Flawlessly Ironed Pyjamas

Five years ago when my friends and I were all starting our new jobs with the Canadian government, we were all looking forward to our first postings overseas. One of the topics that was grounds for great discussions was whether or not young Canadians overseas should have staff in their houses. At the time we were all more or less against it. None of us wanted to be in such a position of power over another person and we did not feel that such an employer-employee relationship was ethically right. However, as the discussion evolved, we changed our positions and decided that having staff wasn’t necessarily bad, but rather what was important was how you treated the person and the type of relationship that was established. In many cases, a particular housekeeper, nanny, cook, guard, gardener, poolboy (heehee) or driver has been serving with a Canadian family for years and years. Should a newly arriving Canadian decide that they did want any staff, that person would then suddenly find themselves without a job after many years of stable employment. In addition, in most countries were CIDA has postings, the cost of having someone work in your house is quite low compared to Canadian salaries. In some ways, it is important for us to be able to contribute to the local economy in this way.

Since I live alone and don’t create an awful lot of mess (in my many rooms!), I have no physical need for someone who comes in more than once a week. However, I have decided to welcome a cleaning lady who comes in once a week. A few weeks back I met with Hilda, a woman who has cleaned Canadian apartments for the past twelve years. She worked for my predecessor whose departure left a Tuesday gap in her schedule. Hilda and I met so that she could see the apartment and we could review what needed to be done. At the end of the meeting, I gave Hilda one of the extra keys to my house so that she could get in and out on her own. Now, in many respects, Brazil is still quite a class-based society. Most of the upper-class apartments in town have two entrances, the main – or social – entrance and the back – or service – entrance. Shockingly enough it is only recently that many condominium bylaws have stated that household staff cannot be relegated to only using the service entrance. Since I only have three keys to my apartment, two for the social door and one for the service door, I asked Hilda if I could give her the key to the main door. Without the key to the service door I wouldn’t be able to throw out my garbage or easily get to the gym that is in the building. I could see that she hesitated before accepting and that she was torn between deferring to my authority and suggesting that she would prefer to use the service entrance. She answered with the ubiquitous Brazilian phase “é você quem sabe”— it’s you who knows. The moment was a minor foray into the Brazilian psyche. Now it is me who is torn – should I make a copy of the service key for Hilda, or should I leave her with the social key?

In any case, one of the things at which Hilda is particularly adept is the ironing. She meticulously irons every single piece of clothing which gets washed (except maybe my socks and underwear -- although even here I am not convinced!), which means that all of a sudden I have very crisp pyjamas!