by Karen McConnaughey
One of the first things Bill and I heard when we
moved to Mexico
in 2004 wasn’t ‘don’t drink the water,” it was "don't spoil the
help." This was from someone who had lived here 40 years! When we asked
what this meant, we only got knowing looks and nodding heads from everyone.
We’d never really had a permanent maid or gardener before, and apparently no
one wanted to say out loud what they really meant. So we just dove into it the
best we could. And, since neither one of us liked housework, we thought this
was going to be a great system.
Our first maid just showed up at our door one
day. We thought, “why not?” She lived in Ixtlahuacan and since we knew no one
in our village and the only people we knew in Ajijic were our real estate
agents, we thought luck was smiling on us again, since “God takes care of
idiots!” She didn’t last very long…she just disappeared one day. We saw her
once in the plaza, but she ducked and went the other way. We still don’t know
what we did wrong, but we were going to try to be wiser the next time and make
sure we didn’t spoil the help! Of course, for awhile, we thought ‘we’re adults;
we can clean our own house.” Didn’t work out. We had to fire ourselves and look
for someone more responsible.
We found Vicki working for a friend in our
village. She worked for Adele three days a week, and was looking for more so we
had her come by the house just to look it over…we thought. She walked in,
picked up a broom and started cleaning. We weren’t too good at Spanish at the
time, so we had to call Adele for advice when she started asking us questions.
Unfortunately, I knew the word ‘sucio’
(dirty), and when Vicki was on the phone with Adele, I heard the unfortunate
sentence, “Si, la casa es muy sucio!”
I should have been embarrassed, but I just laughed, because she was right.
When we needed a gardener, Vicki recommended her
husband, Jose. They, along with their two daughters, have become part of our
family. When we tell people this, we sometimes get a shocked look, which causes
Bill and me to be puzzled. We feel honored and blessed to be a part of their
wonderful family and included in all the celebrations…baptisms, weddings,
Christmas dinners. We sometimes wonder how we got to be so lucky. We are padrinos (godparents) to their youngest,
Fatima, and now that Vicki and Jose come on the same day, they bring both Karen
and Fatima with them. I think we may see the children more than some of the
family members do. This pleases us enormously.
Vicki and I have gotten involved in many
conversations. We’ve laughed and cried together. When I found that she helped a
neighbor who was sick and had no children, I slipped some money into her pocket
“para su vecina” (for your neighbor).
We both had tears in our eyes. When I knew they were going on vacation, we gave
them some extra money for the beach. She didn’t want to take it, but Bill and I
always get around that by saying, “buy something nice for the kids!” When our
dog Tillie died, she hugged me as I cried. She goes to classes and learns how
to make things…like good-luck horse shoes, purses and flower arrangements…she
ALWAYS makes one for her and one for me. Gosh, does that mean I’m spoiling her?
When they get extra watermelons, pumpkins or
corn from her father, they share it with us. When we have extra avocados,
limons or sour oranges, we share it with them. When we trek down to the
neighbors to harvest their mandarin
(tangerine) trees, we always get extra bags for Vicki and Jose’s family too. I
guess we do spoil them.
Before we left for the states one May, Vicki
asked me about an inexpensive digital camera. She loved seeing my photos of the
children. When we returned, I put the camera in a gift bag. She was speechless!
She has told me time and again that she never really knew many norteamericanos before us, and that she
wanted us to know that ‘when we get old,’ she will take care of us. We both
broke down in tears at that.
You know…I think I will continue to "spoil
the help.”
Karen McConnaughey:
Operations Manager for FocusOnMexico.
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