Come and listen to a story...

We are once again the Clampett family in our neighborhood.

Since moving into our "compound," as the expat gated communities are called here, I literally haven't see one expat. I have seen lots of hired drivers, security guards, gardeners and Ayis.

An Ayi ("auntie") is a person you hire to clean, cook, iron, wash, take care of your kids, take care of your dog, wipe your nose, brush your teeth and basically treat you like pseudo-royalty because you have the pittance of money it takes to make it so. I see houses with 2-3 bicycles parked out front for the Ayis they've hired to do everything they've deemed too menial or unpleasant to do themselves. When I walk Indy in the mornings (given it's only been a week and a winter week at that) I am truly the only resident doing so. Oh, I run into other dog's being walked, but it's by the hired help. I fully expect that when it does warm up and there is the off chance that someone walks their own dog, they will probably drag along their Ayi and make them scoop the poop.

Now I'm not saying I haven't gotten accustomed to having someone clean my house over the past few years, but that was one day a week. I did find an Ayi here willing to work less that full time (which seems to be 5 days a week, 8-9 hours a day and some people have 2-3 Ayis working these hours). She comes 3 days a week for 8 hours and it's KILLING me not to pitch in and clean beside her. Kenny had to remind me to not clean the kitchen after making dinner last night so she'd have something to do. She works her tail off cleaning and doing laundry. My underwear are ironed and folded. She speaks excellent English (her last family took her back to the US with them for 6 months to help them settle in) so it's extremely helpful right now having her decipher the Chinese on the cordless phone (in the one in a million chance anyone calls here, give me 15-20 rings to figure out which button to push to answer), the microwave, TV, etc.

The driver has good points and bad points. It's nice being dropped off at the front door of a store. It's nice having the car pull around to the entrance and help you load groceries when your done shopping. But, it's weird feeling like I'm insulting the guy when I open and close my own door. I want to tell him, "you know I'm not only capable of opening my own door, I can actually change a tire if you need it." That said, I sure has hell don't want to drive myself here. I've been in some countries where the driving was crazy, but this takes the cake.

I'll let you know how all this "help" goes, but seriously if I seem to any of you to be getting too full of myself or lazy, PLEASE smack me upside the head. Remind me that I come from good, hard working Colorado stock and want to keep it that way. I sure as heck don't want my boys growing up thinking they can hire someone to do everything for them, or that this was what their Mom did. I had wonderful role models in my Mom and Dad (as did Kenny) who worked hard, put their kids first, were very independent and capable. I hope my boys can someday say the same.

Hillybilly that is. Set a spell, Take your shoes off.

Y'all come back now, y'hear?.