Our reality of employing household help

In Burkina Faso employing household help is a part of the culture.

Contrary to public opinion, household help is not primarily for the white people living in this country. If you are financially capable, everyone, including the Burkinabé, have hired help in their home.

It is expected, regardless of race, to employ someone to work for you.

It is a cultural norm.

The economy is dependent on this aspect of employment. Many people have jobs working in other peoples homes as cooks, gardeners, cleaners, nannies, guards, drivers, ect.

It is a way for many people in one of the poorest countries in the world with one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world to receive employment and make a living for themselves and their families who have very little education or skills.

When we moved to Burkina in 2012, we knew that employing some kind of household help was going to be expected of us.

It is not required, however, it is expected. It is so ingrained in their society, that you are looked down upon socially if you refuse to hire a local to work for you in some capacity.

Not wanting to offend our host country and others living here, we made the decision to hire a gardener and cleaning woman part time to take care of our yard and pool, and help clean the house three days a week.

Being the very private and also independent and very capable person that I am...I did not look forward to this aspect of the culture. And nearly three years later....my feelings haven't changed.

I still don't like it.

Having house help has probably been one of the biggest challenges for me the duration of our time here.

I've have just never gotten use to it.

In the United States, stay at home mothers don't typically have employees working for them in the home. So this has been a huge adjustment for me. As a stay at home mom and wife, I am use to managing the home and taking care of not only the needs of my family, but of my home as well. I do all the cleaning, cooking, laundry, and raising of my own kids. And I knew that relinquishing some of this control was not going to be easy.

Here, many women who are stay at home moms have nannies, plus cooks, plus housekeepers, plus drivers, plus gardeners.

I did not want that. I like being busy. And since I don't work outside the house, I value having purpose within my home each day. I like taking care of my house and family. I didn't want all of my responsibilities taken away from me. So I felt like a good compromise was to have a part time employee, who came three days a week to do cleaning only.

I wish I could report that my time with my hosuekeeper was fulfilling and we got to know each other and bond during these last couple years. But that is not the case.

She informed me early on after we arrived that she was interested in only coming to work, doing her job, and going home. She didn't want to chit chat or make small talk. Which I understand, and that's fine. But still, it made her presence in the home feel very intrusive most days.

If having a housekeeper was as simple as a person coming over to clean my house three times a week, and going home, this experience would have been different. It may not have been so challenging. But it turned out to be so much more than that.

One aspect to employing household help, we learned, is that we are required by law to take care of any medical needs that arise. We are responsible for all of her medical costs-all doctor visits, medication, and x-rays if she gets sick or hurt.

Furthermore, in addition to paying her a salary we also have to pay into a retirement fund for her every month, and it's expected that we pay her contributions as well.

I am personally responsible for keeping track of her and our gardener's bulletin du salaire, calculating their deductions and loan amounts and salary each month. They get a bonus at the end of the year and severance when we leave. 

We also pay for all of our housekeepers three children's education costs each year.

In addition to the money responsibilities involved with employing household help (which no doubt is a lot to manage on it's own!), what has been an even bigger challenge for me to adjust to is the personal matters involved in having employees work for us.

The reality of having employees, is that they are there to witness your life in the privacy of your own home. All the good bad and ugly of it. If I'm having a bad day, or the kids are fighting and I'm stressed out, she's there to see it all. If we try to go outside to have some privacy, or talk, our gardener is there to see and witness it all. There is very little privacy. We have to live out our private lives with an audience. When I'm sick, which has been frequently these last few years, ya know, I want to be sick without someone mulling around my house all day to observe and overhear me in the bathroom.

Our employees also go through our garbage every day they're here, digging through the trash, dumping it out and setting aside what they want to take home. I won't say we have gotten use to it, we more or less have accepted it, but still, it is hard knowing that there is no privacy of any kind, even in our garbage. Every single thing we throw away is sorted through. And then whatever is not taken or re-discarded from our employees in our home is set out on the curb to be dug through by strangers.  

I learned early on that Burkinabé do not value privacy like Americans do. It's just a difference in our cultures. Burkinabé do community living. Most families have one sleeping area in their homes, and everyone in the family sleeps together. There is little to no privacy. They use the bathroom outdoors, where there are no doors or locks to keep people from coming in. It's not a big deal for them to expose themselves and or to undress or bath or use the toilet with other people around.

American's are not like that. And there were plenty of occasions in the early times of our living here that our femme de ménage (cleaning woman in French) would walk into a room, or bathroom, without knocking, while I was in there getting dressed, taking a shower, using the toilet, or just laying on the bed trying to take a nap. So, I had to start locking the door every time I wanted to make sure she didn't come in unannounced so that I wasn't caught off guard or intruded upon. For a long while if she couldn't get into a room because it was locked she would stand outside the room...waiting....until I opened the door. Or she would knock and knock and wiggle the handle, clearly confused why it was locked to begin with.

Sometimes a girl just wants to be in her room and lay on her bed or use the toilet without a stranger busting in! I still have to be diligent to lock the door when I don't want her coming in, but thankfully she doesn't stand outside anymore until I open it.

