So - everyone said when we moved to India - Oh fabulous - in Asia help is easy to come by so that will work out great for you with almost 3 little ones and 2 jobs.......well....redefine easy I would say.
First of all we found out very quickly that finding the right maid or nanny or cook or whatever other female help at home you want to hire is not that easy as it is the No 1 thing people complained to us about. In many places in SE Asia and the Middle East, especially the typical expat locations, there is an abundance of ladies who live away from home - with one purpose - to make as much money as possible as fast as possible - and hence these ladies want a job as many hours as possible and you tend to get 1 person doing the whole range of household chores including child care and often living with you or working at least only for you.
The labor force for these jobs here in India is quite different. Almost all these ladies look after their own family and that is of course priority #1 - not so strange of course in most societies. Meaning they don't want to work extended hours and preferably want to start after the morning school run and finish before dinner time. As these are also for us peak traffic hours that is exactly when we want help the most. Because many of these ladies only work part time there is also much more segregation in jobs and work so different ladies are available as Nanny, Cook, Sitter etc and as you can imagine it is hardest to come by someone who 'just cleans' and the more senior nanny's refuse to clean often.
The communities where we live are in a side of town that has limited 'normal' living areas and so many of the ladies need to take a 30 min bus ride at least to come to work, which can easily be longer. This means they can be late regularly, or suffer from transport strikes or can't stay late as it is not safe enough for them to go home late or their husbands don't allow them to stay beyond hours - even if you offer to take them home in your car. There are also plenty of ladies who's agenda is managed by their family and husband so even if they want to be loyal to you - if they get told to stay at home or something happens in the family - you likely get a no-show - and if you are lucky a call an hour before. Planning ahead is not the most normal thing here.
Finding a nanny or maid goes through referrals and they have reference letters which you then do need to check upon, some letters many years old with no longer functioning phone numbers or e-mail addresses. The letters can be very nice but only if you follow up do you find that actually someone is a really really nice cook and nice lady but otherwise not that much use for housework, or that someone is really good, but has a very strict husband and hence can really never stay extra or longer or was not that great but mainly maintained because she needed the job badly.
Then there are also plenty of ladies who have been accused of stealing, and that accusation appears to be made either very quickly or stealing (of the silliest things) by personnel is really really prevalent. Other maids terrorize the less experienced maids they work with, cannot work with your driver, cannot be left alone etc etc and then there tends to be the issue of clashing personalities and or cleanliness standards with the lady of the house which also means there are usually 3-4 ladies going through the household in the first few months after arriving here.
Based on our 1st drivers advise and referral, which was backed up, we decided to hire a nanny who has done recently three 3-4 year cycles with families and hence was / is experienced and appeared to be steady and reliable. Unfortunately she was not available till her 'current family' left meaning we had to wait till early Feb and bridge January somehow. We managed ourselves somewhat and hired a temporary lady for the afternoons, who worked accros the street and potentially was stealing there, was a poor cleaner and on the phone a lot - but she was ok with the kids - which was the main thing and there and available and a known face to other moms (some social control!). Considering the bad reputation especially Eelco was quite uncomfortable with her, our driver also told us every day what was all wrong with her and Rick could not stand her and stopped listening to her completely (and she was no walk over!) - so she never finished the 3 weeks we hired her for.
Then we hired fortunately at least the 2nd help / maid we where going to get anyway - a very nice lady, who speaks barely any English, but who lives 10 min walking from here, wants to really work (she is not with her family on weekdays) and works part time hours in the afternoon in at least 3 other houses on the compound where she is all adored & well respected. She is doing the morning hours for us with the kids before school starts - so we can get to work in time - and then cleans the house. The nanny we will get will probably do very limited cleaning so at least we have one who will do some. Chandramma, as she is called, is working out fantastically with the kids and she is working hard and reliable. The only problem is that I do not really get explained to her very well or only slowly what I do and do not want from a kids or cleaning perspective meaning Kaat was playing with everything I had just washed & prepped for the baby or that she washed all my nice dresses too hot, with the brooches etc still on. But at least she is not work shy, the kids both love her, and that particularly with Rick is a feat these days with new faces, and she has helped us out a few afternoons as well whilst we where awaiting the nanny's start date. She learns fast enough if I get someone to translate or show her with hands and feet and she is trustworthy. At least half the battle sort of done.
Then it was time for the 'nanny' to start (as this is the person who will care FT for the baby we need someone with good English we can communicate with and who can sort things in case of emergencies) and we called to confirm that day to make sure she would show only to find out that she could not come and would not come all week - family emergency.......WHAT? That was the week Eelco was traveling and I had a big week at work as well - home alone over 8 months pregnant with the 2 other ones. We checked back with the references etc and this appeared not normal behavior for her. In that week she or her family decided that she was the one to stay at home and look after a father or father in law who had had a stroke and hence she would not come and work at all we found after a week. True or not - we where back at square one.
Plenty of names are put forward at such a point then, but many are temporary solutions or come with a lot of 'buts'. Amongst others we interviewed the nanny who was just becoming available and had worked with our driver in the same household for 3 years and she appeared to be ok. By now I no longer get too excited. I am pretty sure she will be ok with the kids and the baby - will see how we will 'gel' and how we will fare with her in combination with the other maid and some other duties she will also have to undertake. She is starting tomorrow and we have called - 3 times - to confirm......
Maybe, maybe we are sort of organized now - all we now have to do is figure out how much of the paranoia around stealing etc we believe in and to what extend to lock things up in the house and make our own life more difficult.....and agree her routine with her....and hope the kids will accept her.
Some days I really miss the access to the day care 45 - 50 hrs a week in Houston, and the access to a professional cleaning service for the house. 'Help' I guess is a relative term.....being a 'madam' and running my household here proves easily a full time job!
