A Maid

So, we're getting a maid - I think.  We have found some neighbors who want to sponsor a maid, but they don't have a maid's quarters.  They are required to provide housing - and we have a maid's quarters, but don't know what we'd do with a full-time maid.  Really, there's not enough to keep one person busy here at our house.  So, it seems to be a great arrangement.  We'll provide the accommodation and they provide the sponsorship and then we'll share her time.  Actually, there will be 3 families sharing, but we haven't sorted all the details.

Technically, it's illegal to share a maid.  I'm not sure why.  Up until now, we've been getting by with paying some of the neighboring maids/house boys to come by once per week to clean up.  At first, it was working pretty well.  We had a guy from down the street coming by 2x/week.  He was ok, not great.  But the house was clean and pretty tidy.  Then, he went home to Sri Lanka for December and when he came back - he never came back to start cleaning again.  Long story.

So, for several months we did without.  Boy was our house a pit!  I hate cleaning and this place is SO DUSTY that you really need to dust and mop the floors at least once per week or else you start to feel the grime on the bottoms of our feet.  Then we found that a neighboring maid was looking for some extra hours on her day off.  Thing is, she's not so reliable.  Sometimes she comes and sometimes she doesn't.  She's really good, but we can go 3-4 weeks without a cleaning and by then I'm ready to climb the walls.

So, I'm hoping this situation with the neighbors works out.  All we want is some cleaning on a regular basis.  Plus it will be nice to have access to child care.  There doesn't seem to be any baby sitting teenagers in this country.  What's up with that!  Everyone relies on their maids or the neighbors maids for child care.  We've been out only 3 times since moving here.  So, that's got to change.

Will be odd to get used to having someone living at our house.  She'll have her own private quarters (bedroom and bathroom) with her own private entrance.  So, she can come and go as she pleases.  But if she wants to cook anything, or get something from the fridge, she'll need to come into the house to use the kitchen.  I've seen some houses that give the maid's quarters an entrance to the kitchen - which would be nice for her to feel like she could get into the kitchen without having to disturb us.  But hopefully she soon feels comfortable being here with us (and us with her).