Below is a post I first wrote and published back in October. For reasons I'll address at a later date, I removed the post from my blog. However, I feel the topic was an important one to address, so I'm putting it back up. I thought about editing it, but decided to keep it in its original form -- to me, one of the beauties of a blog is that it captures thoughts and feelings in the moment... that it's a raw and fairly unedited form of writing. So the Lourdes post stands as is.
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Lourdes is my host family's maid. I hate using that term, but "cleaning lady" just doesn't cut it.
Lourdes dusts and vacuums six bedrooms, two living rooms, two dining rooms, a study, and a computer room. She cleans four bathrooms and the kitchen, every day. She grocery shops and takes clothes to the dry cleaners. She hand-washes the entire family's laundry (excluding mine) and linens and does all of the ironing. She changes the sheets on six beds every week. She cooks two dinners every night, from scratch - one for me, my host mom and brothers, and one for my host dad - and does the dishes afterward. (We eat first, in the dining room, then later she eats alone, in the kitchen.) And, on top of an entire household to clean and wash and feed, she takes care of my host mom's 95-year-old mother. She dresses and bathes her, takes her to and from the bathroom, keeps her company, and feeds her three meals and an afternoon tea each day. The grandmother has a bell that she rings throughout the day, and Lourdes is almost always the one who answers.
Lourdes is on her feet all day. Even when she's "resting" in her room at night, watching her favorite telenovela, she's ironing or folding laundry or sewing. If something doesn't get done during the day, it just means she has to work even harder the next. She tells me she's tired a lot. Yeah, I guess so.
She's forty years old, but she looks no more than thirty. She's from Paraguay, and quit school when she was fourteen to start working as a maid. She's lived in Buenos Aires for twenty-four years, and has worked for my host family for the last three. She isn't married and has no children, but she does have a boyfriend. She lives with him and her mother in a small apartment in the outskirts of the city.
Lourdes sleeps here five nights a week - Monday through Friday. She has a small room off the laundry room, and her own tiny bathroom. Her week begins early Monday morning - she has to get up around 4:30am to make the two-and-a-half-hour commute in to the city on public buses and subways. She arrives here around 8am and immediately starts working, only stopping to eat and sleep (and she doesn't do much of the latter). She leaves on Saturday afternoon, once she's finished all of her work for the week - usually around 3pm. She wakes up most mornings between 6 and 8am, and goes to sleep anywhere between 1 and 4am. My best estimate is that she works around 90 hours a week. And considering she gets paid $1,100 pesos a month, that means she's making around US$0.80 an hour.
Lourdes is a sweet woman with a kind smile and the spirit of a young girl. She loves to daydream about returning home to Paraguay, sitting on beaches with a drink in her hand, love, and freedom. She likes to cook but hates ironing. She's playful with those who treat her well, and she has a wonderful laugh. When she's in a good mood and my host mom isn't in the house, she sings while she works - the chorus of her favorite song is, "La vida es asi, asi es la vida." ("Life is this, this is how life is.") She told me that she's not very smart - that God created her to work, not to think.
It has been an ethical struggle for me, to be a part of this kind of household. To watch how difficult life is for Lourdes, and to know there's not much I can change. I try to brighten her days and make life easier for her, but it always falls so far from being enough. Peeling potatoes, setting the table, washing dishes, bringing her ice cream, rubbing her back, giving her hugs, making my own bed, sitting with her while she cooks and eats dinner. Feeble attempts at lightening her load, but I like to think it makes a difference, if even a small one.
Then there's the belief that nothing can ever be truly altruistic, which, at least in this case, I can't disagree with. She's been a blessing in my life here. A friend, a confidant, someone to girl-talk with, someone to make me laugh. I love sitting in the kitchen while she prepares dinner, chatting about whatever comes to mind. Sometimes she caresses my hair in a motherly way and calls me her little girl; in a city that has, at times, felt cold and empty, moments like those are small miracles.
Sometimes when I think about her life - how there seems to be no end to her work, how she has so little time to rest, how she barely even sees the sun - it makes me ache. And then to know that all over this city, and all over the world, there are people living in similar, and much worse, conditions... I am filled with gratitude, with realization, with guilt. With a feeling I can't quite name, but that dances in the shadows of heavy questions - Why Lourdes and not me? Why is life so hard for some and so easy for others? How can I complain about something as trivial as wet feet on a rainy day? How can I do anything other than wake up each day with a smile on my face, knowing I lead a blessed life of endless opportunities?
Lourdes' life may never be easy, but she is proof that the human soul perseveres. That even in an unfair world - a world that smells like toilet bowl cleaner and dish soap and dirty laundry - there are dreams and laughter and love and tenderness.
This I am reminded of every day. And every day, as I walk freely through the streets, I turn my face up to the sky and give thanks.
