Am I becoming a South African?????

I have to say that I am an American through and through. I am an East Coast girl, born and bred. I am city. I don't do country and bugs and swimming in bodies of water where animals live. I'm a mom, a mother of three. I have a job outside of the home. I cook and clean (although arguably not amazingly well) and take care of my kids. I run myself ragged driving from here to there doing all these activities so they don't feel slighted, wearing myself out in the process. I'm an everyday American mother of three. That's me.

I'm an American girl. Nothing extraordinary about my life.....until I moved to South Africa. Seriously, we might as well be rock stars here. Who would have thought Black people in Africa would be so intriguing. Anyway, that's another subject for another day. Today's topic is 'domestic help'. As an American girl, I am not used to having help in my household. Well, of course, my husband helping doesn't count. I'm talking about help that you actually pay with cold-hard cash.

So exactly one year ago, we hired our nanny. It was a bit awkward for me. We had a 4 bedroom house we were renting, and she stayed in one of the bedrooms. She works 5 days a week and goes home on the weekends. At the time, the Terrorist was only 18 mos. So the two of them were together all day until I got home from work. Then the nanny would be free until the next morning. She packed lunches for the big kids for school and made their dinner at night and gave them a bath before bed. She washed clothes for the kids. I asked her to take care of kid stuff. I would wash my own clothes and clean my own room. She still did a lot of it anyway.

We pay her relatively well. For South Africans. We treat her like one of the family. She is family.

South Africans don't really have a great history with their domestic workers. Apartheid was not a great period of time for domestic workers. Where we were living in the Golf Estates, apartheid never really left. We heard (from actual domestic workers that work there) terrible horror stories about how the nannies would live there with families but were not allowed to eat or drink anything in the fridge. They were allowed to rest when the kids napped, but they had to stay in the room with the napping kid....while resting on the floor. Might I add that almost everyone here has tile flooring throughout the house. Not conducive for napping on the floor. Most houses have a sink in the kitchen that is a basin big enough to wash your hands and rinse fruit. Behind the kitchen in a room tucked away from the rest of the house, there is a scullery. The scullery is where the maid goes to wash dishes so that the family doesn't have to see her. It's ridiculous.

I spent a lot of time teaching my nanny how NOT to be invisible in my house, a task she was very good at when she came to us. Since last January, we moved to a different house. This house only has 3 bedrooms, but it does have a servants quarters outside. Naturally, I didn't want her to sleep outside. We have another room that is a playroom, that I offered to her as her bedroom. It is literally AT LEAST 3 times bigger than the servants quarters. She opted for the servants quarters. I felt rather awkward, but that's what she wanted.

That was 6 months ago.

Today, I still love my nanny. She is still part of the family. However, the Terrorist is now in school from 8 - 12. She's home by 12:30 to eat lunch and napping by 1pm. Things 1 & 2 leave for school at 7am. So really, the nanny only has kids from 6am - 7:30am and then from 3pm - 6:30pm. Now I'm wondering what the heck I'm paying her for. I mean, really, our spiel with her when we hired her was very non-South African: Don't worry about cleaning so much. Do what you can. Just make sure the kids are well taken care of and are happy and enjoy life.

Now that the kids are there for half the time they were when we hired her, I don't see why my house isn't clean. I don't expect her to work from 6am - 6:30 pm. When the kids aren't there, she can watch tv or nap or do whatever...as long as she works 8 hours. And when she's working those hours that the kids aren't there, I can't think of anything that she could be doing work-wise than cleaning.

If she's cleaning, the kids (who don't have the best hygiene in the world) should have a clean toilet daily. There shouldn't be dead flies for days on my window sill. I shouldn't have to sweep the floor after the kids eat. I shouldn't have to take Thing 2's clothes out of the Terrorists closet because they're in the wrong place. Today, I shouldn't be looking for shoes the kids had on yesterday. I shouldn't find toothbrushes on the floor. The bathtub should be clean. I shouldn't smell yucky pee-filled pull-ups that are overflowing from the bathroom trash. I shouldn't have 3 garbage bags of recycling piled up in my dining room. My girls shouldn't go to school with their hair looking like they live in Annie's old orphanage. She still takes care of the kids, but they're barely home now. And they're in the bed by 7pm.

Honestly, South Africans have come to my house...which has never been totally clean since we've lived here...and ask "what does your lady DO?!?!"

Nannies in the USA don't clean. They aren't expected to. Here in South Africa, they are. So now I find myself being South African and asking...Lady, what the heck are you doing all day?!?!