A Visit To Our Former Maid's House

Last week, we received news that our former maid has delivered a baby boy. My wife has been to her house in Mata Merah last month to visit her but I have not been. Yesterday after work, my driver and me went to pay her a visit.

Mata Merah is 10 mins drive away from my work place. I thought it would be a "poor" area but the houses looked pretty nice and well maintained for Indonesian standard.

Aini was our 2nd live-in maid in Palembang. She was one of the hard working ones that we have had and my wife also liked her because of her pleasant personality. She was so efficient and throrough in her work that we let her study in the afternoons (to finish high school). After she got married and left us, we still kept in touch with her.

Aini looked pretty happy when we met her. She was carrying her 10 days old baby boy. His name is Ruslan, named after his great-grandfather. According to customs of people from her husband's hometown in Kayu Agung (2 hours drive from Palembang), their sons and daughters are named after their grandparents. They said this custom will enable their ancestors to be remembered.

In fact, the elder Ruslan is just staying a few roads away. According to Aini, he is 80 years old and having some mobility problems. However, the baby's great-grandpa is still quite healthy, eats well and still smokes 1 pack of cigarette a day! Unfortunately, the 2 Ruslans still have not met one another yet. Aini's father still has not visited her and her newborn yet. So I felt priviledged to be one of their first visitors.

Aini told us that her baby is a deep sleeper. He seldom wakes up despite loud noises and only cry when he is wet or hungry. She said her baby kept wanting to get out from the swaddle... I could imagine how uncomfortable it is to be swaddled up under these hot Palembang weather!

She only started breast feeding her baby 2 days after it was born. She had a natural birth and was happy not to have a C-section because they would still have to pay for 50% of the medical cost despite being subsidized by the government. She delivered her baby (3.3kgs) in a mid-wives' home (BIDAN) instead of a hospital. Most of the people living in this area go to a BIDAN instead of a doctor. Therefore, there were many cases where they could not accurately predict the delivery dates of the baby because they did not have any ultrasound scanners at the BIDAN's place. Aini's baby only came after 3 weeks of her expected delivery date.

Aini stays with her in-laws now in a house with 6 occupants. Her father in-law has 12 brothers and sisters! He was there to chat with us as well and said he was very proud to have his first grandchild as a boy. I guess people here prefer to have boys over girls (same as other parts of the world). I told him that as long as the baby is healthy, the gender should not matter. He had to nod his head in agreement after I stared at him for a few seconds...;)

We brought Aini some baby clothes, nappies, nappy cream and a baby soft toy. We only stayed at her place for 30 mins and left after bidding farewell. She was appreciative of the gifts and even sms'd to thank me for it later. Hope that Aini would be happy enjoying her new life with her newborn baby.

Maid Dilemma

Every household in our housing area seemed to have at least one maid to help out with their chores. Most of the maids here are PP (pulang-pergi) - meaning come in and leave (do not stay in).

Recently, we employed a maid that we need to pick her up on the way when I go to work and also send her back when I get picked up from work. I believe this is the best arrangement any PP maid would ever have. Normally they arrange for their own transport.

Due to the fact that we were maidless for more than 3 months, we had to "succumb" to this situation in order to get someone in to help out in the house.

This maid is 17 years old. She has stopped schooling and her parents encouraged her to start working. Her father is a becak-man (trishaw peddler) and her mom works in a school as a cleaner. She has 2 younger siblings. They all live in a wooden house not far away from my work place.

My wife had to teach her from scratch since she does not have any prior working experience. Every little thing that she does, my wife had to "supervise" and make sure that she does not make any mistakes. After a week, she is still not performing up to par (keeps forgetting to do the things that we have told her to do, does not do a thorough cleaning job and does her work very slowly).

I could understand how frustrating it is having to tell someone repeatedly about their mistakes and spoon-feed them every little thing that needs to be done. We tried to treat her nicely but sometimes she just gets on our nerves. Our previous maid has more initiative to do things and cleans very thoroughlly. She even had time to study after completing all her tasks. However this one lacks initiative and we don't know whether she is really that slow or just pretends to be slow so that she does less work?

Anyway, it is a true dilemma for us to decide whether we should sack her or not. Where do we draw the line? I have to put into consideration how hard it is to find maids (that are thorough and trustworthy). She is our 3rd maid that managed to work more than 1 week.

Funny Maid Stories

Throughout my 2.5 years in Palembang, I have heard many stories (funny/sad/horror) about maids. Today I will blog about the selected few stories about the funny things that maids have done.

THE DEEP SLEEPER:
This incident happened to me. We have just started this new 16 year old maid for the 3rd day. She has never worked before, so her first job at our place is I would guess rather tiring. At noon she went into her room for a nap. After 1 hour I wanted to talk to her, so I knocked on her door. There was no answer after 5 mins of continuous knocking on her room door. We thought she might have fainted. Therefore, my driver and me both went out to her window outside the house to check. Luckily we heard snoring noises! Then we continued to shout and knock on her window but she was totally K.O'd! In the end we managed to wake her up after my driver climbed up the chair and called out to her via the air vents above the door. She said she did not hear a thing! I am not sure if she could survive a fire if she slept like a log? Anyway she quit after working for a week.

