Today when we came home from school the house was spotless. At first I didn’t notice anything was different; I had forgotten that our new maid was coming. But the floors looked different, as in clean, and that was my clue. For the first time in my adult life, someone outside of our family had been in our home, and washed and scrubbed. It was miraculous.
We’ve been talking for months about whether we should get a cleaning lady, or "ayi" in Mandarin (say the letters “I E”). Contacts told us how great it was and it sounded like it was the expected thing to do. Even so, I had pretty much decided that we wouldn’t want one until I saw the reality of our life here. As I mentioned previously, there is just not enough time in the day to work at my job and do all that ironing, washing dishes, etc. So I changed my mind.
On Thursday last week I was feeling sick, frustrated with trying to launder a set of sheets in our tiny washer and dryer, and generally in a bad mood. I went to bed at 6:30, and when I got up the next morning, discovered that Don had not only set up our wireless internet, but found us an ayi (yes, I have the world’s best husband). On Friday we met with the ayi to discuss specifics. She laughed at the size of my clothes washer, which made me feel rather justified in all this. She, too, immediately recognized the futility of trying to wash the clothes for a family of five in that thing in just a few hours a week.
The ayi will come on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings for four hours each, at the cost of 1000 RMB, or about $150 a month. She washed the floors, cleaned all the bathrooms, did some laundry, ironed the clothes I left out for her, dusted, even straightened all of the bedsheets, even though I had checked that everyone made their beds before we left (we can’t have the maid thinking we’re slobs, after all). Some people here have ayis that do everything, including cooking, child care, grocery shopping, etc. Our idea is, if she can take the edge off things, like our nice appliances did in the US, then it is money well spent.
So, this may work out. I still feel guilt at having someone else do our jobs for us. But she wants the job, I want the job done, and whether it is man or machine that I pay to do it, what does it really matter in the end? Plus coming home to a spotless house really is a pleasure. There may be other benefits too. After we checked out the clean rooms, John said, “Mom, maybe we just shouldn’t touch anything.” If this can make an eleven-year-old boy more careful about keeping things clean, well, now that really is a miracle.
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4 comments:
I am trying not to be jealous--i have a full size washer and dryer and i still can't manage to get my laundry done. A girl that lives in China was here for a scrapbook convention this weekend said she cried when she moved into her new place there and they had a full size washer and dryer--ahhh the blessings of living aboad. I hope your second week goes well.....
hooray for your ayi! i am glad as well that she laughed at your washing machine. i'm imagining her. you were right when you said before that dishwashers (and may i add washing machines) revolutionized womanhood.
I'm getting a picture of the ayi feeding the laundry into the Barbie washing machine half-a-sheet at a time. Or will she soon be shown some international compassion in the form of a grown-up washer? If it's a matter of expense, I'm willing to throw five or ten bucks into the pot.
Actually, part of the problem is the landlords don't want to take the unused/unwanted furniture off our hands. If we get another washer, we still have the old one to store. We had to convince her to take away our 2nd water cooler, instead of just keeping it on our porch.
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