Maids ala filipinas

everytime i am out of the country, may it be europe or the united states, people tend to raise their eyebrows upon hearing that we have maids back home to tend to the kids and the cooking and cleaning. i have to explain to them that it is'nt what they're thinking, actually. first impression is that whoaaa! they must be earning big over there to be able afford "maids". things can be more complicated as that, you know. first of all, we don't pay them that much really, secondly, very often than not, these maids are'nt insured at all. no benefits and no assurance of how long they can even hold on to their jobs. they are mostly young lasses from the provinces seeking some future in manila. hoping that one day they might be able to come across their favorite stars in malls or restaurants where their employers would visit. the employer-maid realationship is quite different from the western countries though. if you put your maids into those black and white uniforms here back there some could just dress up casually. here some rich families offer maids a room, a car and sometimes more. in the philippines, the most you could give them are some hand-me-down clothes from some relative and they'd be jumping for joy. there are advantages and disadvantages though. a lot of these girls did'nt have any educational background and that would mean you have to teach them every little thing that has to be done inside your house. please note that in the provinces, they don't have certain amenities that we are so used to in the city. they burn wood to cook, some don't even have bathrooms. we had a maid we caught looking behind the radio (probably trying to see the little people behind who were singing). see, these things are new to some of them so you really got to go down to the very basic of everything to be able to teach them "how". and this process might take you some five years. after 2 years of teaching two of my maids how to cook german cuisine, french and chinese and how to set the table, what food should go to the freezer and what should go to the fridge, after teaching them how to say please and thank you, and good morninig and good night, they came to me one day asking permission to leave because some new neighbors who happen to be germans offered them more pay, grrrrr. and then there's this problem with the fact that everyting in that house is not their own, instead, they are the employers property whom they don't care about, they will never take good care of your things as you would take care of them. like my chromed furniture started to tarnish because after telling them to wipe it only with a dry cloth, they would still use wet rags for them. they would sweep lego blocks and throw them nito the dust bin. they won't bother picking them up, i tell you. so at the end you might wanna think twice and just do everything yourself.