INSTANT NOODLES:
My company has a mess that has a 40 year old maid. She is a very experienced cook and supposedly have worked many years being a school cleaner. One day my colleagues wanted her to cook a pack of soup based instant noodles. After 10 mins, they found out that the maid had cooked the noodles but dumped away all the soup! They had to eat the dry tasteless noodles because the maid thought that it was supposed to be instant mi goreng (fried noodles)! I still could not believe a person that has lived so long in Indonesia and yet still does not know how to read instant noodles labels.

TOILET BOWL CLEANING:
One day my colleague went home for lunch. The bathrooom was occupied by his maid who was cleaning the toilet. After waiting for almost an hour, the maid came out and said, " Sir, I could not get the water from the toilet bowl out. I keep drying the inside of the toilet bowl but water keeps coming out!"

3 Maids In 2 Years

We have had 3 maids in the past 2 years that we have been staying here in Palembang. It seems like the people here change jobs quite frequently despite the global economic crisis. Below are some interesting facts about the maids that we have had so far.

1st maid:

• 25 years old - supposedly have been working in Malaysia before for a couple of years.
• always had to go home during the weekend to attend to her sick mother.
• always sleeping in the bathroom (just woken up face everytime we see her coming out from the bathroom).
• 1/2 a day's work always take more than 1 day to finish.
• lousy cook.
• duration working for us: 1 year.

2nd maid:

• 17 years old - dropped out from school as family could not afford.
• we helped her go back to school to study on alternate day's afternoons.
• worked for us for 9 months.
• good in cooking and has the initiative to learn.
• got married to one of our complex's security guards within 2 weeks and never returned to work anymore - claiming husband and in-laws prohibited her from working after she got pregnant!

3rd and current maid:

• 17 years old - just got her in last week.
• sister works 2 houses away from us.
• so far so good, hopefully she will be able to last longer than the other 2 maids as she does not have any handphone access!

The Best Way To Break Your Daughter's Heart

We were shell-shocked last weekend when our maid told us that her father had arranged for her to marry someone that she barely knew.

It seems like our maid's father has lots of debts and he was believed to "sell off" his daughter through an arranged marriage with one of the persons who borrowed him money.

Our maid Aini was very depressed when the news was conveyed to her last week. She is dating some guy now but her father does not like her current boyfriend.

After several time-off sessions to go home to discuss with her dad, Aini's boyfriend finally managed to convince her dad to let Aini marry him instead.

Due to too much pride, Aini's dad wanted the wedding to go on at the same date as what was arranged earlier with the other party. Aini said all of her neighbors have known that she will be getting married, therefore her dad would "lose face" and feel embarrassed if the wedding was cancelled. So her dad agreed to swap the groom instead!

As a result, my maid will be getting married in another 2 week's time to her boyfriend. Aini told us that she was not quite ready and would not know what to do as a wife. She is only 18.

I know that I should not interfere with other people's lives but some parents are really so thick-skulled and old fashioned!

When Aini told her dad that she did not want to marry the guy that his dad arranged to marry, her dad threatened to disown her. In western countries I think the daughter would have run away. But in Indonesia, the kids are still very filial towards their parents (even though the parents make silly decisions like this!).

What's Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Well

My wife has been constantly teaching every member in our family, including our maid and driver to put pride into our work. She stressed that things that are worth doing needs to be done well (putting thought & effort).

I guess her influence managed to come up with the following results. One day as I came back for lunch, I saw the following on my dining table:

Doesn't the presentation of my meal look professional? I was surprised that my maid has put in extra effort to ensure my lunch LOOKED APPEALING. Of course it was as delicious as it looked.

This additional effort won her extra pocket money for the Aidulfitri Muslim New Year. She got paid one month's THR (Tunjangan Hari Raya - bonus).

How Can You Hit A Lady?

This morning my maid, Aini came to work with tears in her eyes. She apologized because the hand phone that I lent her was broken. When I sat her down to ask what happened, she poured her heart out.

Yesterday when my maid's boy friend visited her while she was staying at a friend's place, her boyfriend discovered that some guy sent a "romantic" sms to her. The guy, Ari slapped her on her face, twice! Aini was bashed up by Ari according to my standards. Aini said her head and face still aches. One of her tooth was loosened as well by the impact! Ari also threw her (my) hand phone onto the floor and broke it.

Aini asked for my opinion on Ari's actions. She asked whether this was normal? I was surprised that she even asked! Maybe there were many cases where Indonesian men vent their frustrations on their "cheating partners" by bashing them up?

