Poisonwood Bible & Servants

I just finished The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. Beautifully written and gives a good view of expatriate life in general, especially from the child's perspective, something Kingsolver should know about because she was a "third culture kid" herself in Africa. Good writing aside though, for me at this stage in life it just hit too close to home and pegged my life wrong (I hope). It’s all about a Southern Baptist minister and his family who go to the Congo to convert the heathens and how they don’t have a clue about how to survive and how to convert people, if they need to convert them at all. Tragedy hits their family and they get all tangled up in the imperialistic (money-grubbing) "help" from the United Nations after the Congo declared independence from Belgium. In the end I had this horrible taste in my mouth about being an expatriate and working to help the Church grow here. Her critique of Americans who presume the whole world wants to be just like them is scathing, to say the least.

I guess it was good for me to read because it reminded me that I have to be really careful not to pass hasty judgments on people and culture here since so much of it is much more complex that it appears on first glance. Rich said the other day that the longer he lives in India the less he feels like he understands. So true.
So we passed our one year anniversary living in India AWAY from India! We felt like such wimps. But we went to New Zealand to visit my parents for Christmas. It was heavenly. Almost an exact foil to Delhi. Clean air, quiet, long stretches of roads without a soul in sight, etc. So wonderful to be with my parents and have a break. It’s good to be back though and face the music, which is good music most of the time.

It’s really really cold right now. Such a nice break from the blazing heat that’s coming soon. I love to cozy up in my fleece pajamas and drink hot cocoa in bed with piles of blankets on me. Someday I plan to live in a climate with four seasons again! Rich is headed to the US tomorrow for a big meeting with his boss and he needs to tell him if he wants to stay here longer or not. I’m back and forth on the matter and almost wish we didn’t have a choice and they just made us stay so we could buck up and just do it. Anyway, hoping to get some inspiration on the matter quickly.

I just sent an email to a friend who is moving here and trying to work out the logistics of who to hire for her "staff". When you figure it, we employ 5 full-time people and 2 part-time. We have our own health insurance plan for them, terms of employment, etc.. Figuring that for every person you give a job to in India, you are feeding 5, that's around 30 people we're taking care of. Some days it seems that most of them are at our house, although really there's only about 9 or 10 who actually are here at the house at any given time (that's not counting us).

So anyway, when I reread the email it seemed worthy of posting because our lives are so bizarre . . .

Our car costs us Rs. 45000 for the month. Driver comes with the car. We provide the driver quarters because we have them, but the owner has a sort of bunkhouse in Gurgaon for his drivers if we didn’t. I think he gets paid Rs. 5000 of that lease amount, but I’m on the lookout for a fantastic one to replace him and I’m willing to pay for it. Maintenance is cheap, diesel isn’t. If we leave the Delhi/Gurgaon/Noida area he charges us Rs. 10 per kilometer (22 cents). The car is a Toyota Innova, 8 seater (though definitely smaller than the equivalent USA Toyota minivan).

Mali (gardener): Rs. 800 to come every day for an hour to water, weed, sweep the area in front of the house.

Sweeper: Rs. 550 to sweep the driveway and wash it with water every other day. On the off days she cleans the bathroom the driver and guards use. I added the bathroom to her duties a few months ago with a pay raise when I realized everyone considers it beneath them to do this job and it seemed worth it because the users of it handle my children!

Guards: The company pays for their salary (an exorbitant amount I can’t recall at the moment, of which the guards only see a small fraction) but we give them Rs. 400 per month for tea! I know it sounds ludicrous that we pay this, but there’s a long history behind it. They were perpetually coming and asking for more tea, more sugar, etc. and then getting into fights because so-and-so was drinking more than his fair share. So I got fed up with it and this money is a sort of bribe, I guess, to leave me alone already about the tea! We also pay Rs. 150 per month for their newspapers. Tomorrow I’m about to go out and buy them a new heater because the old one isn’t enough for them. Pampered, I’d say.

This photo is the guard, driver, and a bicycle rickshaw driver we hired for the day all watching the sweeper work. They often seem bent on highlighting the fact that her job is beneath theirs. In case you wondered why we need so much staff, here's a case in point. India's all about division of labor. Rich always says the sweeper and the mali are the happiest people he knows, so I guess happiness is independent of caste anyway.

Cook/Ayah: Rs. 5500. She also gets quarters. She is my highest paid employee yet. She was making a lot more at her old job though, and I think she’s worth it most days because her English is impeccable, she is honest, she’s pleasant, and she doesn’t pick fights with the other staff. She’s also a pretty good cook and adores our children without pampering them too much. All of this I didn’t really know about her when I hired her. Best to start low and give merit increases, I would say.

Housekeeper: Rs. 3500. She works part-time and this is her first job (she’s Margaret’s daughter, so shares the quarters). I plan in the next few months to try to get her to REALLY clean the house well and if she succeeds I’ll give her a big raise. She cleans, folds clothes and irons. She helps with the kids here and there as well.

Here's Margaret, Poojah and her whole family of five who live on our little "compound" with us.

As a general rule, I’d say it’s best to hire staff that have enough experience that you don’t have to train them too much and enough English that you can communicate, but be wary of those who have years of experience with expats because they are often spoiled and sneaky. You don’t always get what you pay for. Also, English skills are a big premium, so if you are game for using your Hindi, you can save a bunch by going for those that don’t speak well. My friend Amy has done this and pays her maid Rs. 3000 with no quarters. Rich is reading over my shoulder and says he wouldn’t recommend this.

Oh the things you learn in life that seem so important at the time, but will be worthless when you return to your own reality!