One time I caught her laying down in one of our beds one afternoon listening to the radio. As her employer, I was an employer now, it was my responsibility to talk to her and address issues that arose...like not laying down on our beds when she was suppose to be working. Which, was hard for me because I've never been anyones "employer" before, let alone to someone who works in my home.

And due to the fact that my home is her domain, there came a point when I just stopped cooking and baking in the kitchen while she was here because if I tried to do anything in the kitchen while she was in there, she would stop everything she was doing and stare at me. Or try to take over and do it for me. And I understand that she is curious, I really do, and I was always gracious and never made her feel unwelcome or told her to go back to work, I always let her watch or help. But when so much in the home already felt like it had been taken away from me, sometimes I just wanted to go in my own kitchen and bake some cookies without an audience. To have a little bit of normalcy.

This last year has been particularly uncomfortable with her in the home since Steven came to live with us. Mostly this was due to the fact that Steven is Burkinabé, like her, and we have very different parenting styles. And there were many times when she would see Steven struggling, having a tantrum, screaming, not eating his food, whatever, and she would try to talk to him in Mooré and intervene with a situation. And even though I knew she was just trying to help, that's not what we needed and it just added to the stress because it was an interference. She was also there to witness a lot of what we went through. She still is. It's a lot better now but in the beginning it was really hard. That initial transition period was rocky and it was really difficult to have to live that out with her in the home, observing it all.

In addition to this, our housekeeper comes into our home and peruses through our personal belongings picking out things she would like to have, in addition to our gardener with the belongings we keep outside. Culturally it is totally acceptable for Burkinabé to ask for things or money, any time. When she heard from our former gardener that we gave him a loan for a family emergency she then asked if we could buy her a brand new moto even though she has a very good one. She has asked me if she could have Isaak's lap top and my ipod. She walked me into my bedroom one day and started picking up some backpacks I had sitting next to the bed and asking if she could keep them. She asked Isaak on Friday when I was at a meeting if she could have some specific items in the home, knowing that we are leaving soon. And while I know that this is a component of their culture that is acceptable and normal, it's still disconcerting knowing that someone is in our home eyeing up our personal belongings each week. And these are but a few examples over the past few years.

These are areas of life here that we are confronted with almost daily when we leave our home or when people come to our gate asking for assistance in some way due to the level of poverty in Burkina. So many people are in need. It's a very hard, very real, reality. Because there is so much need, and the needs are so real and so pressing and people are always approaching us, everywhere we go, every time we step foot out of the car, pull up to a stop light, someone is waiting for you to be generous on their behalf. And it's hard to face that level of need on such a consistent basis. It just is. There is nothing easy about it. And it's hard having to tell people, "no, I'm sorry, not today," because I already gave away all my change earlier in the day to the other people who asked me first.

But to be put in a position where we are also having to face an onslaught of inquiries and requests in our own home each week and feel like I have to explain and justify why we won't give our two employees our personal belongings or money whenever they ask....has been difficult.

When you have someone in your home and outside your home twenty four hours a week that you rarely speak to, (except when they want something from you) it can be a tad awkward and uncomfortable.

We are not a corporation. We are not a business. We are a family. We are people. We are people who  opened our home and invited others in to provide them with an opportunity to have a job to help support their family. But many times, because we are Westerners, it feels like we are just looked upon as a means of advancement.

And it's awkward and uncomfortable, because this is our personal home. This is suppose to be our safe place, our refuge, our place of comfort. But here in Burkina our home has not felt like that for me. It has been hard living out our lives in our private home in the presence of others. It's a very vulnerable feeling, having someone in your home in such a personal capacity.

So, this has probably been the most challenging and least enjoyable aspect of life here. I do appreciate the fact that she cleans my home three days a week, but at the end of the day I would rather do it all myself than have to deal with everything else that has come along with having employees in my home. But that's just me and my account. I know many many people who embrace this aspect of life here and have really great relationships with their employers and I love that. I do. I wish that had been our experience here. But I'm not them. And for me it's been very hard.

And if I had to do it all over....I would probably do it differently. I think I would forgo a femme de ménage and just have a cook come in a couple days a week and make our food. Now that's something I could have lived with here and would have made life a lot less stressful in every way!

So this is my honest and open account of my reality these past three years in employing house help. People struggle with different things when dealing with cross-cultural experiences, and for me, this has been an area of ongoing personal struggle since moving here.

But our workers are truly wonderful people. They are incredibly kind, even though they are not talkative. And I am sincerely grateful for the opportunity to have been able to provide employment for them and assist them in receiving an income and providing for their needs these last three years....it was just such a big adjustment for me (and truth be told I have not finished adjusting) having the responsibility of needing to be so invested in our employees lives and all the personal ways that our lives changed as a result of their presence. It was overwhelming for a long time, and while I no longer feel overwhelmed by it, I certainly haven't grown accustomed to it either. It is a part of life here that I tolerate, but don't think I would ever fully be comfortable with.

Mais c'est la vie. You live and learn and we have certainly done both here. Living overseas and adapting to a new culture and embracing aspects of that culture is not easy. And despite the fact that I never got use to or liked having house help, I have loved living in Burkina Faso. It has been the greatest gift.

We are almost to the finish line....a bittersweet time for sure.