Of course I told Aini NOT to tolerate any of such violent behaviors. Do not even bother seeing the guy anymore. Who respects you if the person hits you? How can any guy even lay hands on a lady? It's like the strong preying on the weak! NEVER forgive people who exercise violence on the weak. Ari even slapped her 2x! I told her if I were her, I would have kicked him in his groin, dumped him on the spot and lodge a police report. I told Aini to just forget about Ari (he is not that handsome anyway!). There are many other better guys around that would treat her with respect.

Hope Aini gets the message. I am really not sure how she will think but just pray that Aini knows what's best for her and not let her boyfriend persuade her into forgiving him.

The Return of the Jedi

Many would think this post would be related to the Star Wars episode 4 but unfortunately no. I named this post this way because our maid who supposedly quit 4 days ago came back to work for us again.

The incident happened like this:

1. For the past 2 weeks our maid has been asking for leave for 2 consecutive weekends claiming that she had to send her dad to the airport and also attend a friend's wedding.
2. She was also on "sick leave" for 1 day but did not go home (claiming she spent the night at her aunt's place). Her work has been a bit slack lately and kept forgetting to do the routine things she was supposed to do.
3. One day she recommended her "cousin" (who constantly brings her home from our place) to work as our factory gardener.
4. We got suspicious and I started to ask around (especially the maid's brother in law, who works as a loading contractor in my factory).
5. We found out that her dad never went to the airport & her "cousin" was actually her boyfriend.
6. We told her one night that we were very disappointed at her for her lies and hope she could start a new chapter again with us by not lying anymore.
7. Perhaps she was too traumatized by our "lecture" and decided to quit (Palembang people are known to have a lot of pride).
8. She left the next morning despite our persuasions to keep her.
9. We ended up with no stay in maid for 4 days but we managed to get someone who comes in for 2-3 hours to clean the house.
10. Then one night our maid sms'd me asking if she could get her job back.
    

Since we were quite satisfied with her work and only disappointed by her lies, we accepted her back with the condition that she would tell us the truth in the future. Whether it is socially acceptable in Indonesia to tell "white lies", we are still trying to find out.... maybe it has to do with Palembang pride? Please feel free to comment.

Finally A Maid!

We just managed to get a stay-in maid a few days ago after more than a month living without a maid. We had to take her for a medical exam first to get tested for Hepititis B and Tuberculosis before confirming her to work for us.

According to the locals, many maids are afraid of taking blood tests because of the needles and also they believe that only the sick would go to hospitals. Perhaps the word "Rumah Sakit" in Indonesian language is creating the phobia because it literally translates to "House for the Sick".

We just hope that this maid would work diligently and be more polite because our previous one was constantly cutting corners and also a bit arrogant. This one is 18 years old and she used for work for some PUSRI people who mistreated her (they got her to take care of 3 kids and always delay her meal hours). Hopefully she could recognize the positive change in her new work environment and put in her best effort.

Still No Stay-In Maid

We have been living without a maid for one month now. During the first 2 weeks, my mother in law was here to help out but the following 2 weeks we had to do things on our own. So far my wife is still able to cope without a stay-in maid because she did a lot of planning and organizing of the food preparation and cooking upfront. We also benefited from the help of a cleaner lady who comes in 2 hours daily.

Here are some reasons why stay-in maids are so difficult to find in Palembang:

1. People here view a maid's job as less prestigeous
2. Wages are lower, approx USD57/month for stay-in maids (min wage here is USD103/month)
3. Some Muslims do not like to work for people who cook pork
4. Some Muslims do not like to work for people of different religion

We are still optimistic to get a good stay-in maid. So just need a little bit of patience.

No Maid!!!

One of the pros of an Indonesia expatriate include a house maid. Our maid just quit last Tuesday because her mother is sick and required her full attention.

The following are chores that I had to do together with my wife and my visiting mom-in-law while we look for a new maid:

1. Cooking - my mom-in-law has been doing all the cooking temporarily. For once we have some GREAT chinese style food! My wife also does much better cooking than the maid.
2. Doing the dishes - I hated doing this task since young because my parents would always force us to wash up every night. It is also back breaking too because of my height.
3. Sweep and mop the floor - but we managed to find a neighbor's maid who helps clean the house for 1-2 hours/day.
4. Washing and hanging the clothes - we have a washing machine but we still need to hang the clothes manually.
5. Folding & ironing the clothes - the neighbor's maid only helps us on ironing.
6. Baby-sitting my toddler - My wife and I used to have "time without kids" for a relaxing massage or a quiet meal.
7. Washing the grilles and windows - just have to leave it for the time being.
8. Gardening - my mom-in-law, wife & toddler son are all currently taking care of the plants.

Maids are not so easy to find in Palembang because people in the city are more selective. Normally the maids in Palembang come from out of town in the small villages.

Only God knows when we will be relieved of the daily labourious work of a maid (hopefully before my mom-in-law leaves in 2 week's time)!