Jane is the replacement of Virgie, the house cleaner who quarreled with kusinera Nora by calling her mataba every time.
So far she’s okay. I give her a passing rate of 75%. She used to work as the yaya of Mrs. S. As yaya, her everyday task was to always be by her side, fixing her hair, bringing her food, attending to all her needs, accompanying her everytime she went out of the house, to the church, to the mall, anywhere and everywhere. She also assisted in dressing her up but 4 other people were in-charge of bathing Mrs. S. Jane combed her hair and gave her a massage every night until Mrs. S falls asleep.
Her services were terminated by Mr. & Mrs. S because she had a tiff with the yaya of Mr. S. Both of them were let go.
Sayang nga daw because her former employer was already in the process of getting her travel documents and visa to the US. Everytime the S family vacations abroad, they always have domestic helpers with them. According to Jane, Mr. & Mrs. S have a house in the US. My guess is its in Hillsborough. Everytime they visit, they bring along a driver, 2 yayas, and a cook.
Jane’s activities in our household are a lot simpler. I do not require her to give me a body massage. Not even once so far. I haven’t entertained the thought that a maid would bathe me. Siguro pag-uugod-ugod na ako kung aabot pa tayo sa edad na yan.
She cleans for two hours each day, maximum. Then pa-relax-relax na, long baths, watch tv, nap, call and text, chat, the rest of the day. And look at her hair, alagang-alaga parang pang commercial ng Palmolive shampoo.
I wasn’t actually expecting that she would be masipag, kasi she came from the mansion of S family, who has 16 other maids excluding the 10 drivers and body guards. If you have 17 maids what else could you assign to them. Division of labor, division of space. Bawat isang kwarto merong officer-in-charge. Bawat banyo merong sergeant-at-arms. Baka pati bumbunan mo merong taga walis.
She likes our dogs and cares for them so that’s good enough. I brought her along to Binangonan yesterday to keep an eye on Stitch.
I instructed her to soap the doors in the guess room because they’ve turned yellow from dust, humidity, pollution. She said “ayaw maalis”. Alam ko she didn’t even try. I showed her how to do it, how easy it is to remove the yellow stains, kaya wala na syang alibi.
This should only be done when necessary, siguro every 6 months kasi mabubulok yung wood.
