Maid for Each Other

Six months ago: Candace: "I don't really want a maid."

Six hours ago: Candace (on the phone): "Mom, I love having a maid."

We have gone back and forth the last several months on the prospect of having a maid. We knew ahead of time that many of the embassy families had maids and there were varying degrees of maid-dom. Some families had full-time live-in maids (weird), some families had full-time live-out maids that doubled as nannies, some had full-time live-out maids that just cleaned leaving the mom all the time with the kids, and there are some that had part-time maids. We were mostly interested in a part-time maid that would be able to come in and clean the house a few times a week. But how do you find a good person that will spend significant amounts of time in your house and with your children? We lucked out. We interviewed a handful of individuals that either wanted too much money, wanted to work full-time even though they told us they wanted part-time, or just didn't appear to actually like to talk to people.

Another family had a situation to where they went from no maid to full-time maid out of necessity and were looking to cut back. Enter Los Mouritsen. The other family is also LDS and have been great in welcoming us to Buenos Aires. They have 3 kids and one of them and Claire have become great friends. So we made an arrangement to share the maid. She works at their house Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and works at our house Tuesday, Friday. It would be ridiculous to actually post how much we pay her, so I will just say the amount is ridiculous by American standards. After having her a week, Candace feels such a huge burden lifted off her shoulders, and by only coming two days a week, we plan to teach the kids that they still have some responsibility in the house. We found a good balance.

For the next event that took place later in the week, I have to set the stage. I was trying to think of a good word to decribe how we felt when we got the news. I remember going to the BYU/UTAH football game last year in Provo... it went to OT. When Max Hall found Andrew George over the middle and two Ute defenders missed the tackle, I was out of my seat screaming at the top of my lungs along with 65,000 other non-BCS fans. The adrenaline, the passion, the emotion of that moment was, uh... um... All right, that game was a bad example, but it was fun to re-live for a minute wasn't it? Needless to say, we were so happy that our air shipment finally arrived. We knew it arrived in Argentina on August 4th and it was finally delivered on August 13th. Each day we made snail-like progress in finding out IF it were going to be delivered. Then the call came Friday morning... ('George is on the 15, the 10, the 5....) Candace called and said, 'Our stuff is here.' (TOUCHDOWN!!!)

8 large boxes totally nearly 1,000 lbs of stuff finally arrived. The shipment that you put in the things you need first that is supposed to arrive within 7-10 days (or 31 in our case). So we happily unloaded more clothes (6 weeks living in suitcases), more toys (didn't see the kids for hours), some peanut butter (mmmm....), a stroller, the baby swing, our pillows, our towels... and the list could go on and one.... And then Christmas decorations?!?!?! Easter decorations!!?!?? How did those get in there? Well, in Colorado, we had separated what we knew would be air freight and set it aside. Apparently with room left in those air freight boxes, the movers took liberty about what to grab to fill in the space. So instead of us having more of our own dishes, utensils, winter clothes, games, or something useful, we've got random fluffy Santa Clauses, or dare I say Papa Noels. Needless to say, we have learned a lot from this move overseas and will be much better prepared for our next overseas move.

So our house is just a little bit better off at the end of this week. It was funny, though, on Friday when Candace called to tell me the stuff arrived. It was part of a conversation that also included, "There's no water." The public works office decided to do some water main maintenance from 10-4 on Friday and shut off all the water. The notice went out Friday AFTER the water was off... and I only knew about it from an internal note sent around the embassy. Candace thought the house was broken. Then later in the day, like magic, we had water again. Living in a different country definitely takes some getting used to. Another interesting public works tidbit is that we were curious as to when the garbage man came. For those who have spent time in Argentina, they have little metal baskets on poles in front of the houses where they put their garbage for the garbage men. I'll give you a quiz:

When does the garbage man come?

a) no set schedule

b) every other tuesday

c) 5 days a week

d) what's a garbage man

That's one tough quiz. I would have hoped D wasn't a reality. Luckily it wasn't. Before coming down, I would have guessed A, and with the global economic situation what it is, I wouldn't have been surprised if it were B. But no, C it is. It comes ALL the time. It's great. Around 9 pm, we hear the rumbling trucks. Now if they could just get some folks to pick up dog poop 5 days a week, we'd be making some real progress. Oh yeah, and carpet too.

Another interesting phenomenon we were introduced to is called "dia del nino". It was last Sunday, and apparently you celebrate by giving your kids as much candy as they can possibly eat all day as some sort of special way of saying they're important. Well, that wouldn't really be a good idea now would it? Um....

So we didn't know of this terrible holiday before church, but we sure knew about it after church. Lily came running up to me saying, "Dad, I had 3 cupcakes..." Then all I heard was "blah, blah, blah". Thinking that the only way she could get 3 cupcakes is if the teacher accidently left them right in front of Lily and left the room. Then I saw Claire who looked like she ate 3 cupcakes, and both of them had little brown lunch bags 1/2 full of little candies as well. But Sam... well, I went to pick up Sam from the nursery and he had gunk ALL over his clothes. The teacher said, "He just ate and ate and ate and ate and ate. We finally had to take away the candy because he was eating so much." Uh, thanks? In my world, there's no mystery about what happens when you give a two-year old unfettered access to candy.... they eat and eat and eat and eat and eat. Luckily, and I mean LUCKily with a capital LUCK (you saw it) all that candy stayed inside the little bodies. I expected a long afternoon with maybe a few large bowls strategically positioned throughout the house. Be advised however, that for next year's Dia del Nino, Los Mouritsen may just be home sick and may miss church, ironically we'll just say we have sick stomachs.

Tomorrow we will celebrate 5 weeks in country. We actually get to celebrate as it is a local holiday, the death of San Martin the Liberator. San Martin liberated much of Argentina as well as other parts of South America from those World Cup-winning Spaniards who deserved to lose their conquered lands due to the overuse of the letter 'X' in their players' first names (who names their kids Xavi anyway?). As we are carless, we will find somewhere to celebrate within walking distance.... and will endure more Argentine looks at our unruly crew that always seem to say, "Pobres."