Working for the Foreign Woman

*This is not written from an interview.  It is written from my imagined perspective of what it must be like to work for me.  Some of it, I am quite confident is accurate…..but some of it, if I could hear the heart language, I would be way of base.  Since I cant HEAR the heart language this is my best guess at what it must be like.  Bless all the ladies who work for those of us, living in the midst of their culture.  They have helped us to survive and even thrive.*

 

I have now worked for Nunia (a title of respect such as madam) for over two years.  I am very proud of my job.  After all I am taking care of the Pastor’s family.  It’s not easy.  They are a large family with four boys.  Poor Nunia, she does not have any girls to help her.  They have a big house.  I often tell Nunia that she should hire 2 house helpers to do all this work, that one is not enough.  I am not the fastest worker, but no one can clean a floor like me and run the washing machine the way I can.  If anything hits the floor, I put it into that machine and with 4 boys…..lots of things are on the floor!!!!  I have already raised my family.  I have 7 children.  My two youngest children are in their last year of college.  Soon I will not have to work.  My children will be able to provide for me.  I had to leave my husband because he would get very angry and hit me.  My family has just built a house for me and I will live in it all alone.  I love to be all alone.

I also like cleaning Nunia’s house all alone.  The rare days that they go off to the beach…..ahhhh…..I can clean and mop and wash with no one getting in my way.  Though most days when the children are in school we dance around each other well.  I usually come to the pastors house around 8 and they have already gone off to school.  They hide a key for me, so that I can slip in when I want too.  Usually the kitchen is in disarray with breakfast stuff left out everywhere.  So I quickly gather up the laundry and get that machine going and then tackle the kitchen.  Nunia made it clear from the beginning that I must wash the dishes with hot water.  I really don’t understand this.  We, in Papua, have washed the dishes with cold water all my life, and it is just fine.  It is much more refreshing to wash with cold water too.  At first I did not do it.  Then Nunia would come by and stick her hand in the water and insist that it be hot.  Now I always wash with hot water (well, most of the time).  I spend a lot of time cleaning in the kitchen.  Each day I get it all sparkling clean by 11:00 a.m. just in time for Nunia to come in and make lunch and mess it all up again.  I always leave it sparkly clean when I leave by 3 or 4 each day.  I am thankful that Nunia does all the evening dishes.  Many foreign families don’t.  They eat so differently.   Always I am given food from their table.  Most of it, I have come to enjoy.  I try to tell Nunia when she uses vegetables different then we do, that it is not right.  She doesn’t always listen to me.

Nunia insists that I sort all the laundry into different color piles.  I don’t understand this either.  Most of the time I sort it…..but every now and then I just stuff it all into one load.  I love using her washing machine.  I have always washed everything by hand.  This is so easy.

Nunia and I have fallen into a pattern and work together well.  When I first came, I had to tell them my ideas and teach them some things.  Now, most days, I do my work and Nunia does hers.  Even though she is not cleaning she stays busy.  Teaching the boys.  Cooking.  Running here and there, for different events and things at the school.  Sometimes she sits in front of her computer for a long, long time.  That seems like a waste of time to me.  Sometimes she takes naps after lunch.  Sometimes she paints and is always cooking more.  For the most part she is kind and generous with me.  Nunia always shares her market vegetables with me and when she cleans out closets and tucked away places, she always offers me stuff.

There are some things I can’t do….like clean their bathrooms.  It makes my head dizzy.  Besides I think it is good that Nunia has to do something.

I love watching Nunia cook.  I don’t have time to cook with her or cook for them because I am so busy with all my other work, but I do watch.  My ironing board is set up so that I can see into the kitchen and I watch Nunia make cakes and breads.  I have learned much.  She shares the recipes with me and now I am so proud because I make all these different kinds of sweet bread and share them with my friends at church.  I was laughing so hard before New Years, telling Nunia all the different cakes I had made.

One thing that I really love is that the children are very relaxed around me.  They laugh and sing and argue and holler, as if I am not here.  They don’t mind that I am here or act uncomfortable around me.  My favorite is Jacob.  He will talk with me and is just really funny.  I also enjoy Andrew.  Andrew gets in the kitchen and cooks.  I like a man who knows how to cook.   Nunia is teaching Jacob and Nathaniel how to cook.  That is good. 

They help take care of me.  The first summer they went on furlough, they sent me to get my cataract removed.  Just this week my tooth was so painful and Nunia took me to an American dentist.  Then she let me go home early two days in a row, because I didn’t feel right after getting my tooth pulled.

When they go on furlough each summer, I cry.  When they return, I rejoice.

I do wish, we could talk more.  Sometimes I can tell that Nunia simply does not understand me.  And there are many days, I don’t understand her!!!!  Yet we are two women who have learned to work together.  I find joy in making their home beautiful.  I hope that they will remember me forever.  I will always remember them.