house when you would like to be alone. Want to pick up an afternoon T.V. show? The living room is getting daily clean up. The kitchen is being polished when you’d like to make a snack. And, when you leave a pair of shoes at the base of the stairs, they won’t be there when you get back. I’ve have many a panicky moment searching for something that I need right now only to find it in the one place I know I would never put it – where it belongs.

It does bring people together. Sometimes this isn’t so good. I have seen domestic servants treated with remarkable condescension and callousness. On the other hand, it has helped us to see the magnitude of the problems of the poor more clearly. They had a wonderful live-in-maid last year. “Greta” was in her mid-forties but looked younger. She showed up on their doorstep fleeing very difficult situation and desperately in need of work. She was reliable, hard working, non-complaining and the only one who could coax my little granddaughter down for a much needed nap in the afternoon.

When my son returned from Christmas in the U.S. they were informed that Thembie had died – from Pneumonia. Just like that. She had not been feeling well when the left, but all assumed with a little rest she would be better. The magnitude of her illness, or the consequences of no affordable medical care hadn’t occurred to them. This kind, pleasant woman had taken a long taxi trip to Durban, where she had family, and simply died.

This year we have been concerned for Penelope and her family. Xenophobia took over the townships as poor unemployed people looked for a scapegoat and zeroed in on “foreigners” who they felt took their jobs and their homes. It isn’t true, but all of us when we are down and out have a tendency to go after the weakest among us.

It turns out Penelope and her family are Zimbabwean, and had good reason to fear for their lives. Despite the fact that Penelope has resided in South Africa for decades Jeff insisted that if she and her husband were identified as “foreign” and harassed, they were to claim sanctuary in Jeff’s home. Things have calmed down, but we all still worry. When you live with those whom poverty affects so dramatically, you are touched and frustrated and sometimes afraid. But you can’t pretend these things only happen to those ubiquitous anonymous beings – “Someone else.”

This is how it is here. A lot of cheap labor. In homes, malls, stores, wherever you go you always see people, invariably black, sweeping, mopping, polishing. The country is remarkably clean and tidy. If you raised wages, unemployment would be even more crushing than it is. But it still rankles to realize that grown adults are supporting themselves cleaning luxurious large homes while earning two to three dollars and hour. It is difficult to see so many people living their lives so close to the edge.